Reflections on the feast of St. Ambrose

Today is the feast of this courageous and holy saint who withstood a bloodstained Roman Emperor (Theodosius) by barring the latter from his church until he had done penance for his sin; he had slaughtered 7,000 of the inhabitants of Thessalonica in retaliation for the assassination in that city of his governing appointee. To resist a fourth-century Roman Emperor was a different matter to resisting a pro-gay, pro-abortion politician in our own time, but with only a few honourable exceptions, our bishops show themselves more timorous in dealing with such pygmies than did Ambrose with the mighty Theodosius.

A bishop truly worthy of the name.

We have lately begun a new liturgical year, and stand almost on the cusp of a new civil year. Melancholicus does not know how many episcopal Sees will become vacant in 2010, but as the world is divided into two-thousand-odd dioceses, apostolic vicariates, prefectures and administrations containing three-thousand-odd bishops (including auxiliaries, titulars and retirees), there are bound to be more than a few vacancies in the coming year. Will many of those chosen to fill vacant Sees pattern themselves on St. Ambrose, or solicit his intercession for their episcopate? Melancholicus is not confident that they will; poor-to-middling prelates seem to be a perennial fact of ecclesiastical life. But if even one of the new appointees would take Ambrose as a model, what a difference it would make to the whole world!

The Feast of St. Andrew

A day late perhaps, but better late than never.

With grateful thanks to St. Andrew for favours received. Melancholicus is certainly in much better fettle now than when he published this gloomy post two years ago.

This year Melancholicus wishes to present his readers with the collect from the 1928 American Prayer Book—we are in America now, so the American book shall be our source. Let there be no tut-tutting from pious papists; let us recall that for the most part the Prayer Book collects are of unimpeachable origin (Sarum) and that much of the traditional content of the Anglican Prayer Book has since received the approbation of the Holy See. Moreover, Melancholicus’ Roman Missal and breviary are still in transit and have not yet arrived at his new home; the only liturgical texts currently available to him are traditional Anglican or Novus Ordo—and we definitely don’t want to have to do with the latter now, do we?

THE COLLECT

ALMIGHTY GOD, who didst give such grace unto thy holy Apostle Saint Andrew, that he readily obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed Him without delay; Grant unto us all, that we, being called by thy holy Word, may forthwith give up ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

My thanks to you, holy Andrew, your intercession has been powerful with God!

The feast of St. Brigid

Today, February 1st, is the feast of St. Brigid, one of the three patron saints of Ireland — the other two being Patrick (March 17th) and Columcille (June 9th).

Very little is known of Brigid’s life, and much of what is related about her in typical biographical sketches is quite frankly unhistorical. This is due partly to the chronological distance that separates her from even her earliest biographers, and partly to the peculiar nature of Irish hagiography, which more often reflects the political conditions prevailing within the early Irish Church, with monastic paruchiae contending with one another for ecclesiastical one-upmanship, and in which the motive for writing the life of a saint was often geared towards enhancement of the social and political standing of the church founded by that saint than any concern for historical integrity or spiritual edification.

Now some readers might be tempted to cry out “modernism!”, since the modernists are well known for their cavalier approach to the lives of the saints, dismissing on the basis of higher criticism whole episodes or even entire lives as fabricated legend. But where medieval Irish hagiography is concerned, may God help us and the reputation of Holy Mother Church should even half the contents of these ‘Lives’ be true! But let us first distinguish the approach of the modernists from that of Melancholicus.

Melancholicus is a Christian, and consequently believes that miracles can happen, that they do happen, and that they have happened in the lives of the saints.

But a belief in the reality of the miraculous does not require us to give credence to every fantastic tale or to the pious fibs that abound throughout the lives of all early Irish saints. Indeed, one bemused seventeenth-century Bollandist described the contents of many such ‘Lives’ as so ridiculous that they might move the minds of those who heard them more easily to laughter and derision than to piety and devotion. This Melancholicus would not dispute, especially not after having read Whitley Stokes’ edition of the Félire Oengusso (Martyrology of Oengus) as well as Plummer’s Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae. It is a matter of sober fact that there is less edification than disedification in these outrageous narratives.

