Book Launching, 33 Years Ago in Milan, October 15, 1993

October 15, 2026

Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility

 

Pius XII: Great Goals and Immense Means to Bring About the Restoration of the Christian Social Order

 

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

One of the most important results of the First World War, though not the most noticed, was a transformation, in fact a fundamental revolution, not only in the political and economic sphere but also with regard to the mentality and customs in force before the war.
In other words, much of what was regarded as essential, elevated, sublime, and perhaps intangible before the conflict was mercilessly swept away by the whirlwind of events and replaced with other customs and attitudes diametrically opposed to the earlier ones.
A similar phenomenon occurred after the Second World War. So we can say that the two great wars of the twentieth century—God forbid we should get a third one before this troubled century ends—were two major revolutions.
It is a duty of justice to note that in his 14 allocutions to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility, Pius XII tried to mitigate the effects of these revolutions by giving directives of an admirable wisdom.
Specifically with respect to the second post-war period, the Pope says:
This time the work of restoration is incomparably more immense, more delicate, and more complex. It is not a question of bringing one sole nation back to normalcy. One can say that the entire world must be rebuilt; the universal order must be re-established. The material order, the intellectual order, the social order, the international order—all must be remade and set back in a regular, constant motion. That tranquil order that is peace, that is the only true peace, cannot be reborn and endure except by building human society upon Christ, so as to gather, recapitulate, reunite everything in Him (Allocution of January 14, 1945).
So, one who reads this Pope’s documents easily realizes he had in mind to oppose that massive Revolution with a Counter-Revolution. A Counter-Revolution that would save from ruin a great many traditions and enable a number of others that still had every reason to exist but crumbled, to get back on their feet and recover their vitality.
Of course, since the Pope addressed only the nobles and the traditional elites, some people supposed that he counted on them alone to carry out that work. The persons who thought so, perhaps also deemed those classes the only ones capable of understanding, loving and defending the traditions of which they were specifically the carriers.

Indeed, one sees that Pius XII called particularly on those elites to take up that great mission. This is understandable as they are the guarantors of the perennial values the Pope believes should not be allowed to vanish.

We should note how he really wanted a comprehensive collaboration in this regard. He asked such collaboration not only from members of an elite still in possession of sufficient assets to radiate all the prestige coming from their past and thus place at the service of the Counter-Revolution all the force of impact with that one might expect.

It is obvious, however, that the Pontiff expected even more from the Patriciate and Nobility. He also counted—and notably so—on persons from that social class who, having been ruined by the misfortunes of war, no longer had material resources to remain influential. Though reduced to very fragile and often times shockingly frugal economic situations, those persons, with great family names, still had to give the precious example of true nobility and the best that could be expected of it; in other words, to show how their class can keep virtue, grandeur of soul and moral dignity unscathed and can radiate them to other social classes even when deprived of all kinds of material goods.

But we must go beyond that. Pius XII manifestly counted on the ensemble of the social body not only to save the still existing elites and traditions they carried but also to make sure that new elites would spring up alongside the old. To these new elites would befall—in the face of new situations and animated with a truly Catholic mentality—the development of new habits, customs and forms of power. And all this without destroying or denying the past in any way, but completing it when necessary.

The famous Saint-Cyr boarding house that the Marquise of Maintenon, morganatic wife of Louis XIV, founded to help the numerous young ladies of the aristocracy whose parents had become impoverished.

It would be reasonable for Pius XII, in pursuit of such a lofty goal, to think of founding some specific type of association or institution and ask it to make a special effort to deal with the new circumstances. It would be something in the lines of the famous Saint-Cyr boarding house that the Marquise of Maintenon, morganatic wife of Louis XIV, founded to help the numerous young ladies of the aristocracy whose parents had become impoverished.

Obviously, however, that was not the main project in which Pope Pacelli placed his best hopes.

Note that, when speaking about his hopes, in spite of somehow playing the role of advocate for a certain past in face of new situations that arise, the Pontiff hoped to plead as much as he could for the cause of tradition and nobility. Therefore, his words have the value of a warm encouragement and a precise guideline.

It is timely to stress this idea here, that is, that society considered as a whole is a great body made up not only by institutions and smaller societies but also by a multitude of individuals who, by carrying out a merely personal action on behalf of the common good, form a first rate social force which the Pontiff counted very much upon.

One has the impression that, as he saw it, no success is possible in this matter without the collaboration of the whole social body.

That is very far indeed from the servitude into which the modern media’s propaganda machines cast peoples and nations, superseding the so-to-speak autocephalous organizations that should genuinely influence society. Today it is almost impossible to make a cause successful without the “placet” of the ensemble of the media or at least some of their major players. So that, no matter how much they talk about democracy, the truth of the matter is that in our so-called democratic societies the decision-making power is almost always in the hands of media moguls. Pius XII could easily and comfortably appeal to them, who could heed his entreaties, or at least feign to.

“What is, then, the power which Pius XII counted on? Obviously, and first of all, it was the power of God almighty, Who made Constantine victorious in the battle of the Milvian Bridge…

Naturally, he wanted their effective collaboration, and obtained it on many points. But in his allocutions to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility, the media do not appear as the essential element of an ideal society. Probably because its leaders are essentially and permanently tempted to be inauthentic; and as is known, human frailty often times succumbs to such temptations.

…and John of Austria the winner in the battle of Lepanto, to mention only two outstanding historic examples.”

What is, then, the power which Pius XII counted on? Obviously, and first of all, it was the power of God almighty, Who made Constantine victorious in the battle of the Milvian Bridge and John of Austria the winner in the battle of Lepanto, to mention only two outstanding historic examples. In fact, the lesson from the teaching of Pius XII is that if each individual Catholic heeds it and strives to fulfill his duty accordingly by acting in his own personal sphere, the end result can be a huge force with global impact.

Finally, in these allocutions we should see above all the Pontiff’s profound commitment to have everyone orient their ideal aspirations in unison with him and concentrate their efforts mainly in their immediate sphere of action: In other words, those with whom they live at home and in the exercise of their profession. If all Catholics, proud to collaborate with the Pope in this indisputably great crusade, perhaps the crusade of the 20th century, worked in earnest in pursuit of this goal beyond all organizations and coalitions, victory would affirm itself. The victory of great causes is not ensured so much by large armies as by the individual action of great multitudes imbued with great ideals and disposed to make every sacrifice in order to win.

It seems important to emphasize this point because there are far too many people today who, in order to concentrate their whole existence within the tranquil and carefree confines of their personal comfort zone, and to deem themselves exempt from any obligation to great causes, conveniently allege that individual action is doomed to fail in our times of huge human masses huddled in Babylonian-size urban centers. And even when spread over vast expanses of land, sea or air—they claim—those masses are continuously subjected to psychological and ideological manipulation by an ever-present and seemingly all-encompassing media.

“The victory of great causes is not ensured so much by large armies as by the individual action of great multitudes imbued with great ideals and disposed to make every sacrifice in order to win.”

I want to make this very clear so that no one can have a pretext to do nothing by alleging personal weakness, a puny influence at best, and the consequent uselessness of any effort he might make. Let no one, from the greatest to the smallest, spare any effort to strive in the direction indicated by the Pontiff, and victory is assured.

This is the central thought of Pius XII, and thus, far from discouraging organized efforts by associations and social groups desirous of promoting this great good and capable of carrying out this great common task, I would like these groups to also have the collaboration of all those sensitive to the teaching of Pius XII, as they represent an immense force.

For you to gauge this force, I want to close by recalling a well-known historic episode. When Napoleon’s power in Italy was reaching its apex, one of his generals asked him with what degree of deference he should treat the reigning Pope. Napoleon’s answer was quick and razor-sharp: “Treat him like a general with imposing armies at his command.” While the white-haired occupant of the Throne of St. Peter might seem, to many, only as powerful as other old men, the sagacious Napoleon saw him as a world power. Why? Because a countless multitude of people, seemingly without importance, capacity or individual force of impact, nevertheless recognized him as the Vicar of Christ on earth and was ready to do anything for him. And that coalition of seemingly worthless faithful instilled fear in the man who made tremble the great of this world.

A well-made historic analysis will show that one of the causes why Napoleon felt isolated and broken after Waterloo, was that he did not have on his side the “General” who had command over that invisible but redoubtable army, the multitude of those who, though small in the eyes of men, are very powerful at the feet of God’s throne with their prayers and sacrifices. In other words, the Church no longer looked with sympathy at the apparent conqueror of Europe.

