19 Friday Feb 2010
Posted in Catholic America, Lives of the Saints
Blessed Brother André — not to be confused with the not-so-blessed Brother André (yours truly) — is to be canonized in Rome on October 17. See the Press Release from St. Joseph’s Oratory. I, for one, will call him, “Saint André of Mount Royal.” Perhaps readers will help to make this a trend.
Deo Gratias et Mariae atque Joseph!
22 Friday Jan 2010
Posted in Catholic America, Lives of the Saints
Today, January 22, is the feast of Saint Vincent Pallotti. It is also the day in the Chair of Unity Octave during which we pray for the conversion of America. Lastly, it is the anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision of 1973 decriminalizing abortion.
Noteworthy coincidences: Saint Vincent had a great devotion to the Holy Infant. The lovely Bambino Gesù with which he blessed the crowds during the Octave of the Epiphany is still in the Church of San Salvatore in Onda, its silver foot protruding out of the grate behind which His Majesty is locked. The faithful may still reverently kiss this foot as they did in the days of Saint Vincent. Devotion to the Holy Infant Jesus is a powerful way to repair for the crime of abortion, and to petition for the reversal of Roe v. Wade and all the wicked statutory laws which perpetrate this outrage against God and man.
Father Paul of Graymoor, about a generation before Roe, set aside this day of the Chair of Unity Octave to pray for the conversion of America. Our national infanticide is a terrible sign that the U.S.A. badly needs conversion. Only Christ the King can save us!
19 Tuesday Jan 2010
Posted in Catholic America, Ecclesiology, Lives of the Saints
During this Chair of Unity Octave, let’s pray for REAL Christian unity — Catholic unity under the Supreme Pontiff — not amorphous irenicism! To appreciate this exhortation, it would behove us to study the life of the very author of the Church Unity Octave, Father Paul Wattson, founder of the Society of the Atonement.
Dishonestly promoted now as the precursor to modern false ecumenism, Father Paul was an apostolic soul who knew that the only real Christian unity is Catholic unity under the Sovereign Pontiff.
05 Tuesday Jan 2010
Posted in Lives of the Saints
Around here, the news of December 19 was received with great joy. I refer to the publication of the decree, approved by His Holiness, Benedict XVI, clearing the way for the canonization of Blessed Brother André. Because this news is so recent, and because his feast day is coming up this week (January 6, which is also the Epiphany), I would like to invite our readers to share our happiness and consider with us the virtues of this little man. Continue reading
30 Wednesday Dec 2009
Posted in Lives of the Saints
The complaint has come to me from friends that I am overly preoccupied with J.R.R. Tolkien. True, I’ve made a few references to the English Catholic fiction writer, but not all that many. As proof that these friends are all wrong about my alleged obsession, I confess that I am presently reading Demons, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose nineteenth-century Imperial Russia is pretty far from Middle Earth in the Third Age.
That apologia aside, I do admit taking satisfaction in discovering that the gray (then white) wizard-hero of Tolkien’s, Galdalf by name, bears a name strikingly similar to that of a Franciscan Beatus, blessed Gandolph of Binasco. Continue reading
01 Thursday Oct 2009
Some years ago, Brother Francis wrote an article combining the history of today’s saint with that of Saint Andrew Bobola: Two Patrons for True Ecumenism. Towards the end of that article is an excerpt from Abbot Guéranger’s Liturgical Year. These brief prophetical utterances are worth pondering in our days, when the Moslem menace is such a threat to former Christendom, and when we await the consecration and subsequent conversion of Russia. The excerpt is reproduced below. I would also like to refer readers to my much longer comments on St. Josaphat from a year ago. 
Continue reading
13 Thursday Aug 2009
Nineteenth century Rome was not the uneventful place one may imagine. Rome of the 1800s saw Mazzini, Garibaldi, and their Masonic cohorts dare to assault the Vicar of Christ and send him into exile. It saw fickle mobs capable of murdering priests and desecrating Churches, and heard such slogans as “Death to the Jesuits!” and “Down with the Pope!” shouted in the streets. Continue reading