The bishops who came home from Vatican II (or the “liturgist” wolves they failed to stop) initiated acts of violent destruction and iconoclasm in the name of the Council. The zeal for change disparaged the Church’s heritage and liturgical tradition and naturally influenced its architecture and design. This ended up destroying the monuments that our…
450 years ago, on December 27, 1571, a mathematician and astronomer, who sought the music of God in the skies, was born in Weil der Stadt, near Stuttgart in Germany: Johannes Kepler. At the age of 19 he enrolled in the Theological Facoltà of the University of Tübingen, where he studied, in addition to theology,…
A century ago, on December 16, 1921, a multifaceted musician, the undisputed protagonist of the second Romanticism in France, and a virtuoso pianist, organist and skilled improviser, prolific composer and eloquent music critic, died in Algiers (Algeria): Camille Saint-Saëns. He was born 86 years earlier, on October 9, 1835, in Paris. A child prodigy, after…
Five centuries ago, on December 13, 1521, in Le Grotte, now Grottammare, a charming town on the Adriatic coast in the Marche region, was born the tough pope: Sixtus V, whose original name was Felice Peretti. The great Roman dialect poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791–1863) celebrates him in one of his gracious sonnets: Among all…
Writing about the construction of Notre Dame de Paris, two very different experts said: When it was decided to rebuild a cathedral, the bishop, the canons, rich townsfolk, and neighbouring landowners made the first offerings. The king was next approached, and usually gave a large sum. Collections were then made throughout the city and surrounding…
Once again the Christmas war is getting ready to break out. By that I do not mean the perennial struggle over Holiday versus Christmas which annually afflicts the entire body politic (at least in the United States), but a conflict peculiar to Traditional Catholics. By that, I mean the question regarding the synthetic mythology surrounding…
Five hundred years ago, on the night of December 1, 1521, a few days before his forty-sixth birthday, a great pope of the so-called Renaissance died: Leo X, whose original name was Giovanni de’ Medici. The second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent was born in Florence on December 11, 1475 in the most important of…
Brethren, knowing that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as…
Art and the Female Principle Other than Our Lord Jesus Christ there has been no more frequent subject in Western figurative art than the Blessed Virgin Mary. If the object of the arts, when rightly ordered, is beauty, then it is fitting that the inspiration of so much Western material and musical culture be the…
The Church, acknowledging that man is not merely an intellectual being who can subsist on thoughts alone but a creature who approaches reality through his senses, has always emphasized the importance of incorporating sense-perceptible signs into her acts of worship. Even if we assent to supernatural truth sola fide, we do not engage with it…
It takes saints to make saints. The liturgical year of the Church is filled with quite literally a priceless array of treasures that are all oriented to make it easier for us to get to Heaven. The commemorations of the saints, the feasts and fasts, the monuments in the life of Christ and His Church…
