Category Archives: History
History
Brother Francis has a tremendous appreciation for the history of the Church. He likes to call Church history “the laboratory of wisdom.” Why? Because the history of the Church is the history of human salvation, and choosing the best means to save one’s soul is the highest prudence. And prudence, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is wisdom in action.
History is the laboratory of wisdom, but the application today of the lessons learned from history is prudence.
How, for example, are we to understand what St. Pius X meant when he said that “modernism is the synthesis of all heresies,” if we are ignorant of the history of the Church’s battles against heresy? How are we to evaluate the causes of what Pope Benedict referred to a “crisis of Faith,” if we unfamiliar with any of the twenty ecumenical councils that preceded Vatican II?
There are twenty-two books of the Bible that are history books: the first nineteen of the Old Testament, the two books of Machabees, which end the Old Testament, and the Acts of the Apostles in the New.
A knowledge of Church History is a knowledge of the life of the Body of Christ extended in time throughout the past twenty centuries. It is a glorious history, with its martyrs, confessors, saints of the desert, great doctors and popes, apostles of nations, proliferation of contemplative orders, active orders, teaching orders, advances in science, medicine, the arts, missionary life, and victories over the enemies of true religion, who engaged her by pen and sword.
Without a knowledge of history, of its facts, dates, and events, a Catholic is ill-prepared to defend the Church against those who would gainsay her by misrepresentation, misinformation, or deliberate disinformation. Nor can we forget that we all have an obligation to instruct the ignorant who have been misled by error and who, in their hearts, nurture an affinity for the truth.
One World Religion or Religion of One World?
The biggest problem with Separation of Church and State is not that it is wrong, but that it does not and cannot exist. So long as every living man is made up of body and soul, God and Caesar will both have legitimate claims upon him — and these claims, at the best of times, may conflict. Moreover, he himself will often look to his … More →
More About the Cristeros Movie Opening June 1 in the US
CatholicOnline: “This is an international story for the world,” said Academy Award® nominee Andy Garcia, who headlines an international cast in FOR GREATER GLORY. “It’s a story that needs to be told.” Garcia plays General Gorostieta, the retired military man who transformed a roughshod group of Mexican Catholics into a formidable adversary in their fight against the Mexican government’s attempts to eliminate the Catholic Church. … More →
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Relics of Six Mexican Priest Martyrs Venerated in Los Angeles Cathedral May 14-24
These six martyrs were canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000. The martyrdom of Father Jose Maria Robles Hurtado is highlighted in the movie For Greater Glory, the story of the Cristeros heroic resistance to the anti-clerical, masonic-supported persecution launched by the Mexican communist regime in the 1920s. The movie is due out next month. California Catholic Daily: Relics of six priests martyred during … More →
Joseph Pierce on Roy Campbell
Joseph Pearce recalls the extraordinary life of Roy Campbell, who hid St John of the Cross’s letters from anticlerical Spanish militiamen. As you read Pierce’s piece, recall that here in the good old U S of A, people were led to believe that the good guys in this war were the ones that murdered priests, brothers, nuns, and Catholic laity. The bad guys, according to … More →
Archaeologists in Jerusalem Discover Miraculous Red Stones Used to Build 6th Century Church
Haartz.com: An Israeli archaeologist says he has found the site of a Sixth Century miracle documented by the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea. Full report here.
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Cristero Movie with Star Cast Debuts in Mexico
CNA: The much anticipated movie “Cristiada,” which recounts the story of the Cristero war in Mexico during the religious persecution of the 1920s, was released in Mexico on April 20. “This movie is not only going to be entertaining, it also has great potential,” said actor Eduardo Verastegui said. “It is a film that is very balanced, commercial and moving.” Read more here.
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The United Nations and the Vatican
As noticed in our last instalment, the Holy See under the last several Pontiffs has chosen to collaborate with the United Nations in a number of areas, apparently in hopes that “creative engagement” may guide that body in better directions than mere opposition might do – as has been done a number of times with other governments and parties throughout history, with varying success. To … More →
He Died Hearing Confessions and Praying the Rosary with Titanic Victims
Amidst all the tales of chivalry from the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told. It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favor of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel. Read more here.
Recommended Film: Katyń
As a treat for Easter, the brothers watched the film Katyń, which recounts the horrible massacre of some 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia in the forest of Katyn, not far from the western Russian city of Smolensk. The film, directed by Andrzej Wajda, is based on the novel, Post Mortem: The Story of Katyn by Andrzej Mularczyk. Mularczyk’s work is a fictionalized account that views … More →
With the Pope’s Visit to Cuba in the News, I Am Reminded of Enigmatic Ernest Hemingway
He was devoted in some hesitant way to Our Lady, but he loved his vices more. Poor soul. To have come so close to the Faith (as he did) only to spurn grace, turn away too many times, and end up in fatal despair a suicide.
‘In Order to Go to Heaven, We Have to Go to War.’ Movie Coming
Picture of fourteen year-old martyr Blessed Jose Sanchez del Rio in uniform. This is an incredibly inspiring story. Message to his mother: “In order to go to heaven, we have to go to war.” Read brief account of his suffering here.
Posted in Catholic America, Columns, History, Lives of the Saints 1 Comment
The Church and Globalism, Part I
For many orthodox Catholics, the word “globalization” immediately raises hackles — it evokes fears of loss of national sovereignty, of undesirable immigration, of Masonic conspiracy: in a word, the spectre of a Satanic “One-World Government.” Images of the Bilderbergers, the Round Table, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Club of Rome, the World Federalist Movement, the European Union, and, of course, the United Nations come … More →
Some Causes and Consequences of the Protestant Revolt
Full Title: The Devastation of Catholic Europe: Some Causes and Consequences of the Protestant Revolt Introduction “Let us clearly understand the meaning of these words — Catholic, Protestant, and Reformation. Catholic means universal, and the religion which takes this epithet was called universal because all Christian people of every nation acknowledged it to be the only true religion, and because they all acknowledged one and … More →
New Book Marks Spanish Civil War as a Battle to Save Catholic Spain
CNA reports: Biographer Joseph Pearce says the famous South African poet Roy Campbell saw the Spanish Civil War as a religious conflict between Christianity and atheistic modernism. Read more here.