One no longer saw, around him, the friendly gaze of men with a simple but honest mentality, who had hoped he would be, at a certain point, a restorer of the Church’s rights out of the ruins the French Revolution tried to turn her into; those who had hoped that his sword would avenge so many overthrown legitimacies, both in the sphere of public law and that of individual rights; those who, seeing him ask Pius XII to crown him in Notre Dame, were so filled with hope that his gesture was a recognition of the divine origin of Power, that they missed the fact that Napoleon did not allow the Pope to crown his head with the imperial diadem; instead, he took it from the Pontiff’s hands and proudly crowned himself, denying the power he was seemingly going to restore.

“The Church no longer looked with sympathy at the apparent conqueror of Europe.”

Yet, another celebrated saying eventually illustrated the abandonment the tyrant had reduced himself to, with his ambiguous religious—when not openly anti-religious—policies.

The chronicles say that, as the troops of Bonaparte marched victoriously toward Moscow, a Russian officer, special envoy of Alexander I, asked to have an audience with him. After some negotiations, lunch time came and Bonaparte invited to his table the envoy of the Czar of all Russias. During the meal, the conversation dealt with the number of religious buildings that the invading monarch had noticed on Russian soil. Trying to attribute the weak Russian resistance to a supposedly excessive religiosity, Napoleon asked the officer if Russia was, in European territory, the nation which had spent the most money on religious buildings.

The Czar’s envoy cleverly answered: “No, Sire, there is Spain too.” Now then, precisely around that time, heroic Spanish Catholics were inflicting unprecedented and humiliating defeats on some of Napoleon’s greatest generals. Understanding the allusion and the admirable military scope of Iberian religious fervor, the Corse general fell silent. Shortly afterward, Moscow was set ablaze and withdrawal from Russia became for Napoleon an inescapable necessity. He might also have recalled, amid his afflictions in Waterloo, everything he had lacked in order to win. And he possibly understood, more than ever, the importance of the religious factor confronting even the greatest generals.

If the lack of that factor causes such great weakness, its presence can be tremendously constructive. That is the power of the multitudes of faithful who crown with success the works of Popes when, moved by the Holy Ghost, they feel capable of exercising what Camões beautifully called “Christian daring” (Lusíadas, VII, 14).

Such were certainly the thoughts that filled with hope the heart of Pope Pacelli as he delivered his famous allocutions to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility.

“Deus vult,” exclaimed in unison, in Clermont, France, feudal warriors theretofore indolent facing the advancing Muslim danger. But the action of the Holy Ghost, making itself felt in the voice of Blessed Pope Urban II, filled with mystical inflections, rapidly kindled in those numb hearts the sublime flames of crusader combativeness. And the course of history changed.

View of the public at the display table during the Oct. 15, 1993 launching of Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII in Milan, Italy

The voice of Pius XII still resounds in his allocutions to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility; and this is why those allocutions, unable to shake the inertia of so many Catholics at the time they were made, today appear admirably vivified by a renewal of grace that leads every greater legions of our contemporaries to long for the restoration of a Christian and hierarchical society in which the tranquility of order reigns in an atmosphere of peace; a society in which all legitimate hierarchies are respected for the sake of the common good.

This explains the fact that, with renewed ardor for this grand ideal, the allocutions of Pius XII to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility are now featured in the book being launched today and are thus seeing new days of efficacy and glory in ever larger civilized circles of the West.

Portugal, Spain, the Iberian-American world, the Anglo-American world, France, South Africa, are nations in which these admirable allocutions circulate today in the unpretentious pages of this book with the vigor and force of impact they would have if pronounced by the great Pontiff only a few days ago. This raises the hope that in other countries such as England and Germany the same thing will happen as it now does in this admirable Italy, the joy and glory of the whole world, with book launchings in Milan, Rome and Naples.

Thus, may the Virgin Most Holy deign bring to fruition the so very just, timely and indispensable longings of Pope Pacelli.

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October 15 – Interior Castle

October 15, 2026

St. Teresa of Avila

Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada, born at Avila, Old Castile, 28 March, 1515; died at Alba de Tormes, 4 Oct., 1582.

This is the only portrait of St. Teresa, which day after day, she obediently sat for as a penance. It was painted when St. Teresa was 61, by Friar Juan de la Miseria in 1576. When the picture was finished, with a faint smile, she said, “God forgive you Fray Juan! To think that after all I have suffered at your hands, you should paint me so bleary eyed and ugly!”

The third child of Don Alonso Sanchez de Cepeda by his second wife, Doña Beatriz Davila y Ahumada, who died when the saint was in her fourteenth year, Teresa was brought up by her saintly father, a lover of serious books, and a tender and pious mother. After her death and the marriage of her eldest sister, Teresa was sent for her education to the Augustinian nuns at Avila, but owing to illness she left at the end of eighteen months, and for some years remained with her father and occasionally with other relatives, notably an uncle who made her acquainted with the Letters of St. Jerome, which determined her to adopt the religious life, not so much through any attraction towards it, as through a desire of choosing the safest course. Unable to obtain her father’s consent she left his house unknown to him on Nov., 1535, to enter the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at Avila, which then counted 140 nuns. The wrench from her family caused her a pain which she ever afterwards compared to that of death. However, her father at once yielded and Teresa took the habit.

The incorrupt arm of St. Teresa of Avila in Alba de Tormes, Spain.

After her profession in the following year she became very seriously ill, and underwent a prolonged cure and such unskillful medical treatment that she was reduced to a most pitiful state, and even after partial recovery through the intercession of St. Joseph, her health remained permanently impaired. During these years of suffering she began the practice of mental prayer, but fearing that her conversations with some world-minded relatives, frequent visitors at the convent, rendered her unworthy of the graces God bestowed on her in prayer, discontinued it, until she came under the influence, first of the Dominicans, and afterwards of the Jesuits.

This is the stone that St. Teresa sat on, waiting for King Philip II. This stone, generally unnoticed, is on the front left corner of El Escorial.

Meanwhile God had begun to visit her with “intellectual visions and locutions”, that is manifestations in which the exterior senses were in no way affected, the things seen and the words heard being directly impressed upon her mind, and giving her wonderful strength in trials, reprimanding her for unfaithfulness, and consoling her in trouble. Unable to reconcile such graces with her shortcomings, which her delicate conscience represented as grievous faults, she had recourse not only to the most spiritual confessors she could find, but also to some saintly laymen, who, never suspecting that the account she gave them of her sins was greatly exaggerated, believed these manifestations to be the work of the evil spirit. The more she endeavoured to resist them the more powerfully did God work in her soul. The whole city of Avila was troubled by the reports of the visions of this nun. It was reserved to St. Francis Borgia and St. Peter of Alcantara, and afterwards to a number of Dominicans (particularly Pedro Ibañez and Domingo Bañez), Jesuits, and other religious and secular priests, to discern the work of God and to guide her on a safe road.

Her incorrupt body, which is above the main altar, in Alba de Tormes. Despite all her illnesses, which she endured her entire life, the body of St. Teresa, remained as white and smooth as alabaster, like that of a child of three. All the wrinkles that had gathered since her illness had vanished. A sweet smell which nobody could describe or identify came from the body and everything that had touched it — towels, garments, even St. Teresa’s fingerprints on a plate. It became so overpowering in the cell where she died that the windows had to be opened to prevent headaches and fainting.

The account of her spiritual life contained in the “Life written by herself” (completed in 1565, an earlier version being lost), in the “Relations”, and in the “Interior Castle”, forms one of the most remarkable spiritual biographies with which only the “Confessions of St. Augustine” can bear comparison. To this period belong also such extraordinary manifestations as the piercing or transverberation of her heart, the spiritual espousals, and the mystical marriage. A vision of the place destined for her in hell in case she should have been unfaithful to grace, determined her to seek a more perfect life. After many troubles and much opposition St. Teresa founded the convent of Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule of St. Joseph at Avila (24 Aug., 1562), and after six months obtained permission to take up her residence there.

The hourglass, spoon, and various dishes that were used by St. Teresa. St. Teresa was especially fond of the gospel story of the Samaritan woman at the well seeking the water of life and she would say to Him over and over again, “Lord, give me that water!” To her, water always seemed something delightful and marvelous, something at once so natural and so inexplicable, so clearly an evidence of the power and goodness of God, that she was constantly admiring it and trying to think of ways to describe its properties. From her childhood till her death, she never lost this wonder and delight at the sight and feeling of water.

Four years later she received the visit of the General of the Carmelites, John-Baptist Rubeo (Rossi), who not only approved of what she had done but granted leave for the foundation of other convents of friars as well as nuns. In rapid succession she established her nuns at Medina del Campo (1567), Malagon and Valladolid (1568), Toledo and Pastrana (1569), Salamanca (1570), Alba de Tormes (1571), Segovia (1574), Veas and Seville (1575), and Caravaca (1576). In the “Book of Foundations” she tells the story of these convents, nearly all of which were established in spite of violent opposition but with manifest assistance from above. Everywhere she found souls generous enough to embrace the austerities of the primitive rule of Carmel. Having made the acquaintance of Antonio de Heredia, prior of Medina, and St. John of the Cross (q.v.), she established her reform among the friars (28 Nov., 1568), the first convents being those of Duruelo (1568), Pastrana (1569), Mancera, and Alcalá de Henares (1570).

