Melancholicus received this notice by e-mail, and wishes to extend his congratulations to Fr. Ó Fionnagáin (not that he reads Infelix Ego, but nonetheless). Fr. Ó Fionnagáin is one of the ‘good Jesuits’, as the following makes clear:
Congratulations to Rev Father Proinnsias Ó Fionnagáin SJ who is on the eve of his 100th Birthday. Father Ó Fionnagáin was of considerable help to the traditional movement in Ireland for many years as well as being an historian doing valuable work on the causes of the Irish martyrs. As he joined the Society of Jesus at the age of 18, he is 82 years a Jesuit; 80 years professed and 67 years a priest.
82 years a Jesuit! What a life spent in service to the Lord!
Melancholicus’ correspondent also said “I am tempted to say Ad multos annos but I am not sure of the propriety of this on such a birthday.” Melancholicus was likewise tempted, but shall prescind for like reasons.
Readers may wish privately to honour Fr. Ó Fionnagáin on his centennial birthday with a spiritual bouquet.
Showing posts with label anniversaries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anniversaries. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Remembrance
The eleventh hour of this eleventh day of the eleventh month saw the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Great War pass by.
For (now somewhat irrelevant) historical reasons, it is not usual in Ireland to commemorate the Great War or to remember the fallen, even though around 140,000 Irishmen enlisted for service in the British armed forces between 1914 and 1918, at least 35,000 of whom lost their lives.
There is still no shortage of angry republicans who bitterly oppose the notion of honouring the dead of the World Wars in this country lest honour be inadvertently given to things or persons British—witness some of the savage and small-souled responses to this perfectly reasonable suggestion; alas that we must still deal with that mentality, the same irrational loathing of Britain which made Ireland a haven for fleeing axis henchmen in the aftermath of World War II and led then Taoiseach Éamonn De Valera to sign a book of condolences for the death of Adolf Hitler.
But I am not of that ilk, for every day this week I am proudly wearing a poppy in the breast pocket of my jacket.
Today I remember one young man in particular, for he was of my mother’s family, and is to my knowledge our only relation who was slain in the carnage of a World War.
My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Roche. She came from Wexford town in the south-east of Ireland and was born in December 1910. I never knew her, for she died in 1970, before I was born. In 1995 I was clearing out the basement of my parents’ family home in Greystones and in the process discovered several interesting artefacts, one of which was a prayer book once owned by my grandmother and which, after the custom of her time, was bursting at the seams with holy cards and prayer cards commemorating deceased friends and members of the family. Among these commemorations was a card for a Private William Roche, of the 2nd battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment. He was killed in action in France on 24 May 1915. Pt. Roche was 26 years old when he fell. I succeeded in tracking him down on the website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (certificate here), and I will not have his memory dishonoured by uncivilised, foul-mouthed, far-left, Republican Sinn Féin types. His name is on the Menin Gate memorial at Ypres; sadly, there is no cemetery information provided, hence I conclude the location of his grave must be unknown. He is probably buried under one of the many headstones inscribed with the tragic legend “A Soldier of the Great War / Known Unto God”.
May his soul, and the souls of all who fell in the carnage of two World Wars, find rest, consolation and peace at the right hand of almighty God.
For (now somewhat irrelevant) historical reasons, it is not usual in Ireland to commemorate the Great War or to remember the fallen, even though around 140,000 Irishmen enlisted for service in the British armed forces between 1914 and 1918, at least 35,000 of whom lost their lives.
There is still no shortage of angry republicans who bitterly oppose the notion of honouring the dead of the World Wars in this country lest honour be inadvertently given to things or persons British—witness some of the savage and small-souled responses to this perfectly reasonable suggestion; alas that we must still deal with that mentality, the same irrational loathing of Britain which made Ireland a haven for fleeing axis henchmen in the aftermath of World War II and led then Taoiseach Éamonn De Valera to sign a book of condolences for the death of Adolf Hitler.
But I am not of that ilk, for every day this week I am proudly wearing a poppy in the breast pocket of my jacket.
Today I remember one young man in particular, for he was of my mother’s family, and is to my knowledge our only relation who was slain in the carnage of a World War.
