Flogging Brother Ass

Francis subjected himself and his followers to a poverty that appalled their fellow beggars, fasting frequently and sleeping on dirt (when perfectly good piles of filthy straw were available), taking all too literally Christ's eerie injunction, "€œSell all you have, give it to the poor, and come ...

The Vatican Space Program

The Assumption is not something invented by Pope Pius XII in 1950, the year when he infallibly declared it a dogma of the Catholic Church. Nor was he introducing some pious innovation to the core of the Catholic faith, indulging the excessive piety of Marian Catholics, or even"€”as C.G. Jung ...

Malta: Knights, Wars & Wines

One of the most delightfully anachronistic institutions in the world is an order of military monks called the Knights of Malta. The Knights got named for Malta because that small, Mediterranean island was ruled for centuries by this distinctive religious order, the last group to carry on the spirit ...

The Real Bastille Day

The French Revolution was really a digestive eruption of all the basest instincts in the lowest elements of society, led by power-drunk ideologues of the radical Left. It was utterly unlike the American rebellion against the English colonial officials "€“ which amounted to a regional secession, ...

Sake and the Latin Mass

In the 1970s, as Pope Paul VI faced wholesale rebellion by progressives in the Church, he wielded his papal authority instead to persecute the small numbers of Catholics who resisted the most expansive readings of Vatican II. As a flag of resistance, these traditionalists also rejected the new, ...

Highballs and High Society

I would especially like to believe the theories of David Icke, a former British soccer player who "€œdiscovered"€ the fact that the world has been dominated, for the past 10,000 years, by a race of alien lizard-men who can take on human form. According to Icke, keeping up a human appearance is ...

Revolting Elites and Their Pet Amnesty

Here's one aspect of the amnesty which no one is talking about: The moment each of these illegals receives his walking papers, he will be eligible for affirmative action preferences over every white male in America. Including veterans of the Iraq war. Instead of guarding the U.S. borders, our men ...

The Wines of Provence and the Armies of Allah

What happened to turn wealthy sixth-century Gaul into the howling wasteland it would become just a hundred years later? It was the Islamic conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, which cut Europe off from the ancient centers of grain production in Egypt, and Asiatic trade in Syria and Persia. ...

Pentecost: Because Fire is Cool

The Feast of Pentecost is one of the most important to Christians, for a number of reasons. First, it marks the birthday of the Church, the day when the Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles and Mary, and gave everyone the nerve they needed to preach the risen Christ to a hostile mob. Pentecost ...

The Saint Who Invented Therapy

St. Dymphna was buried in Gheel, where she was martyred, and a shrine was built in her honor. Several centuries later, a group of "€œmadmen"€ who"€™d been driven from town to town happened upon the shrine"€”and were miraculously cured. Word of this cure spread quickly, in a world without ...