Her incorrupt heart, which was pierced with an arrow. Her body was exhumed several times after her death, and each time the body was found incorrupt, firm, and sweet-smelling. Her heart, hands, right foot, right arm, left eye and part of her jaw are on display in various sites around the world.

A new epoch began with the entrance into religion of Jerome Gratian, inasmuch as this remarkable man was almost immediately entrusted by the nuncio with the authority of visitor Apostolic of the Carmelite friars and nuns of the old observance in Andalusia, and as such considered himself entitled to overrule the various restrictions insisted upon by the general and the general chapter. On the death of the nuncio and the arrival of his successor a fearful storm burst over St. Teresa and her work, lasting four years and threatening to annihilate the nascent reform. The incidents of this persecution are best described in her letters. The storm at length passed, and the province of Discalced Carmelites, with the support of Philip II, was approved and canonically established on 22 June, 1580. St. Teresa, old and broken in health, made further foundations at Villnuava de la Jara and Palencia (1580), Soria (1581), Granada (through her assiatant the Venerable Anne of Jesus), and at Burgos (1582). She left this latter place at the end of July, and, stopping at Palencia, Valldolid, and Medina del Campo, reached Alba de Torres in September, suffering intensely. Soon she took to her bed and passed away on 4 Oct., 1582, the following day, owing to the reform of the calendar, being reckoned as 15 October. After some years her body was transferred to Avila, but later on reconveyed to Alba, where it is still preserved incorrupt. Her heart, too, showing the marks of the Transverberation, is exposed there to the veneration of the faithful. She was beatified in 1614, and canonized in 1622 by Gregory XV, the feast being fixed on 15 October.

This is the room where St. Teresa died. Shortly before St. Teresa died, Bl. Ana de San Bartolomé saw Our Lord at the foot of St. Teresa’s bed in majesty and splendor, attended by myriad angels, and at the head, the Ten Thousand Martyrs who had promised St. Teresa, in a rapture years before, to come for her in the moment of death. When she sighed her last, one of the sisters saw something like a white dove pass from her mouth. And while Sister Catalina de la Concepción, who was very holy and had less than a year to live, was sitting by the low window opening on the cloister by La Madre’s cell, she heard a great noise as of a throng of joyful and hilarious people making merry, and then saw innumerable resplendent persons, all dressed in white, pass the cloister and into the room of the dying Saint, where the nuns gathered about her seemed but a handful in comparison; and then all advanced toward the bed. And this was the moment when St. Teresa died.

St. Teresa’s position among writers on mystical theology is unique. In all her writings on this subject she deals with her personal experiences, which a deep insight and analytical gifts enabled her to explain clearly. The Thomistic substratum may be traced to the influence of her confessors and directors, many of whom belonged to the Dominican Order. She herself had no pretension to found a school in the accepted sense of the term, and there is no vestige in her writings of any influence of the Aeropagite, the Patristic, or the Scholastic Mystical schools, as represented among others, by the German Dominican Mystics. She is intensely personal, her system going exactly as far as her experiences, but not a step further.

BENEDICT ZIMMERMAN (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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October 16 – Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France and Capetian Widow

October 15, 2026

A miniature portrait of Marie-Antoinette by Anne Vallayer-Coster, one of the queen's favorite artists and who received several important portrait commissions from the royal family. This miniature is housed at the Walters Art Museum, in Maryland.

A miniature portrait of Marie-Antoinette by Anne Vallayer-Coster, one of the queen’s favorite artists and who received several important portrait commissions from the royal family. This miniature is housed at the Walters Art Museum, in Maryland.

Most Reverend Monsignor Director of this Academy, Gentlemen Academicians:

A simple listing of the titles with which she was known during her short life as Marie Antoinette of Habsburg, and later Marie Antoinette of Bourbon, brings to memory the series of extraordinary and unforeseen events that together make up the fabric of the most interesting female existences of the eighteenth century.

In its first phase, the life of this princess unfolds as happily and brightly as a golden dream, uniting in the same person all the glory of power, all the brilliance of fortune, and all the charm of a radiant youth. Suddenly, however, that long chain of fortunes is cut short by a ghastly typhoon that causes the wreck of the monarchy, the desecration of altars, and the collapse of a nobility which, for many centuries, had been writing with its sword the brightest pages in the history of France.

Read more here.

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An Act Of Kindness – Never To Be Forgotten

October 15, 2026

The Forest of Fontainebleau by François-Auguste Ortmans.

But her best-known deed, and the one which made the greatest sensation, was that which is known as the incident of Achères. It was at Fontainebleau, during the hunt again, on Oct 16, 1773. The deer, being at bay, took refuge in a small enclosure of the village of Achères.  Finding no issue thence, and rendered furious by his despair, he turned upon a peasant who was cultivating the enclosure, and gored him twice with his antlers, – once in the thigh and once in the body. The man was thrown down, severely wounded. His wife, wild with grief, flew toward the hunters and fell in a faint. The king, after giving orders that she should be looked after, withdrew.

Deer in the forest at Fontainebleau, by Rosa Bonheur.

The dauphiness descended from her carriage, made the unfortunate woman inhale her salts, and after having brought her out of her faint, showered upon her money, consolation, and tears. She then made her get into her carriage and commanded that she should be taken to her house; nor did she rejoin the hunt until she had assured herself that the two invalids would receive the necessary attention. The entire court, moved by her noble example, hastened to aid the unfortunate ones. The dauphin emptied his purse into their hands; the Comtesse de Provence did the same. On the following day, Marie Antoinette did not fail to send to inquire after the wounded man, whose condition had at first seemed critical, but who recovered, nevertheless, thanks to the care that the surgeons of the court, on the order of the young princess, bestowed upon him.

Marie Antoinette’s act of compassion was immortalized in a pencil and ink drawing by Jean-Michel Moreau the Younger. The print, titled “Act of Kindness by the Dauphine, October 16, 1773”, now hangs in a museum in Vienna.

The public, on learning these details, and delighted with the tears of sympathy that the dauphiness had shed, was inexhaustible in its praises of her. There was but one cry of admiration for her. At Fontainebleau the people crowded together wherever there was a chance of seeing her. At Marly, at Versailles, they greeted her with such enthusiasm and acclamation when she went out as almost to frighten her.

The Life of Marie Antoinette, Volume 1 By Maxime de La Rocheterie, Chapter VII, Page 78-79.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 793

 

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The Guillotine and Its Servants

October 15, 2026

By Gustave Lenotre*

Revolutionaries beheading the stone Saints that adorned the church.

“The scaffold had become a part of the people’s life, and a certain number of Parisians, were extremely entertained by the new plaything. Someone conceived the idea of beheading, in the porches of the old basilica of Notre-Dame, all the stone Saints that adorned the church-fronts. The whiteness of the broken stone contrasted strikingly with the bodies of the statues, blackened by time, and gave an impression of freshly-cut flesh, which was regarded as delightfully funny.”

Plunder of a church during the French Revolution. Painting by Victor-Henri Juglar.

No doubt you will think that ghoulish humor could not be carried farther: nevertheless there were even more horrible things than these. The wave of madness that spread over France had turned the nation’s head to such a degree that the guillotine had its lovers and its worshipers. There was a religion of the scaffold. Executioners volunteered, for love of the work, to purge the soil of the Republic from the royalists who defiled it. The Revolution had done their best to raise the scaffold to the dignity of an honored institution.

A ceremony of the new Republican Religion of Reason inside the Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, 1793.

Gateau, Controller of Army Stores, wrote: “Saint Guillotine¹ is in a state of the most brilliant activity, and the beneficent Terror is producing here, in a miraculous way, a condition of affairs that there could be no hope of achieving by means of reason and philosophy in less than a century. The time has come for the justice that inspires fear, and every guilty head ought to pass under the national leveler. The aristocrats must be shown, by songs and dances, that their death is the people’s only happiness.” Gateau had a wax seal engraved with a guillotine. These men made blood their god.
The dead were devoid of clothing, the executioners sold it until the Revolution made it that the government acquired the money; anything left was given to the poor.

Marie Grosholtz (Madame Tussaud) 1761-1850. A scene from the Chamber of Horrors in London of Madame Tussaud searching for the guillotined head of Marie Antoinette at Madeleine Cemetery, October 16, 1795. In Paris of 1770, Madame Tussaud learned to model wax likenesses under the tutelage of her mentor, Dr. Philippe Curtius. At the age of 17, she became an art tutor to King Louis XVI’s sister at the Palace Of Versailles. During the French Revolution, Marie was commanded to visit the mass graves to collect the severed heads of notable Royalist and Revolutionary victims of the guillotine so as to make new death masks. She even did Robespierre own death mask after he was a victim of the guillotine. The rebels used their death masks as trophies and paraded them through the city. She survived the Revolution and brought her exhibition to England in 1802. Photo by mariosp & bruciestokes.

