The Bride

A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. This is one of them. The following was inspired by this image:

The Bride

To see her now you see a woman stained
With grime of age and tears that flow unchecked.
“The Whore!” they jeer. With jealous scorn they rained
Down blows and lies; her beauty they have wrecked.
Alas! There is no comeliness in her,
And who can love the one despised by all?
He was hated, now hate is all for her.
And where is He that would halt her fall?
A line of heroes (for she is not alone!)
Arise to guard, with word and life and pen,
The bride. Ignatius, Basil, and others own
Their mother’s honor to the bitter end.
    On that last day, His bride He will behold
    And see her wounds are jewels, her bruises gold.

A Review of Ivanhoe, Why Are There no Good Priests?

Image taken from Amazon.com

            Sir Walter Scott’s novel, Ivanhoe, stirs the imagination with its villains and heroes, its knights and castles, and its love and hate.  Written in the early nineteenth century and set in England at the time of the Third Crusade, Ivanhoe was a literary success.  In spite of its classification as a historical novel, its history is inexact.

On Popes and Cardinal Pecksniffs

Seeing the world through the lens of Charles Dickens is quite conducive to sanity. In almost every circumstance of life, there is an event or character from his books that can serve as a clarifying parallel. The character he created seem to be caricatures rather than real people, but it is the very exaggeration of faults and virtues which provides a touchstone by which to judge the world in which we live. One such Dickensian character is that of Pecksniff from Martin Chuzzlewitt.

Pecksniff is an architect of no skill or talent whatsoever, whose one success in the book comes from stealing someone else’s design. Pecksniff carries himself with an air that only appears to radiate goodness to himself and his sycophant daughters. He thinks his self-serving is charity, his grasping subservience to be humility, and his greed to be nothing but love for his fellow men. In the end, the only one fooled by Pecksniff is Pecksniff.

The Death Knell of Pluralism

Police guard a Christmas market after a truck ran into the crowded Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, Monday. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

During the week before Christmas, two ISIS attacks made international news: the assignation of the Russian ambassador and the Belgium attack in a Christmas shopping center.  Regarding the Belgium attack, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that it would be a tragedy if the attack was carried out by a Syrian refugee. (Well, she can rest easy – it wasn’t a Syrian refugee, but a Tunisian Muslim immigrant.) And in the modern PC mindset, she is right. However, the real tragedy is the modern approach to religious liberty.

Impressionism - A Commentary on Modernism in the Church

Impressions: Sunrise by Claude Monet

     The nineteenth century was a pivotal point in European history.  The continent revolted against the last vestiges of Christendom.  This political revolution began in 1789 and ended with the conclusion of World War I in 1917.  Between these two dates, new thoughts and principles were violently enforced on the body politic of Europe.  Monarchs were overthrown; bloody riots occurred in all of the major European cities; modern philosophy overthrew man’s connection to reality; Liberalism and Modernism infected the Church.