My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Roche. She came from Wexford town in the south-east of Ireland and was born in December 1910. I never knew her, for she died in 1970, before I was born. In 1995 I was clearing out the basement of my parents’ family home in Greystones and in the process discovered several interesting artefacts, one of which was a prayer book once owned by my grandmother and which, after the custom of her time, was bursting at the seams with holy cards and prayer cards commemorating deceased friends and members of the family. Among these commemorations was a card for a Private William Roche, of the 2nd battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment. He was killed in action in France on 24 May 1915. Pt. Roche was 26 years old when he fell. I succeeded in tracking him down on the website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (certificate here), and I will not have his memory dishonoured by uncivilised, foul-mouthed, far-left, Republican Sinn Féin types. His name is on the Menin Gate memorial at Ypres; sadly, there is no cemetery information provided, hence I conclude the location of his grave must be unknown. He is probably buried under one of the many headstones inscribed with the tragic legend “A Soldier of the Great War / Known Unto God”.
May his soul, and the souls of all who fell in the carnage of two World Wars, find rest, consolation and peace at the right hand of almighty God.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
A personal message
... to the love of my life, in celebration of this day, the anniversary of our first finding one another.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Milestone: one year old
Melancholicus wishes to extend his thanks to all those who have visited Infelix Ego over the past twelve months, especially to his regular readers and those who have left comments on various posts along the way. For today, 3 October 2008, marks the anniversary of the first post on this blog.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
On this day
Has it really been seven years?
About 3,000 people lost their lives on September 11, 2001, most of them in New York city.
They must be few who have not been affected to some degree by the events of 9/11. Although Melancholicus did not know anyone in the World Trade Center personally, his sister works for an insurance management firm whose New York branch was located in the south tower; the staff of the Dublin branch were distraught to hear that 175 of their colleagues had perished. Later, as a seminarian, Melancholicus knew a priest who had lost a friend in one of the towers.
This was a day on which the world changed, and not for the better. But if one good thing might be said to have come out of the attack on the twin towers it is that the west is beginning to wake up, slowly and painfully, to the fact that Islam is at war with us. But too many of our political leaders still make fools of themselves by repeatedly offering exculpatory excuses for the behaviour of our deadliest enemies—it’s nothing to do with religion, violence is un-Islamic, Islam is a religion of peace, yadda yadda yadda.
Melancholicus only hopes that it will not take a further event on the scale of 9/11, or worse, before the connection between terrorist behaviour and the violence of the Qur’an is finally accepted.
May the souls of the departed through the mercy of God rest in peace on this, their seventh anniversary.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Humanae Vitae at 40
Forty years ago on this day Pope Paul VI issued what really ought to have been a pretty unremarkable encyclical letter, all things considered: Humanae Vitae, on the transmission of human life and on sexual ethics within marriage.
Unremarkable because Humanae Vitae contained nothing new. Its teaching ought not to have been a surprise to anyone endowed with a Catholic sense of things. Pius XI had already condemned contraception and the contraceptive mentality in Casti Connubi (1931), as a response to the Anglican bishops’ approval of contraception at the Lambeth conference of the previous year. What could be more natural, therefore, than that Pope Paul should uphold the constant teaching of the Catholic Church on married life and human sexuality? This is what he did, and his reiteration of the Church’s constant teaching was greeted by howls of protest and dissent, not only by the secular world but even by priests, religious, theologians and even bishops.
1968 has been described by some as the year in which the Church fell apart. Anne Roche Muggeridge in her book The Desolate City, refers to Humanae Vitae as the triggering incident which allowed the revolution within the Church to emerge full-blown into the open, and openly to defy the authority of the Pope, the Holy See, Canon Law, and indeed the entire doctrinal and liturgical tradition of the Church across two thousand years.
Forty years later the revolutionaries are still in a state of defiance and open revolt—a state which some of them still describe, even today, as “loyal dissent”, an oxymoron if ever there was one. But today they are less confident, less sure of themselves, less convinced that the future belongs to them and to their fellow secularizers within the Church. For forty years on, as one might expect, they have aged considerably; they have not achieved the overthrow of Catholicism, for which they strove; and most ominously of all for their hopes of success, they have inspired none to follow in their footsteps and take up the cudgels in defence of peace, love and rock ’n’ roll once they have retired or passed on. They look—and sound—like relics of the groovy ’sixties and ’seventies, outdated tie-dyed hippies still tripping on the spirit of Vatican II (or should that be the spirit of Woodstock?). They are so completely contemptible that no one today—not even those thoughtless youth most in agreement with their heresies—wants anything to do with them at all.