¹The words Sainte Guillotine, were in common use.

*A short excerpt from his book by the same title.

The Guillotine and Its Servants By Gustave Lenotre. Pg. 199: Ch. VIII, The Scaffold in Song; Pgs. 203-208:  Ch. IX,  Worship of the Guillotine

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 587

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October 16 – Apostle of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

October 15, 2026

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Religious of the Visitation Order. Apostle of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, born at Lhautecour, France, 22 July, 1647; died at Paray-le-Monial, 17 October, 1690.

St. Margaret Mary AlacoqueHer parents, Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn, were distinguished less for temporal possessions than for their virtue, which gave them an honourable position. From early childhood Margaret showed intense love for the Blessed Sacrament, and preferred silence and prayer to childish amusements. After her first communion at the age of nine, she practised in secret severe corporal mortifications, until paralysis confined her to bed for four years. At the end of this period, having made a vow to the Blessed Virgin to consecrate herself to religious life, she was instantly restored to perfect health. The death of her father and the injustice of a relative plunged the family in poverty and humiliation, after which more than ever Margaret found consolation in the Blessed Sacrament, and Christ made her sensible of His presence and protection. He usually appeared to her as the Crucified or the Ecce Homo, and this did not surprise her, as she thought others had the same Divine assistance. When Margaret was seventeen, the family property was recovered, and her mother besought her to establish herself in the world. Her filial tenderness made her believe that the vow of childhood was not binding, and that she could serve God at home by penance and charity to the poor. Then, still bleeding from her self-imposed austerities, she began to take part in the pleasures of the world. One night upon her return from a ball, she had a vision of Christ as He was during the scourging, reproaching her for infidelity after He had given her so many proofs of His love. During her entire life Margaret mourned over two faults committed at this time—the wearing of some superfluous ornaments and a mask at the carnival to please her brothers.

Our Lord appearing to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Our Lord appearing to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

On 25 May, 1671, she entered the Visitation Convent at Paray, where she was subjected to many trials to prove her vocation, and in November, 1672, pronounced her final vows. She had a delicate constitution, but was gifted with intelligence and good judgement, and in the cloister she chose for herself what was most repugnant to her nature, making her life one of inconceivable sufferings, which were often relieved or instantly cured by our Lord, Who acted as her Director, appeared to her frequently and conversed with her, confiding to her the mission to establish the devotion to His Sacred Heart. These extraordinary occurrences drew upon her the adverse criticism of the community, who treated her as a visionary, and her superior commanded her to live the common life. But her obedience, her humility, and invariable charity towards those who persecuted her, finally prevailed, and her mission, accomplished in the crucible of suffering, was recognized even by those who had shown her the most bitter opposition.

A relief of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque part of the choir stalls in St. Gordian and St. Epimachus Church in Bavaria. Photo by Andreas Praefcke.

A relief of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, part of the choir stalls in St. Gordian and St. Epimachus Church in Bavaria. Photo by Andreas Praefcke.

Margaret Mary was inspired by Christ to establish the Holy Hour and to pray lying prostrate with her face to the ground from eleven till midnight on the eve of the first Friday of each month, to share in the mortal sadness He endured when abandoned by His Apostles in His Agony, and to receive holy Communion on the first Friday of every month. In the first great revelation, He made known to her His ardent desire to be loved by men and His design of manifesting His Heart with all Its treasures of love and mercy, of sanctification and salvation. He appointed the Friday after the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi as the feast of the Sacred Heart; He called her “the Beloved Disciple of the Sacred Heart”, and the heiress of all Its treasures. The love of the Sacred Heart was the fire which consumed her, and devotion to the Sacred Heart is the refrain of all her writings. In her last illness she refused all alleviation, repeating frequently: “What have I in heaven and what do I desire on earth, but Thee alone, O my God”, and died pronouncing the Holy Name of Jesus.

Her incorrupt body rests above the side altar in the Chapel of the Apparitions, located at the Visitation Monastery in Paray-le-Monial

Her incorrupt body rests above the side altar in the Chapel of the Apparitions, located at the Visitation Monastery in Paray-le-Monial

The discussion of the mission and virtues of Margaret Mary continued for years. All her actions, her revelations, her spiritual maxims, her teachings regarding the devotion to the Sacred Heart, of which she was the chief exponent as well as the apostle, were subjected to the most severe and minute examination, and finally the Sacred Congregation of rites passed a favourable vote on the heroic virtues of this servant of God. In March, 1824, Leo XII pronounced her Venerable, and on 18 September, 1864, Pius IX declared her Blessed. When her tomb was canonically opened in July, 1830, two instantaneous cures took place. Her body rests under the altar in the chapel at Paray, and many striking favours have been obtained by pilgrims attracted thither from all parts of the world. Her feast is celebrated on 17 October.

[Note: She was canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.]

Reliquary of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

SISTER MARY BERNARD DOLL (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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October 16 – St. Bercharius

October 15, 2026

St. Bercharius

(BERERUS).

Abbot of Hautvillers in Champagne, b. 636; d. 28 March, 696. Descended from a distinguished Aquitanian family, he received his instruction from St. Nivard (Nivo), Archbishop of Reims, under whose charge he advaneed rapidly in virtue and learning. Believing himself called to the sacred ministry, he entered the monastery of Luxeuil under St. Walbert, and by his humble and faithful performance of duty soon excelled his fellow-novices. Upon his return to Reims he induced St. Nivard to erect the cloister of Hautvillers, of which Bercharius himself became the first abbot. Wholly given up to prayer and meditation he also instructed his brethren to lead a contemplative life. Ever zealous for the propagation of the Faith, he founded two cloisters in the Diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne, the one (Puisye or Moutier-en-Der) for men, the other (Pellmoutier, Puellarum Monasterium) for women. These institutions he enriched by donations of valuable relics, procured on a journey to Rome and the Holy Land.

The monk Daguin, provoked by a reprimand from Bercharius, stabbed him during the night. No word of complaint or censure did he utter when the murderer was led before him; but he gloried in exhorting the transgressor to penance and in requesting him to make a pilgrimage to Rome to obtain pardon and absolution. Daguin left the monastery never to return. After two days of severe suffering, the saint succumbed to his wound, a martyr not for the Faith, indeed, but for charity and justice. His remains were preserved at Moutier-en-Der until the suppression of religious orders at the close of the eighteenth century. The commemoration of his name occurs in the martyrology on the 16th of October.

BUTLER, XV, 252; ADSO, Vita S. Bercharii; SURIUS, X, 481.

Barnabas Dieringer (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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October 17 – The Battle of Cholet

October 15, 2026

Beaupréau

The Battle of Cholet was fought on 17 October 1793 during the French Revolutionary Wars, between French Republican forces under General Léchelle and French Royalist Forces under Louis d’Elbée. The battle was fought in the town of Cholet in the Maine-et-Loire department of France, and resulted in a Republican victory. D’Elbée was wounded and captured; he was later executed by Republican troops in Noirmoutier. Royalist Charles Melchior Artus de Bonchamps was fatally wounded in the battle.

Prelude

General Jean Baptiste Kléber

On the morning of 16 October 1793, the Vendéen army, beaten at the battle of La Tremblaye, with neither ammunition nor artillery, had evacuated Cholet to take up positions in Beaupréau. The republican avant-garde, commanded by Beaupuy, entered in the town square by the south and moved through the town to settle on the high grounds north of the town. Kléber then deployed the remainder of his troops by positioning the divisions of Beaupuy and Haxo on the left flank of the château de La Treille, and those of Louis Vimeux on the right flank of the château de Bois-Grolleau. As for François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, who had just been promoted brigadier general after the Battle of La Tremblaye,

General François-Séverin Desgraviers-Marceau Painting by François Bouchot

he occupied the center with general Marc Scherb, in front of the Papinière moorland where the terrain was open. Kléber informed Jean Léchelle of the situation, who was the chief general of the Army of the West, and he approved. The military competence of Léchelle were known to be null, most of the representatives had agreed to unofficially entrust the commandment to Kléber. That evening, the commissioners Pierre Bourbotte, René-Pierre Choudieu, Fayaud and Bellegarde arrived which brought the number of representatives in Cholet to seven considering Antoine Merlin de Thionville, Jean-Baptiste Carrier and Louis Turreau were already there. The republican forces waited again for a reinforcement of 10,000 men of the general Chalbos before pushing further to the north and towards Beaupréau, but they arrived during the night.