The example par excellence of the victim of such tendentious hagiography is St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland and the most illustrious name in the Irish calendar of the blessed. Patrick did not of course convert Ireland single-handed. He was assisted by others, and there was at least one mission, led by Palladius (who is otherwise unknown), which was commissioned directly by Celestine I, the pope of Rome. The names of such fifth-century missionary bishops as Secundinus, Isserninus and Auxilius (at least two of whom left their mark on place-names in the province of Leinster) are represented in the hagiography as having been Patrick’s suffragans. No mention of them, however, is recorded in Patrick’s own surviving writings, and O’Rahilly has argued (credibly to my mind) that they were associated with the official Roman mission rather than with St. Patrick. Their names point to an origin in Roman Gaul rather than post-Roman Britain, and it was from the latter that Patrick set out on his mission to bring the Christian faith to the heathen Irish.

We are fortunate today in having first-hand documentary evidence of St. Patrick’s life and career in the form of two documents written by the saint himself. These are his Confessio—a kind of apologia justifying his mission against criticism by his superiors in Britain—and his Epistola, a letter written in anguish to a British king named Coroticus after soldiers in the service of the latter had made a slave-raid against Ireland and had borne off into captivity many of Patrick’s recent converts. Sadly, although St. Patrick’s writings are the very earliest surviving documentary sources of Irish provenance, they contain very little information about the society and politics of the time, nor do they contain much in the way of Patrick’s own history. They do, however, touchingly reveal their author’s personality—a man of profound humility and charity, a man animated with love for almighty God and for souls, a self-effacing man, not proud, or boastful, or vaunting of his achievements, but one who was content to recognize himself as a sinner, as the least of the world’s cast-offs, even as a failure. It is Patrick’s humility and love which makes him truly great, and which has proved so attractive even to his most recent biographers. There is no doubt that the man truly was a saint.

Patrick died some time around the year 500. The precise year is unknown. The ‘official’ dates (for there are two) of his obituary are A.D. 461 and 493. In the course of the turbulent sixth century—a time of wars, epidemics, climatic upheaval and rapid social change—Patrick’s mission was largely forgotten, and his legacy was in danger of being eclipsed by the reputation of more recent rising stars, particularly Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (†549), Columcille (†597), Comgall of Bangor († c. 600) and the latter’s famous alumnus Columbanus (†615). In the course of the seventh century, the church of Armagh—originally established by Patrick as a diocese and now re-modelled along monastic lines—made its first bid for primacy over the other Irish churches, and began producing hagiography to that effect. The first victim of this propaganda was Patrick himself, and in effect the memory of the historical St. Patrick who so edifies us from the pages of his Confessio was effaced in favour of a literary construct modelled on the heroes of contemporary secular saga, and just as violent, vindictive, and ultimately disedifying. Readers who are interested may care to read Patrick’s own works and compare their author with the baleful figure who emerges from the seventh-century biographies by Muirchú and Tírechán.

So now, back to St. Brigid.

Quid Patricius cum Brigita? In a word, everything! The same cautionary remarks made about Patrician hagiography can also be applied to Brigid, save that while we have Patrick’s own writings to warn us against the excesses of his seventh-century biographers, we have no such check in the case of Brigid. If she wrote anything, it has not survived, and what has been written about her in the centuries immediately following her death has more to do with enhancing the political standing of the church of Kildare than with concern for the historical record.

Brigid died (at least according to the annals) in 524. The same annals also record the year of her birth—variously 452 or 456—showing that the Brigidine material was entered retrospectively at a much later date, probably as late as the ninth century. There is no contemporary witness to her life or her career, and much of what is related about her in the medieval biographies composed long after her death is freely invented—frei erfunden, as our German friends might say.