Of course the most infuriating thing about the dissidents’ revolt against Humanae Vitae is that—as in every other area in which they have challenged Church teaching—the dissidents are quite simply wrong. They have backed the wrong horse—one that will not even pass the post, never mind win the race. Contraception is NOT a good thing. While it might at times be convenient for individuals, it is ruinous for society. There is not one country in the entire European Union—apart perhaps from Malta—which is producing sufficient children to replenish its population. This means that population is falling across the EU. The birth rate must be at least 2.2 children per woman if a given population is to be sustained. This is what is known as the “replacement level”. No EU state—and certainly not Ireland, which has embraced the contraceptive culture with gusto—has a birth rate anywhere near replacement level. Some states—Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece, for instance—have birth rates so alarmingly low that these countries will assuredly experience dire economic and social problems in a generation or two.
A low birth-rate spells disaster for society. It always means more older people and fewer young. As the population ages, and begins to retire from the labour force, there will be fewer younger people available to meet the demand for workers and to keep the economy moving. Fewer workers means the state has a much reduced tax revenue—but not reduced costs, since there are now disproportionately large numbers of older people requiring pensions and expensive medical care. At a certain point, in order to avert the unsavoury prospect of an unsustainably large proportion of society being dependent on the support of an insufficient few, the state will begin to take certain measures. Old or chronically ill people requiring constant and costly care, will be required to be “put to sleep”. Able-bodied elderly people will not be permitted to retire at 65, but be required to remain at work for several years more. And the deficit in the working population will be further relieved by importing young immigrants from the third world, not a few of which will profess the religion of Islam. These latter, of course, will have more than 2.2 children per woman, not having embraced the contraceptive culture that has already sounded the death-knell of the west. Over time, the proportion of Muslims in the population will steadily increase—as it is in France, Britain and the Netherlands—with further chaos and destabilisation the only result of such a process.
We are already seeing and living through the endgame of the contraceptive mentality in so many different countries in the west; but will anyone sit up and take notice? Or are we now too firmly attached to playing God with our marriages, and with our children?
When one practices contraception, especially if one is aware of the Church’s teaching on the matter, one does not please God; one pleases oneself. To persevere with one’s own will against the holy will of God is always—in whatever matter—to invite catastrophe. Those who in the ’seventies, ’eighties, ’nineties and today took it upon themselves to have but a single child—or even no child at all—are precisely the same generation that will most feel the pain when the looming demographic crisis finally hits home. They themselves will be euthanised for purely pragmatic reasons by the same offspring they raised to be godless and secular, under the same laws permitting abortion and euthanasia for which they will have striven so hard to keep on the statute books. As all historical precedent has shown, wherever contraception is approved and practiced, the legalisation of abortion is sure to follow. For abortion is in the final analysis simply an extension of contraception, one that seeks to remove a conception rather than merely prevent it in the first place. For if one can in so cavalier a fashion interfere with human life at its very beginnings, why not also at its end?
Pope Paul was prescient. Humanae Vitae is the true teaching of the Catholic Church and may not be gainsaid without consequences, either in this world or the next. Defy it at your peril.
You have been warned.
Unremarkable because Humanae Vitae contained nothing new. Its teaching ought not to have been a surprise to anyone endowed with a Catholic sense of things. Pius XI had already condemned contraception and the contraceptive mentality in Casti Connubi (1931), as a response to the Anglican bishops’ approval of contraception at the Lambeth conference of the previous year. What could be more natural, therefore, than that Pope Paul should uphold the constant teaching of the Catholic Church on married life and human sexuality? This is what he did, and his reiteration of the Church’s constant teaching was greeted by howls of protest and dissent, not only by the secular world but even by priests, religious, theologians and even bishops.
1968 has been described by some as the year in which the Church fell apart. Anne Roche Muggeridge in her book The Desolate City, refers to Humanae Vitae as the triggering incident which allowed the revolution within the Church to emerge full-blown into the open, and openly to defy the authority of the Pope, the Holy See, Canon Law, and indeed the entire doctrinal and liturgical tradition of the Church across two thousand years.