Republican strategy

General Armand-Michel Bacharetie de Beaupuy

The republican generals met in a war counsel early on 17 October. Kléber offered to divide the army in three columns and to march to Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, Gesté and Beaupréau in order to surround the Vendéen army and cut it from the Loire and the road to Nantes. The strategy was approved by the generals from Mayenne, by Marceau and by Merlin de Thionville, however a few other representatives and officers, particularly Chalbos, were against it. Chalbos thought the troops were too tired and the other officers were against dividing the army. Kléber’s plan was rejected and the counsel opted for an undivided march to Beaupréau.

Vendéen strategy

General Henri de La Rochejaquelein

At Beaupréau, the Vendéen officers were as divided as the former during the war counsel held at noon on 16 October. Bonchamps offered to have his Breton soldiers pass the Loire to start an uprising in Brittany and get reinforcements. Talmont, d’Autichamp and Donissan wanted the whole army to go. On the other hand, d’Elbée, La Rochejaquelein and Stofflet refused to leave Vendée. As for Royrand, he wished to try to breach enemy lines by the west in order to meet with Charette’s army. Finally, an attack on Cholet was decided and the army started its march. Nonetheless, Talmont was allowed to leave for Saint-Florent-le-Vieil with 4,000 men to take Varades.

General Jean-Nicolas Stofflet

The battle

Bataille by Jules Benoit Levy

In early afternoon of 17 October, the Vendéen army regrouped and strong of 40,000 men started the offensive on republican lines north of Cholet. Rapidly it managed to push back Beaupuy’s first lines to the Papinière moorlands. The Vendéens then burnt down the brooms, creating a huge amount of smoke which prevented the republican artillery from aiming correctly. The Vendéens advanced in formation like regular troops, in three tight lines, which contrasted with their regular tactic. La Rochejaquelein and Royrand commanded the right flank, d’Elbée and Bonchamps the middle, Stofflet and Marigny the left. Marceau’s troops which were bombarded by the 22 Vendéen canons and were clearly inferior in numbers were ready to fall. Kléber thus had the reserve troops intervene. Chalbos’ troops and the 4,000 men of François Muller were sent to aid Marceau. Seeing the quantity of Vendéens who were advancing with determination, the arriving republican army fell back to Cholet creating great confusion. Carrier himself fled. At the same time in Bois-Grolleau, Vimeux and Scherb managed to hold against Stofflet and Marigny.

In La Treille, Haxo and Beaupuy’s troops were beaten against La Rochejaquelein and Royrand and pulled back to the faubourgs of Cholet. Kléber then joined this flank and regrouped a few battalions from his reserves, and the 109th infantry regiment, and ordered them to flank the Vendéen lines. The order was correctly executed and seeing this troop flank them the Vendéens thought a new republican army had arrived as reinforcements so a moment of hesitation spread in their ranks. Being subjected to the republican counter-attack, they managed to resist a little while, but facing the multiple charges of the troops of Kléber, Bard and Beaupuy, they panicked and fled. In the middle, Marceau placed his artillery behind his infantry. When the Vendéens attacked, Marceau had his infantry step back to reveal the canons, which opened fire at the last moment causing a huge number of losses among Vendéen soldiers. Surprised, the Vendéen middle line fled as well while the republican infantry counter-attacked. D’Elbée and Bonchamps knew victory was close so with a few hundred cavaliers and soldiers they tried to rally their troops. They didn’t manage, and ended being encircled by the Republicans. D’Elbée and Bonchamps fell severely wounded practically at the same time. The last Vendéens fled taking their wounded officers with them. The escape became general and “to the Loire” cries could be heard. At Pontreau, the troops of Lyrot and Piron de La Varenne managed to intervene in time to secure the retreat of the Vendéen army to Beaupréau.

War of La Vendée Painting by Jules Girardet

Crossing the Loire

Once at Beaupréau, the Vendéen generals decided it was best to leave, the entire army moved to Saint-Florent-le-Vieil in order to cross the Loire. The expedition of Talmont on Varades having easily succeeded, the entry to Brittany was free. Only d’Elbée, severely wounded, didn’t follow the army. A small number of Vendéen soldiers took him west where to Charette’s army where he could seek refuge at Noirmoutier. In the mean time, the republican army had returned to Cholet. Westermann who had stayed at Châtillon-sur-Sèvre during the battle wanted to pursue the Vendéens. Followed by the troops of Beaupuy and Haxo, he briefly fought the 8,000 strong Vendéen rear guard, but managed to reach Beaupréau. The town was deserted except for 400 wounded Vendéens who were killed as revenge of the massacre of republican wounded soldiers in the battle of Clisson.

The dying Marquis de Lescure and the remnants of the the Vendéan army crossing the Loire to Saint-Florent

On 17 October and 18, small Vendéen boats went back and forth over the Loire to bring the Vendéen army to the other side, accompanied by tens of thousands of wounded, elderly, women and children. The Vendéens also had 4,000 to 5,000 republican prisonners. They couldn’t bring them to the other side, and the officers didn’t know what to do of them. In her memoirs, Victoire de Donnissan de La Rochejaquelein said the officers all agreed to have them executed but none would dare give the order. The presence of republican prisoners caught the eye of the Vendéen soldiers who wanted to kill them to avenge their wounded generals and the ravages of the republican army.

General Charles Artus de Bonchamps

The general Charles de Bonchamps had been transported to a house in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil. Severely wounded, and was dying when he heard that the republican troops were to be executed. He ordered his second Charles de Beaumont d’Autichamp to prevent this from happening as his dying wish. D’Autichamp thus showed up and told the soldiers that the dying general wished that the prisoners be spared. Bonchamps was very popular amongst his soldiers, so they obeyed and the prisoners were set free.

General Jacques Cathelineau

Virée de Galerne

The republicans were celebrating after the victory at Cholet, certain that the war was definitively won and that the last Vendéens pushed off to the Loire would be easily destroyed. On 19 October at 3 in the morning, the first detachment of hussards of captain Hauteville (second to Westermann) entered an astonishingly deserted Saint-Florent-le-Vieil. All the Vendéens had managed to pass to the northern side of the Loire, which the republicans thought to be an impossible feat in such little time. Charles de Bonchamps died 4 hours earlier and his body was buried at the Varades cemetery.

Rapidly, the republican prisoners were found and Merlin de Thionville wrote to the Committee of Public Safety that he had told the republican soldiers that they needn’t feel any recognition to the Vendéens, “ennemies of the Nation”, and hoped this episode would be forgotten in history. Contrary to republican hopes, the war in the Vendée was not over. A new campaign called the Virée de Galerne started, risking to spread the uprising to Brittany and Maine, and spreading the war north of the Loire.

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Amidst the Revolution, the women of Paris acclaim Marie Antoinette as their Queen

October 15, 2026

Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI in the Garden of the Tuileries with Madame Lambale. Painting by Joseph Caraud

Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI in the Garden of the Tuileries with Madame Lambale. Painting by Joseph Caraud

The Queen had sent for me on the morning of the 6th of October, to leave me and my father-in-law in charge of her most valuable property. She took away only her casket of diamonds. Comte Gouvernet de la Tour-du-Pin, to whom the military government of Versailles was entrusted “pro tempore,” came and gave orders to the National Guard, which had taken possession of the apartments, to allow us to remove everything that we should deem necessary for the Queen’s accommodation.

Comte de Paulin, Jean-Frédéric de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet

Comte de Paulin, Jean-Frédéric de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet

I saw her Majesty alone in her private apartments a moment before her departure for Paris; she could hardly speak; tears bedewed her face, to which all the blood in her body seemed to have rushed; she condescended to embrace me, gave her hand to M. Campan to kiss, and said to us, “Come immediately and settle at Paris; I will lodge you at the Tuileries; come, and do not leave me henceforward; faithful servants at moments like these become useful friends; we are lost, dragged away, perhaps to death; when kings become prisoners they are very near it.”

The March of Women to Versailles on the 5th and 6th of October 1789.

The March of Women to Versailles on the 5th and 6th of October 1789.

I had frequent opportunities during the course of our misfortunes of observing that the people never entirely give their allegiance to factious leaders, but easily escape their control when some cause reminds them of their duty. As soon as the most violent Jacobins had an opportunity of seeing the Queen near at hand, of speaking to her, and of hearing her voice, they became her most zealous partisans; and even when she was in the prison of the Temple several of those who had contributed to place her there perished for having attempted to get her out again.