Melancholicus remembers reading Donncha Ó hAodha’s edition of Bethu Brigte in the original for his B.A. in Early Irish many years ago. This vita, which is the earliest surviving saint’s Life written mostly in Irish, may be dated to the ninth century, and hence to the Old Irish period. The pious reader who cares to read through the translation of this work will notice many unedifying features of the conduct and presentation of Brigid’s character which are hardly compatible with charity and great sanctity. There are also episodes which quite simply cannot have happened, since they contain violations of either faith or morals on the part of our saint, or reveal their spurious nature by their blatantly political overtones.

The actions attributed to our saint by the hagiographer are often too crude to be even remotely credible. In Bethu Brigte, §15, we see Brigid’s brothers displeased at her for her refusal to wed, thus depriving them of the bride-price they would get from her prospective husband. One of the brothers, Bacéne, taunts his sister, telling her that “the beautiful eye that is in your head will be betrothed to a man though you like it not”. The reaction of the genuine St. Brigid to such familial pressure would be to bear patiently her brother’s displeasure and to pray to God for him and for them all. But the response of the Brigid created by the hagiographer is utterly revolting: she gouges out her own eye and hands it to Bacéne, with the words “here is that beautiful eye for you. I deem it unlikely that anyone will ask for a blind girl”, a telling episode which reveals something of the undercurrents of Manichaeism which could be found in certain corners of the early Irish Church. As if this horrifying self-mutilation were not enough, Brigid then curses Bacéne (and his descendants!), saying without a trace of love or pity, “soon your two eyes will burst in your head”. And the childish hagiographer rounds off this ignoble paragraph with vindicated relish: et sic factum est.

Sometimes, even today, the ridiculous content of these ‘Lives’ can come back to haunt us in unexpected ways. For instance, an episode in the earliest Latin life—that by Cogitosus, which may be as early as the seventh century—sees a young woman vowed to chastity falling prey to a seducer and conceiving a child in the process. Brigid, we are told, placed her hands on the swollen belly, causing the foetus to “disappear”, after which everyone is happy again. This matter is no less fictitious than it is distasteful. In the run-up to that disastrous referendum on the protection of human life in pregnancy in March 2002, a silly woman writing in The Irish Times—without any regard to the facts of history or any understanding of the nature of early Irish hagiography—used this same fictitious nonsense to argue that in this instance, St. Brigid had “performed an abortion”. This was in order to co-opt the figure of St. Brigid for the pro-abort cadre and at the same time to undercut the authority of the Irish bishops’ conference, which was calling for a yes vote in the referendum.

Another potentially embarrassing episode occurs in Bethu Brigte, a text to which we have already referred. In §19, St. Mel of Ardagh († c. 488), being “intoxicated with the Holy Spirit”, consecrates Brigid to the episcopate, and we are told that during her “consecration” that a “fiery column ascended from her head”. This can only be recognized for what it is, namely a breathtakingly cynical attempt by the church of Kildare to make up for its embarrassment at having a woman for its founder, or at least one not in sacred orders. Though this episode is without the slightest doubt fictitious, I am surprised it has not been used by our liberal enemies as a stick wherewith to beat the Church for denying that there were “women bishops” in the early centuries of Christianity. Perhaps Melancholicus should not speak so loudly; he doesn’t want to give them any juicy ideas.

***

February 1st is also the Celtic feast of Imbolc, associated with veneration of the goddess Brigantia, tutelary deity of the Brigantes, a people who in the Iron Age occupied what is now northern England, a branch of whom also existed in county Wexford in Ireland, at least according to the map of prehistoric Ireland drawn up in the second century by the geographer and astronomer Ptolemy of Alexandria.