Forty years later the revolutionaries are still in a state of defiance and open revolt—a state which some of them still describe, even today, as “loyal dissent”, an oxymoron if ever there was one. But today they are less confident, less sure of themselves, less convinced that the future belongs to them and to their fellow secularizers within the Church. For forty years on, as one might expect, they have aged considerably; they have not achieved the overthrow of Catholicism, for which they strove; and most ominously of all for their hopes of success, they have inspired none to follow in their footsteps and take up the cudgels in defence of peace, love and rock ’n’ roll once they have retired or passed on. They look—and sound—like relics of the groovy ’sixties and ’seventies, outdated tie-dyed hippies still tripping on the spirit of Vatican II (or should that be the spirit of Woodstock?). They are so completely contemptible that no one today—not even those thoughtless youth most in agreement with their heresies—wants anything to do with them at all.
Of course the most infuriating thing about the dissidents’ revolt against Humanae Vitae is that—as in every other area in which they have challenged Church teaching—the dissidents are quite simply wrong. They have backed the wrong horse—one that will not even pass the post, never mind win the race. Contraception is NOT a good thing. While it might at times be convenient for individuals, it is ruinous for society. There is not one country in the entire European Union—apart perhaps from Malta—which is producing sufficient children to replenish its population. This means that population is falling across the EU. The birth rate must be at least 2.2 children per woman if a given population is to be sustained. This is what is known as the “replacement level”. No EU state—and certainly not Ireland, which has embraced the contraceptive culture with gusto—has a birth rate anywhere near replacement level. Some states—Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece, for instance—have birth rates so alarmingly low that these countries will assuredly experience dire economic and social problems in a generation or two.
A low birth-rate spells disaster for society. It always means more older people and fewer young. As the population ages, and begins to retire from the labour force, there will be fewer younger people available to meet the demand for workers and to keep the economy moving. Fewer workers means the state has a much reduced tax revenue—but not reduced costs, since there are now disproportionately large numbers of older people requiring pensions and expensive medical care. At a certain point, in order to avert the unsavoury prospect of an unsustainably large proportion of society being dependent on the support of an insufficient few, the state will begin to take certain measures. Old or chronically ill people requiring constant and costly care, will be required to be “put to sleep”. Able-bodied elderly people will not be permitted to retire at 65, but be required to remain at work for several years more. And the deficit in the working population will be further relieved by importing young immigrants from the third world, not a few of which will profess the religion of Islam. These latter, of course, will have more than 2.2 children per woman, not having embraced the contraceptive culture that has already sounded the death-knell of the west. Over time, the proportion of Muslims in the population will steadily increase—as it is in France, Britain and the Netherlands—with further chaos and destabilisation the only result of such a process.
We are already seeing and living through the endgame of the contraceptive mentality in so many different countries in the west; but will anyone sit up and take notice? Or are we now too firmly attached to playing God with our marriages, and with our children?
When one practices contraception, especially if one is aware of the Church’s teaching on the matter, one does not please God; one pleases oneself. To persevere with one’s own will against the holy will of God is always—in whatever matter—to invite catastrophe. Those who in the ’seventies, ’eighties, ’nineties and today took it upon themselves to have but a single child—or even no child at all—are precisely the same generation that will most feel the pain when the looming demographic crisis finally hits home. They themselves will be euthanised for purely pragmatic reasons by the same offspring they raised to be godless and secular, under the same laws permitting abortion and euthanasia for which they will have striven so hard to keep on the statute books. As all historical precedent has shown, wherever contraception is approved and practiced, the legalisation of abortion is sure to follow. For abortion is in the final analysis simply an extension of contraception, one that seeks to remove a conception rather than merely prevent it in the first place. For if one can in so cavalier a fashion interfere with human life at its very beginnings, why not also at its end?
Pope Paul was prescient. Humanae Vitae is the true teaching of the Catholic Church and may not be gainsaid without consequences, either in this world or the next. Defy it at your peril.
You have been warned.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Twenty years ago today
Whatever the reader may think of the above-pictured event, there is no doubt that it sent a message straight to the heart of the conciliar church. It is possible, likely even, that the oft-cited ‘state of emergency’ did indeed exist in the late 1980s; the Society of St. Pius X was at that time the only priestly organisation that was training priests for the old religion and, as it turned out, Archbishop Lefebvre would be dead three years later. Under such circumstances, it may be argued that the consecrations were necessary. The question of the protocol rejected by the Archbishop shall not be entered upon here.
But what of now? What prevents you, O bishops, from returning to full communion with the Apostolic See?
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