French Revolution

On the morning of the 7th of October the same women who the day before surrounded the carriage of the august prisoners, riding on cannons and uttering the most abusive language, assembled under the Queen’s windows, upon the terrace of the Chateau, and desired to see her. Her Majesty appeared. There are always among mobs of this description orators, that is to say, beings who have more assurance than the rest; a woman of this description told the Queen that she must now remove far from her all such courtiers as ruin kings, and that she must love the inhabitants of her good city. The Queen answered that she had loved them at Versailles, and would likewise love them at Paris. “Yes, yes,” said another; “but on the 14th of July you wanted to besiege the city and have it bombarded; and on the 6th of October you wanted to fly to the frontiers.” The Queen replied, affably, that they had been told so, and had believed it; that there lay the cause of the unhappiness of the people and of the best of kings. A third addressed a few words to her in German: the Queen told her she did not understand it; that she had become so entirely French as even to have forgotten her mother tongue. This declaration was answered with “Bravo!” and clapping of hands; they then desired her to make a compact with them. “Ah,” said she, “how can I make a compact with you, since you have no faith in that which my duty points out to me, and which I ought for my own happiness to respect?” They asked her for the ribbons and flowers out of her hat; her Majesty herself unfastened them and gave them; they were divided among the party, which for above half an hour cried out, without ceasing, “Marie Antoinette for ever! Our good Queen for ever!”

Madame Campan, Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (Boston: L. C. Page and Company, Inc., 1900), Bk 2, Ch. 2.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 327

 

 

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Be Faithful to Your Duty and Fight, But Never Surrender the City

October 15, 2026

Battle of La Forbie, also known as the Battle of Hiribya, October 17 – 18, 1244.

The victory of the Carizmians delivered up the greater part of Palestine to the most redoubtable enemies of the Christian colonies. The Egyptians took possession of Jerusalem, Tiberias, and the cities ceded to the Franks by the prince of Damascus. The hordes of Carismia ravaged all the banks of the Jordan, with the territories of Ascalon and Ptolemaïs, and laid siege to Jaffa. They dragged the unfortunate Gauthier de Brienne¹ in their train, hoping that he would cause a city that belonged to him to open its gates to them: this model of Christian heroes was fastened to a cross before the walls. Whilst thus exposed to the eyes of his faithful vassals, the Carizmians loaded him with insults, and threatened him with instant death if the city of Jaffa offered the least resistance.

Jaffa

Gauthier, braving death, exhorted the inhabitants and the garrison, with a loud voice, to defend themselves to the last extremity. “Your duty,” cried he, “is to defend a Christian city; mine is to die for you and Jesus Christ.” The city of Jaffa did not fall into the hands of the Carizmians, and Gauthier soon received the reward of his generous devotedness. Sent to the sultan of Cairo, he perished beneath the brutal blows of a furious mob, and thus obtained the palm of martyrdom for which he had wished.

 

¹Walter IV the Great of Brienne (French: Gauthier IV le Grand de Brienne (1205–1244) was Count of Brienne 1205–1244.

Joseph François Michaud, History of the Crusades, trans. W. Robson (London: George Routledge and Co., 1852), 2:331–2.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 734

 

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October 18 – A date which will live in infamy

October 15, 2026

Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Main Entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

On October 18, 1009, under Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, orders for the complete destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection, were carried out. The measures against the church were part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt, which involved a great deal of other damage. Adhemar of Chabannes recorded that the church of St George at Lydda “with many other churches of the saints’ had been attacked, and the ‘basilica of the Lord’s Sepulchre destroyed down to the ground'”.

European reaction was of shock and dismay, with far-reaching and intense consequences.  Ultimately, this destruction provided an impetus to the later Crusades.

It was for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre that the crusades were organized; it was for its defence that military orders were instituted. During the Middle Ages this memorable relic of Christ’s life on earth was looked upon as the mystical sovereign of the new Latin state. Godfrey of Bouillon desired no other title than that of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre, and different Latin princes, Bohemond of Antioch, and Tancred, acknowledged themselves its vassals.

Knights of the Holy Sepulchre

Neither the name of a founder nor a date of foundation can be assigned to the so-called Order of the Holy Sepulchre if we reject the legendary traditions which trace its origin back to the time of Godfrey of Bouillon, or Charlemagne, or indeed even to the days of St. James the Apostle, first Bishop of Jerusalem. It is in reality a secular confraternity which gradually grew up around the most august of the Holy Places.

It was natural that the Holy Sepulchre also had its special knights. In the broad acceptation of the word, every crusader who had taken the sword in its defense might assume the title from the very moment of being dubbed a knight. Those who were not knighted had the ambition of being decorated knights, preferably in this sanctuary, and of being thus enabled to style themselves Knights of the Holy Sepulchre par excellence. The fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem did not suspend pilgrimages to the Tomb of Christ, or the custom of receiving knighthood there, and, when the custody of the Holy Land was entrusted to the Franciscans, they continued this pious custom and gave the order its first grand masters.

Pope Gregory IX

The official arrival of the Friars Minor in Syria dates from the Bull addressed by Pope Gregory IX to the clergy of Palestine in 1230, charging them to welcome the Friars Minor, and to allow them to preach to the faithful and hold oratories and cemeteries of their own. Thanks to the ten years’ truce concluded during the preceding year between Frederick II of Sicily and the sultan, the Franciscans were enabled to enter Jerusalem, but they were also the first victims of the violent invasion of the Khorasmians in 1244, thus opening the long Franciscan martyrology of the Holy Land. Nevertheless, the Franciscan province of Syria continued to exist with Acco as its seat. The monks quickly resumed possession of their convent of Mount Sion at Jerusalem, to which they have demonstrated their claim with the blood of their martyrs and where they have obstinately retained their foothold in spite of numberless molestations and outrages for five hundred years.

Saint Francis of Assisi with the Sultan Al-Kamil

The Turks, notwithstanding their fierce fanaticism, tolerated the veneration paid to the Tomb of Christ, because of the revenue they derived from the taxes levied upon pilgrims. In 1342, in his Bull “Gratiam agimus”, Pope Clement VI officially committed the care of the Holy Land to the Franciscans, who fulfilled this trust until the restoration of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem by Pius IX. Consequently, after 1342, to be enrolled among the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, it was necessary to apply to the Franciscans, and from this period the itineraries of pilgrims mention frequent receptions into this confraternity – improperly called an order, since it had no monastic rule, regular organization, or community of goods. Where mention is made of the possessions of the Holy Sepulchre, the allusion is to the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, who had convents in various lands, and not to the knights, as some writers believe.

Pilgrims were received into this lay confraternity with all the external ceremonial of ancient chivalry, although the fundamental rules of the institution were not always observed. It was objected that many on whom knighthood was conferred were not of the nobility. The formal question, “if he were of noble birth”, was always put to the applicant, but in event of his being a merchant or a plebeian he was not obliged to answer. In point of fact all classes were represented in these pilgrimages, and it is easy to understand why those who had accomplished this trying devotion, then so fraught with danger, should desire to carry away from Jerusalem some such lasting souvenir as the insignia of knighthood, and that refusal was difficult, especially since the sanctuary was practically dependent on the offerings of these merchants, and consequently these contributions were far more deserving of recognition than the platonic vow to exert oneself as far as possible in the defense of the Holy Land. In the ceremonial of reception, the rôle of the clergy was limited to the benedictio militis, the final act of dubbing with the sword being reserved to a professional knight.

Godefrey of Bouillon

It has been ascertained that, in the fifteenth century from 1480 to 1495, there was in Jerusalem a German, John of Prussia, who acted as steward for the convent and who, in his character of gentleman and layman, regularly discharged this act reserved to knighthood. It was also of frequent occurrence that a foreign knight, present among the crowds of pilgrims, would assist at this ceremony. However, in default of other assistance, it was the superior who had to act instead of a knight, although such a course was esteemed irregular, since the carrying of the sword was incompatible with the sacerdotal character. It was since then also that the superior of the convent assumed the title of grand master, a title which has been acknowledged by various pontifical diplomas, and finally by a Bull of Benedict XIV dated 1746.

Pope Benedict XIV

When Pius IX re-established the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in 1847, he transferred to it the office of grand master of the order. At the same time he drew up and in 1868 published the new statutes of the order, which created the three ranks – that of the grand cross, that of commander, and that of simple knight – ordained that the costume be a “white cloak with the cross of Jerusalem in red enamel”, and regulated the chancellor’s fees. By his Bull of 30 May, 1907, Pius X effected the latest change by reserving to himself the grand-mastership of the order, but delegating his powers to the present Latin patriarch.

QUARESMIUS, Historica Terrœ Sanctœ elucidatio (Antwerp, 1639); HODY, Notice sur les chevaliers du St-Sépulcre (Académie d’archéologie, Antwerp, 1855); HERMENS, Der Orden vom h. Grabe (Cologne, 1870); COURET, L’Ordre du St-Sépulcre de Jerusalem (Paris, 1905).

(cfr. 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia)

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October 18 – Adopted nobility

October 15, 2026

Pope Pius III

(Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini).