The discerning reader will notice a startling similarity between the names of the pagan goddess Brigantia and the Christian saint Brigid. In these days of weak faith it is fashionable for the figure of the latter to be subsumed into the former; in effect, ‘St. Brigid’ is merely a euhemerized version of Brigantia, not a real person who enjoyed independent historical existence. One can only conclude that the feminazis feel more empowered fantasizing about goddesses than about nuns. Scandalously, an elderly Benedictine monk from that slightly barmy community in Glenstal, county Limerick, appeared on RTÉ television some years ago and waxed lyrical about Brigantia, not at all rebutting the sexy notion that the St. Brigid venerated in Catholic tradition is ‘based’ on the pagan goddess.

If Brigid really were ‘based’ on Brigantia, how come that in the early Christian period we find her cultus in Kildare, and not in Wexford? Just a thought.

Say again brother, how many vocations do you guys get in Glenstal these days?

Imbolc is one of four feasts at three monthly intervals throughout the year, the others being Beltaine (1st May), Lugnasad (1st August) and Samain (1st November).

The neo-pagans love these festivals, even though precious little is known of their actual significance in pre-Christian Ireland. Melancholicus might add that as the Catholic religion in this country continues to wither, the vacuum left in its place is gradually being filled by ‘alternative’ spiritualities. There is even an association of some sort devoted to ancient ‘pagan’ and ‘druidic’ practices. Melancholicus remembers seeing these idiots on an RTÉ news report at Imbolc in 2002, running around a wet field with twigs and foliage tied to their bodies. There was a fire lit in the centre of the field, giving off a great cloud of grey smoke and the be-twigged gobshites were taking turns leaping through it. Heaven knows what they thought they were doing, or what they could thereby accomplish.

St. Brigid, pray for us!

Cardinal Newman slandered by the BBC

Slander is always an evil thing, but how much more so to slander one who is dead and hence unable either to defend himself or to exact redress for the harm done to his reputation.

Melancholicus usually has his alarm set for 7am on Sunday mornings, a habit which has survived from the time when he used to attend the earliest (8am) Novus Ordo Mass offered in the local parish. This entailed waking up every Sunday morning to the BBC’s Sunday programme—most assuredly not the best way to begin obervance of Dies Dominica since hearing the first few minutes of this programme (extremely woolly at best and misleadingly tendentious at worst) would always send him off to Mass in rather ill humour and desiring to hit someone. Hard.

Melancholicus no longer goes to the local Novus Ordo (for reasons explained below) but still wakes on Sunday morning at 7am, whereat he lies abed exposed to the entire length of the Sunday programme unless sleep should mercifully reclaim him into blissful unconsciousness.

But this weekend Melancholicus failed to set his alarm, so he missed the Sunday programme completely. He was happy enough about that until, later in the day, he read the evil news—O horrible to relate!—over at Mulier Fortis.

Since he has a devotion to Cardinal Newman, and will be marrying his bride next year in Cardinal Newman’s Dublin church, Melancholicus was—to say the very least—wroth.

So Melancholicus went to the Radio 4 website to listen in on the offending article which, after promising an interview with the ridiculous former bishop of Edinburgh, coverage of the marital union between a Hindoo and an Anglican vicar (whether of the same or opposite sexes Melancholicus cannot tell), then a Mahometan who refused to sign a contract saying he would not take a further wife (or two, or three!), introduced the matter of Cardinal Newman with the words

“Is the Roman Catholic Church trying to cover up the homosexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman, now on the fast track to sainthood?”

“The homosexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman”?? Notice this slur on Newman’s character—for which there exists not a tittle of evidence—is taken for granted by the BBC, as though it were a matter of hard fact. And what about the flippant “fast track to sainthood”? Newman has been dead since 1890. His cause has been in preparation for a long time; “fast track” it most certainly is not.

That’s about the level of this programme. Ill-researched, sensationalist, tabloid pap, whose editors (Roger Bolton, Jane Little and the egregious Edward Stourton) seem unable (or unwilling?) to report accurately on the facts in a manner which sifts fact from fiction and to reassure the listener that the BBC is an unbiased and impartial news service after all.

Melancholicus is most exasperated, not with the screaming Peter Tatchell, who is so fixated with his vice that he sees it everywhere and cannot be expected to know any better, but with the editor who chose this hysterical freak as a credible guest on the programme.

But for an organisation which is devoted to proselytism on behalf of buggery and sodomitical weddings, and which regards the likes of Hans Küng and Lavinia Byrne as respected ‘Catholic’ theologians, these kind of propaganda slurs are not surprising, are they?

The feast of St. Thomas

Today, December 21st, is the feast of the Apostle Thomas, also known as “Doubting Thomas” because he refused to believe that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead. He had not been present during the Lord’s first post-Resurrection appearance to his disciples. When he subsequently encountered the risen Jesus, having examined the wounds in the Lord’s hands and side, he made his profession of faith, “My Lord and my God”.

THE COLLECT

GIVE us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, a share in the glory of today’s festival of Thy blessed Apostle Thomas: and grant that we may be uplifted by his patronage and drawn with fitting devotion to equal him in faith. Through Our Lord.

The so-called Gospel of Thomas has nothing to do with St. Thomas the Apostle, having been written in the second century by an anonymous author, and is an apocryphal work of sayings attributed to the Lord Jesus. Much of its content is clearly lifted or adapted from the canonical gospels, but it also shows leanings toward gnosticism.

Surely not!

Catholic World News regales us today with the following headline:

Pope speaks on St. Paulinus, precursor of Vatican II

Eewww.

So the whole purpose of St. Paulinus’ life was to point to Vatican II, as some kind of Teilhardian ‘omega point’? I’m sure the Holy Father didn’t say that, and Melancholicus is simply reading into the story owing to the utterly inappropriate headline given to this news item by the unnamed CWN reporter.

With all due respect to the Holy Father, however, Melancholicus would say that to compare St. Paulinus of Nola with Vatican II is to do St. Paulinus a great disservice. We wouldn’t wish to identify him with the robber-council of Ephesus now, would we, so what profit is there to be had from mentioning the good saint in the same breath as Ephesus’ spiritual descendant?

Regular readers of Infelix Ego will have noticed by now the strong animus Melancholicus has against Vatican II. He makes absolutely no apology for this stance. Truth is, Vatican II defined no new doctrine binding on the Catholic faithful; those teachings of Vatican II that are binding were binding already before the council, so they are not unique to this single council, having been defined better elsewhere. What is unique in Vatican II is the plethora of non-binding and non-doctrinal novelties to which no Catholic is obliged to give assent. Therefore Melancholicus can be AS RUDE AS HE LIKES towards the Second Vatican Council without fear of either heresy or schism.

So there!

"I know of no bishop worthy of the name, except Ambrose"

...such at least was the opinion of Theodoret, and Melancholicus would not disagree.

Today, December 7th, is the feast of St. Ambrose, c. 340-397, bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church. He is most famous for his correction of the emperor Theodosius, who in the year 390 had massacred 7,000 of the citizens of Thessalonica in retaliation for an uprising. After this bloody deed had been carried out, Ambrose would not permit Theodosius even to enter his church, let alone attend the celebration of the liturgy or receive holy communion. By comparison, today’s bishops are afraid to turn away from the altars public figures who pursue lifestyles of manifest grave sin, or who publicly uphold positions at variance with the teachings of the Church. To stand up to a fourth-century Roman emperor was a far more courageous act than to resist the petty politicians of today with their media backers. Theodosius even had the good grace to perform eight months of penance in atonement for his sin; the temporal powers of our time cannot even acknowledge that they have sinned, never mind be willing to undertake penance.

Ambrose also had the distinction of baptizing into the Catholic faith another great Doctor of the Church of late antiquity: St. Augustine of Hippo.

In the pre-1960 Roman calendar, it was also the vigil of the Immaculate Conception, one of the great Marian feasts, which occurs tomorrow, December 8th. The feast of St. Ambrose terminates with the office of none, and this evening’s vespers will be first vespers of the Immaculate Conception.