Pope Pius IIIB. at Siena, 29 May, 1439; elected 22 Sept., 1503; d. in Rome, 18 Oct., 1503, after a pontificate of four weeks. Piccolomini was the son of a sister of Pius II. He had passed his boyhood in destitute circumstances when his uncle took him into his household, bestowed upon him his family name and arms, and superintended his training and education. He studied law in Perugia and immediately after receiving the doctorate as canonist was appointed by his uncle Archbishop of Siena, and on 5 March, 1460, cardinal-deacon with the title of S. Eustachio. The following month he was sent as legate to the March of Ancona, with the experienced Bishop of Marsico as his counsellor. “The only thing objectionable about him”, says Voigt (Enea Silvio, III, 531), “was his youth; for in the administration of his legation and in his later conduct at the curia he proved to be a man of spotless character and many-sided capacity.” He was sent by Paul II as legate to Germany, where he acquitted himself with eminent success, the knowledge of German that he had acquired in his uncle’s house being of great advantage to him. During the worldly reigns of Sixtus IV and Alexander VI he kept away from Rome as much as possible. Sigismondo de Conti, who knew him well tells us that “he left no moment unoccupied; his time for study was before daybreak; he spent his mornings in prayer and his midday hours in giving audiences, to which the humblest had easy access. He was so temperate in food and drink that he only allowed himself an evening meal every other day.” Yet this is the excellent man to whom Gregorovius in his “Lucrezia Borgia”, without a shadow of authority, gives a dozen children-the calumny being repeated by Brosch and Creighton. After the death of Alexander VI, the conclave could not unite on the principal candidates, d’Amboise, Rovere, and Sforza; hence the great majority cast their votes for Piccolomini, who though only sixty-four was, like his uncle, tortured with gout and was prematurely old. He took the name of Pius III in honour of his uncle, was crowned on 8 Oct., after receiving priestly and episcopal orders. The strain of the long ceremony was so great that the pope sank under it. He was buried in St. Peter’s, but his remains were later transferred to S. Andrea della Valle where he rests by the side of Pius II.

Subscription7

PASTOR, History of the Popes, VI, 185 sqq.; PANVINIO, Continuation of Platina; VON REUMONT, Gesch. der Stadt Rom; ARTAND DE MONTOR, History of the Popes (New York, 1867).

JAMES F. LOUGHLIN (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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Mount Vernon Welcomes Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh

October 12, 2026

Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh

h/t: thezebra.org

As part of a continuing celebration of America250, the Duke also visited Baltimore and New York…

Every facet of George Washington’s life and times, including [George Washington’s] role in the quest for independence from the British crown, proved to be a subject of interest to the Prince who was once third in line to the throne of England. Much like his brother, King Charles, who visited Mount Vernon as the Prince of Wales in 2015, the Duke was gracious, poised, witty, and extremely knowledgeable on every subject – most especially the whiskey.

h/t: thezebra.org

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St. Lawrence and the Siege of Székesfehérvár

October 12, 2026

A view of the Siege of Stuhlweissenberg on 9 October 1601.

…The October of 1601 came – that same month, thirty years ago exactly, the Turks had their pride broken at Lepanto. Now they had crossed the Danube, and in numbers, variously estimated between 80,000 and 90,000, they were drawn up a few miles from Albareale. Laurence, on horseback, in his Capuchin habit and cross in hand, had been haranguing the Christian army, drawn up before him in line of battle. They were less than thirty thousand strong. His burning words went home, to such effect that the soldiers could scarcely be induced to wait for the command to charge. His promise of victory was explicit. Meantime, in a council of war, some of the imperial officers were urging violently the madness of risking an engagement. The enemy had all the high ground, and outnumbered them almost as three to one. They must beat a retreat as best they could. Matthias was perplexed. What was he to do? Father Laurence had better be sent for – part of his commission, in the brief appointing him, was to give advice when advice was needed.

Laurence came into the council, his heart still burning with the words from which he had been preaching to the soldiers, “Fear ye not, and be not dismayed. Tomorrow you shall go out against them, and the Lord will be with you.” (2 Paral. 20:17) He made short work of the waverers; and, indeed, there was something about his certainty of victory different from mere human certainty, and making their halting policy look foolish and out of place. They decided to give battle.

On the day of battle a monk was again or horseback, cross in hand, in advance of the front rank. No need to say the monk was Father Laurence. He speaks a few words that he knows so well how to drive straight home to a soldier’s heart, and with a fury that baffles all description they charge upon the infidel. The Turks were not so easily broken, and for hours the battle raged fast and furiously, till at last a final charge from the Christian side broke up the Turkish ranks, and they fled in extreme confusion. The Christian forces got possession of the rising: ground – seized all their large artillery, and by evening had gained a decisive victory. That was October 11th, 1601.

“St. Lawrence of Brindisi at the Battle of Albareale” by Giuseppe Grandi (1843-1894) Italian, Pinacoteca, Vatican City, Rome, Italy.

Decisive as the battle was, Mahomet III would not recognise as yet that he had been hopelessly defeated. Three days afterwards he hazarded another battle. It was on this occasion (not on the 11th as Rohrbacher represents) that our Saint in a moment of reverie or prayer, was hurried by his horse into the thick of the fray, and before he had time to collect himself, he was surrounded by the enemy. Two colonels, Bosbourg and Attain, rescued him. This was no place for him, they reminded him, and begged him to go to the rear. “This is my place,” was his answer, “and here I will stay. Soldiers, another charge.” Quick as lightning they charged, and, before long, panic had seized the Turks, and another Christian victory had been won. When Mahomet recrossed the Danube, he had lost thirty thousand pf his finest soldiers – “Next to God and Our Lady,” said De Mercurio, second in command to Matthias, “we owe that victory to Father Laurence.” And on the day of his beatification (1783) the scene painted over the great door of Saint Peter’s, was the battle of Albareale. Underneath ran the legend, “When Austria was in sorest straits. Blessed Laurence of Brindisi, Cross in hand, struck terror into the enemies of Christ and put them to flight.” One soldier who had witnessed his wonderful power, and no less wonderful escapes, begged to be admitted among his monks as a lay-brother, and as Brother Francis of Gorizia, crowned an edifying life by a saintly death. It is worth noticing, too, that of the many heretical soldiers, who before the battle of the eleventh had made no attempt to conceal their contempt for the soldier-monk, not one was contemptuous or disrespectful when he appeared at their head on the day of the fourteenth. Indeed, many fell on their knees and with the faith and humility of Catholic soldiers begged for a special benediction.

The interior of the Holy House of Mary, Mother of God, as it is today in Loreto, Italy.

However, with the retreat of Mahomet his work, as soldier-priest, was at an end, and he made at once for Italy. A great part of his journey he did on foot, and throughout, he kept his name a strict secret for fear of the enthusiasm his presence would certainly awaken were he once recognised. It was the year of the General Chapter (1602) and he would satisfy his longing to give outward expression to his child-like love for the Blessed Virgin by a visit to Loreto. At Loreto, accordingly, he spent the Lent, serving all the Masses that were said in the Holy House humbly, as though he were still the little Brindisi boy in his Franciscan habit….

Father William Lloyd. “Saint Laurence of Brindisi”. Saints of 1881.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 900

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Why celebrate Columbus Day?

October 12, 2026

Columbus and Divine Providence

By Jeremias Wells

Statue of Christopher Columbus in Spain

Christopher Columbus certainly ranks as one of the greatest men of achievement the world has ever known, and also justly one of the most renowned, for the entire history of Europeans in America originated from his vision, religious sense and adventurous spirit. As can be expected in a man with an impassioned nature, many controversies have arisen, but all students of his voyages relate he sincerely believed that almighty God had chosen him to discover portions of the world hitherto shrouded in mystery. And his success, after years of struggle and suffering, lends credence to the historical reality of that statement.

Pope Leo XIII summed it up best in an encyclical of tribute on the Quadricentennial of Columbus’ great discovery. The Pontiff recognized that he sought the improvement of human society through knowledge, “nor did he despise glory . . . an ideal to great souls, nor did he scorn a hope…

Read more here.

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Columbus, and how to make Key Lime Pie

October 12, 2026

When Christopher Columbus discovered the New World on October 12, 1492–a feat that earned for him the title of Admiral of the Indies and for his grandson Louis and his descendants in perpetuity the noble title of Duke of Veragua–he introduced into the Americas the greatest treasure possible: the Catholic Faith…

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October 12 – Martyr King

October 12, 2026

St. Edwin

The first Christian King of Northumbria, born about 585, son of Aella, King of Deira, the southern division of Northumbria; died October 12, 633.