The feast of St. Andrew

Andrew son of Jonah, apostle and martyr, and brother of Simon Peter, was among the first of the twelve apostles to be called by the Lord Jesus at the beginning of His public ministry. Today is his feast, and the teaching term is finally over, Deo gratias. Melancholicus is quite exhausted, although not quite as much as his brother Conor who, by some miraculous process unknown to him, manages to juggle full-time studies in History and Classical Civilisation with a full-time job in telecommunications.

THE INTROIT

Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable; their principality is exceedingly strengthened. Ps. Lord, thou hast proved me and known me: Thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up.


THE COLLECT

WE humbly entreat Thy majesty, O Lord: that as the blessed Apostle Andrew was once a teacher and ruler of Thy Church: so he may be a constant advocate for us before Thee. Through our Lord.

The Apostle Andrew was martyred in the year A.D. 60 in Achaia (in modern Greece) under Aegeas, the Roman governor of the province. He was crucified on the X-shaped ‘decussate’ cross, which is now indelibly associated with St. Andrew. What marvellous patience and peace, not to mention union with God, the blessed apostle must have enjoyed in order to have submitted to such a painful and lingering death for love of Christ Jesus.

The end of the liturgical year is nigh. The Sunday closest to St. Andrew’s day is always the first Sunday of Advent, which this year falls on 2 December. The liturgical year now ending has not been kind to Melancholicus, all things considered, and he wishes to entreat the prayers of his readers that things may improve for him in this year to come.

May God reward you.

Gaudeamus omnes in Domino: the feast of All Saints

Today, November 1st, is the feast of All Saints, and a holy day of obligation throughout the Church universal.

THE INTROIT

Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a festival day in honor of all the Saints: at whose solemnity the Angels rejoice, and give praise to the Son of God. Ps. Rejoice in the Lord, ye just: praise becometh the upright.

THE COLLECT

Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast enabled us to honour in one solemn feast the merits of all Thy Saints: we beseech Thee, that, with so many praying for us, Thou wouldst pour forth upon us the abundance of Thy mercy for which we long. Through our Lord.

In the days when Melancholicus used to attend the rite known as Novus Ordo Missae, there occurred some seven or eight years ago a liturgical ‘incident’ at the university where Melancholicus was a student, and it has remained fixed in his memory ever since. This incident was in two parts, the first of which took place on All Saints’ day, in the university chapel. The young chaplain who celebrated the Mass at which Melancholicus assisted described today’s solemnity as “the feast of all the saints in the Roman calendar”. Now at that time Melancholicus was a younger, greener, happier, more foolish and more callow young man than he is today, but he was still struck by such a blatant error of liturgical fact in the mouth of an ordained priest. As its name implies, the festival of All Saints commemorates all the saints (as this article in the Catholic Encyclopedia makes clear), not just those famous worthies who are named in the general calendar—and who all have their own feast day anyway. It turned out that the chaplain had an agenda, although this agenda would not become clear until the following day—the commemoration of All Souls. Father’s inaccurate description of the former feast was simply to prepare the ground for his even more inaccurate (and some might say outrageous) summation of what the commemoration of All Souls is all about.

We will take up the story at that point tomorrow, but knowing the foibles of poorly-trained and half-Catholic Novus Ordo clergy, the reader has probably guessed already what is coming.

November 1st is also officially the first day of winter, although it is unseasonably mild at present; it is likely that Melancholicus will be mowing his mother’s lawn after Mass this coming Saturday.

So you still think socialism is harmless?

Melancholicus is reluctant to row out into the deep and dangerous sea of the Spanish Civil War, since this is a subject which even today can still spark off hot passions.

Holy Mother Church stirred up some of those passions when today she beatified 498 Catholic martyrs of the Spanish Civil War.

A group calling itself the ‘Association for Historical Memory’, allegedly set up in Spain to preserve evidence relating to the civil war, has reacted with unusual fury to the beatifications. Melancholicus would like to know more about this Association, as it appears to be interested in telling only one side of the story, namely that of the left. The mere suggestion that there is in fact another side seems to have filled them with fury. They have dared to claim that the Catholic Church “accepts only its role as victim and not executioner”. This attitude Melancholicus finds contemptibly rich, since no-one is better than the left in practicing a monopoly on victimhood. And the left, eager to bleat incessantly about crimes committed against itself, will never acknowledge its own crimes, merely plead that its violence is either morally justified, or exaggerated for political effect by its enemies.

It is clear from the reaction of the leftists that even to mention the victims of leftist violence is simply not permitted.

It seems that the attitude that any violence in the service of the left is good and noble is still widespread, and as long as that attitude persists, those who do not share the ideology of the leftists will always be under threat of such violence, and that the leftists can be counted upon to resort to violence if they think they can get away with it.

Is the membership of this ‘Association for Historical Memory’ at all aware that, during the Red Terror in Spain before the final victory of the Nationalists, nearly 7,000 clergy and religious were murdered by Republican forces, or by groups fighting on the Republican side? These included 13 bishops, 4172 diocesan priests, 2364 monks and friars—among them 259 Claretians, 226 Franciscans, 204 Piarists, 176 Brothers of Mary, 165 Christian Brothers, 155 Augustinians, 132 Dominicans, and 114 Jesuits—and 282 nuns. In some dioceses, the numbers are overwhelming: in the words of Julio de la Cueva, “in Barbastro 88 percent of the secular clergy were murdered, 66 percent in Lerida, 62 percent in Tortosa, 44 per cent in Segorbe, about half of the priests in Malaga, Minorca and Toledo.” There are accounts of the faithful being forced to swallow rosary beads, being thrown down mine shafts and of priests being forced to dig their own graves before being buried alive. Is the Association going to tell us, in all seriousness, that all or even most of these were criminals, engaged in violence and terror against Republicans? Do they really expect us to believe such an absurdity, for which there isn’t a tittle of evidence?

Let us now see what grand exploits the brave heroes whose memory is so cherished by the Association for Historical Memory were up to. I wonder, have they bothered to keep any of the following atrocities in their “Memory”?

• An eyewitness to some of the persecution, Cristina de Arteaga, who afterwards became a nun, commented that they [i.e. the Republicans] “attacked the Salesians, people who are totally committed to the poor. There was a rumour that nuns were giving poisoned sweets to children. Some nuns were grabbed by the hair in the streets. One had her hair pulled out.”


• On the night of 19 July 1936 alone, some fifty churches were burned. In Barcelona, out of the 58 churches, only the Cathedral was spared, and similar atrocities occurred almost everywhere in Republican Spain.


• The parish priest of Navalmoral was put through a parody of Christ’s Crucfixion. At the end of his suffering, the militiamen debated whether actually to crucify him or just shoot him. They finished with a shooting. His last request was to be allowed to face his tormenters so he could bless them.


• The Bishop of Jaen and his sister were murdered in front of two thousand celebrating spectators by a special executioner, a woman nicknamed La Pecosa, the freckled one. The Bishop of Almeria was murdered while working on a history of Toledo. His card index file was destroyed.


• In Madrid, a nun was killed because she refused a proposition of marriage from a militiaman who helped storm her convent.


• In El Pardo, near Madrid, a group of militiamen became drunk on communion wine while trying the parish priest. One militiaman used the chalice as a washing bowl as he shaved himself.


• Although rare, it was reported that some nuns were raped by militiamen before they were shot.


• The priest of Cienpozuelos was thrown into a corral with fighting bulls where he was gored into unconsciousness. Afterwards one of his ears was cut off to imitate the feat of a matador after a successful bullfight.


• In Ciudad Real, the priest was castrated and his sexual organs stuffed in his mouth.


• Also in Ciudad Real, a crucifix was shoved down the throat of a mother of two Jesuit priests.

Melancholicus has only this to say to these protestors: shut your filthy, lying mouths, you hypocrites and sons of hypocrites. The Church has beatified only those of her personnel who were murdered, often by cruel and inhuman methods, during the conflict of 1934-37. She has not beatified Franco, for goodness’ sake. So why the fuss?

The fuss of course proceeds from those for whom the Church can only be an oppressor, never a victim; those for whom the clergy are no more than enemy combatants that must be killed at any price, never innocent men simply carrying out the duties of their state.

It is clear that the wholesale slaughter of bishops, priests, monks and nuns was carried out not for military reasons, or even because the Church may have sided, or have been perceived to side, with the Nationalists.

The slaughter was occasioned by nothing other than a hatred of the Church and her clergy — a hatred for the Catholic religion itself, a hatred which manifested itself in such bizarre displays as one sees in this photograph (original here), which shows leftist troops shooting a statue of Christ.

Yes, shooting a statue. And that obviously because it represents Our Lord. If this does not indicate a virulent—not to say irrational—hatred of the Christian faith, then what does it indicate? In military terms, this is simply a waste of ammunition. But this is not a military act, it is a symbolic act.

Because they could not murder Christ Himself, they turned their fury on His representatives—even upon those who were most far removed from political life, who spent their time hidden away from the world in silent prayer, monks in their monasteries, and cloistered nuns. Even though these could not have had less to do with the political controversies that convulsed Spain in the 1930s, they were nonetheless dragged from their enclosures and mercilessly done to death.

There were sufficient numbers of anarchists and communists among the Republican forces during the civil war to ensure that in the chaos of the war, the Church would indeed be targeted. This much was inevitable. To the fanatical ideologues of socialism, the clergy are indeed the enemy, and must be done away with. After all, the revolutionary hero cannot proceed to construct the socialist order while there are still men in soutanes going about, instructing the people in doctrines that contradict socialist dogma, and filling their heads full of all that counter-revolutionary nonsense about Jesus and heaven and eternal life.

Today the same element holds sway in Spanish society. The spiritual descendants of the murderers of the 1930s are just as trenchantly opposed to religion as were their forebears. Except that today, as it is no longer possible for them to shoot the clergy, to throw them down a mine shaft or to bury them alive, it is necessary to shout down the Church and to portray her as the practitioner of every barbarity, in order to claim for the left the status of unique and only victim of the violence of the Spanish Civil War. The right is always expected to acknowledge its crimes and be contrite; the left never. And unless the Church of God toadies up to the left and plays by the left’s rules, she is denied a voice.

How narrow-minded, mean-spirited and small-souled must they be, who cannot stomach even the memory of the martyrs who suffered in the passion of Spain!

Omnes santi martyres Hispaniae, ora pro nobis et pro universo mundo!

Read the whole thing, from Catholic World News, here.

The feast of St. Luke

Today, October 18th, is the feast of St. Luke, physician, friend and colleague of St. Paul, evangelist, and author of the Acts of the Apostles.

THE INTROIT

Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable; their principality is exceedingly strengthened. Ps. Lord, thou hast proved me and known me: Thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up.

THE COLLECT

LET holy Luke, thine Evangelist, we beseech thee, O Lord, intercede for us, who for the glory of thy name ever bore in his body the mortification of the cross. Through our Lord.

Melancholicus is wont to regard this day, somewhat informally, as the beginning of winter, inasmuch as up to this point in the year the autumn season is usually mild, dry, and relatively light, whereas after St. Luke’s day the colder weather closes in, bringing strong winds and driving rain, and henceforth for several months Melancholicus faces the burden of rising in the morning in darkness. Melancholicus likes his bed, and is loathe to leave it unless there be sufficient light at his window. But the choice is not his to make, so rise in the middle of the night he must.

October 18th is also the anniversary of the foundation in 1988 of this clerical society, to which (in his days as a seminarist) Melancholicus once had the privilege of belonging.