Upon Aella’s death in 588, the sovereignty over both divisions of Northumbria was usurped by Ethebric of Bernicia, and retained at his death by his son Ethelfrid; Edwin, Aella’s infant son, being compelled until his thirtieth year to wander from one friendly prince to another, in continual danger from Ethelfrd’s attempts upon his life. Thus when he was residing with King Redwald of East Anglia, Ethelfrid repeatedly endeavored to bribe the latter to destroy him. Finally, however, Redwald’s refusal to betray his guest led in 616 to a battle, fought upon the river Idle, in which Ethelfrid himself was slain, and Edwin was invited to the throne of Northumbria. On the death of his first wife, Edwin, in 625, asked for the hand of Ethelburga, sister to Eadbald, the Christian King of Kent, expressing his own readiness to embrace Christianity, if upon examination he should find it superior to his own religion. Ethelburga was accompanied to Northumbria by St. Paulinus, one of St. Augustine’s fellow missionaries, who thus became its first apostle. By him Edwin was baptized at York in 627, and thenceforth showed himself most zealous for the conversion of his people.

In instance of this, Venerable Bede tells how, at their royal villa of Yeverin in Northumberland, the king and queen entertained Paulinus for five weeks, whilst he was occupied from morning to night in instructing and baptizing the crowds that flocked to him. By Edwin’s persuasion, moreover, Eorpwald, King of East Anglia, son of his old friend Redwald, was led to become a Christian. In token of his authority over the other kings as Bretwalda, Edwin used to have the tufa (a tuft of feathers on a spear, a military ensign of Roman origin) borne publicly before him, and he received tribute from the Welsh princes. Under him the law was so respected, that it became, as the Venerable Bede attests, a proverb that “a woman might travel through the island with a babe at her breast without fear of insult”.

St. Edwin was slain on October 12, 633, in repelling an attack made on him by Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, who, together with the Welsh prince Cadwallon (a Christian only in name), had invaded his dominion. Perishing thus in conflict with the enemies of the Faith, he was regarded as a martyr and as such was allowed by Gregory XIII to be depicted in the English College church at Rome. His head was taken to St. Peter’s church at York, which he had begun. His body was conveyed to Whitby. Churches are said to have been dedicated to him at London and at Breve in Somerset.

G. E. PHILLIPS

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Social Hierarchy Helps Us Love God

October 12, 2026

If we gauge the issue to its farthest horizon, it encompasses a way of looking at God, a way of the human spirit looking at itself and the reality around it. In other words, it involves a way of looking at the entire universe in its numerous aspects.

Painting by Jules Breton in the Brooklyn Museum

For if we consider God as a transcendent being in relationship to all other beings, it means that He is their final end. His being cannot be conflated with the being of others. On the contrary, He has in the highest possible degree, in an absolute degree, all imaginable perfections, and even mysterious perfections that our spirit cannot understand. At best we can love these perfections, should He reveal them to us. For only with Him revealing these perfections can we know and love them. So, if we understand things like this, we have God, and around Him we have nothing. From this nothing, He created. He brought forth creatures for His own glory because He chose to do this. These creatures were not necessary to Him, only convenient. He created them in His goodness.

Such is goodness; it is that expansiveness whereby He wants what is convenient to Him, not just what is necessary. This abundance, this type of superfluity—[revolutionaries] today speak so much against the superfluous—all of Creation is God’s superfluity. Creation is this kind of superfluity made by God.

God creating the Sun, the Moon and the Stars by Jan Brueghel the Younger.

Now if this is how things are, and there is this abyss between Him and us, then, to imitate well this order of things, Creation must provide that an abyss separate one created being from another; or something like an abyss. This is precisely the point I’m trying to make. It is not an abyss, because we are not infinite beings, and it is not proper for us to be surrounded by an infinite abyss. Rather, it is a distance. It is a perpendicularity without which the relationships between one created being and another will not be a copy of the relationship that exists between creature and God. God is transcendent. Therefore, it is necessary that the created beings beneath Him have a relationship among themselves that is in the line of the transcendent.

This, which is a necessity, can be presented in another way, as follows: All beings created by God—from the first instant of Creation until the moment when History will end, and everything will be in Eternity—all of these beings form a collection, a perfect collection. No single being is superfluous, and no being repeats another.

God would err if one being were to be the repetition of another. In our human conception of things, repetition may seem pleasing. Thus, for example, let’s take these stained glass rondel bottle bottoms that you see here. You could say that one repeats another. But there is an optical illusion at play here. It is not entirely true. If the stained glass is artisan-made, differences will appear because the artisan cannot repeat things perfectly, even though he may try. So, when we look at the stained glass, it delights us in its similarities, but it delights us also in its differences.

If there is an industrial way of manufacturing this stained glass, the inequality will be much less—entirely equal it will never be—but its inequality will be close to indiscernible. When that happens, we look at the stained glass, and it seems monotonous. We put it aside. It is repugnant to our gaze, because complete equality disgusts us since it is contrary to our nature.

In making this collection, to make beings different God had to make them unequal, because whenever there is a difference, you have inequality. Thus, you can see a transcendence that expresses itself through inequality; an inequality that expresses itself in hierarchy; and how does hierarchy express itself? With each lower being representing a step for us to understand better the superior being.

That is how we cross this abyss, this difference that separates beings one from another. So we know and don’t know fully at the same time.

Let’s imagine, for example, the least of Englishmen; an Englishman from one of those islands of fishermen between Great Britain and Ireland. I don’t recall the name of that sea, but it has some fishing islands there. Well, an Englishman lives there. He is a simple man, weathered, rough, etc. He watches the wedding of Prince Charles on TV and is enchanted. Why is this?

Sark is a royal fief, which forms part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, with its own set of laws based on Norman law and its own parliament. It has a population of about 500. Sark is one of the few remaining places in the world where cars are banned from roads and only tractors and horse-drawn vehicles are allowed.

It is a whole pulley system. He has on his little island or close to it a gentleman, Mr. something or other, who is very dignified, has good bearing, is honest, and he admires this gentleman. He knows that this Mr. “X” is the friend of a lord who lives at such and such a place on the shore nearby and whom he has seen already. This is how he crosses over the abysses and his remote attention becomes focused on the queen and the future king.

These various relationships form a channel of understanding for him. He raises himself to it, and is enchanted. It is the transcendent inequalities that take him to the consideration of this plenitude, and he becomes enchanted. It fills his soul. It does good to his soul.

This relationship is one of the temporal order, of temporal society. However, because it imitates God in His relationship with individuals, this social relationship of the temporal order has the densest spiritual content.

In other words, when souls are accustomed to seeing things like this, they easily tend to love a God who is supreme, perfect, eternal. And they have the need to meet a being at the top of the hierarchy which is being itself [“I AM who am”] and is the keystone for everything else. His spirit is already prepared to reach this conclusion.

(Excerpt from a Symposium for the Hipotecas, Monday, October 12, 1981 – Nobility.org translation. Neither the original talk’s transcript nor this translation was reviewed by the author. – Ed.)

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October 12 – Difficulties in his youth prepared him for later trials

October 12, 2026

St. Wilfrid

Bishop of York, son of a Northumbrian thegn, born in 634; died at Oundle in Northamptonshire, 709. He was unhappy at home, through the unkindness of a stepmother, and in his fourteenth year he was sent away to the Court of King Oswy, King of Northumbria. Here he attracted the attention of Queen Eanfleda and by her, at his own request, he was sent to the Monastery of Lindisfarne. After three years spent here he was sent for, again through the kindness of the queen, to Rome, in the company of St. Benedict Biscop. At Rome he was the pupil of Boniface, the pope’s archdeacon. On his way home he stayed for three years at Lyons, where he received the tonsure from Annemundas, the bishop of that place. Annemundas wanted him to remain at Lyons altogether, and marry his niece and become his heir, but Wilfrid was determined that he would be a priest. Soon after persecution arose at Lyons, and Annemundas perished in it. The same fate nearly came to Wilfrid, but when it was shown that he was a Saxon he was allowed to depart, and came back to England. In England he received the newly founded monastery at Ripon as the gift of Alchfrid, Oswy’s son and heir, and here he established the full Benedictine Rule. The Columbite monks, who had been settled previously at Ripon, withdrew to the North. It was not until he had been for five years Abbot of Ripon, that Wilfrid became a priest. His main work at Ripon was the introduction of Roman rules and the putting forward of a Roman practice with regard to the point at issue between the Holy See and the Scottish monks in Northumbria; to settle these questions the synod of Whitby was held in 664. Chiefly owing to Wilfrid’s advocacy of the claims of the Holy See the votes of the majority were given to that side, and Colman and his monks, bitterly disappointed, withdrew from Northumbria. Wilfrid, in consequence of the favours he had then obtained, was elected bishop in Colman’s place, and, refusing to receive consecration from the northern bishops, whom he regarded as schismatics, went over to France to be consecrated at Compiègne. He delayed some time in France, whether by his own fault or not is not quite clear, and on his return in 666 was driven from his course by a storm and shipwrecked on the coast of Sussex, where the heathen inhabitants repelled him and almost killed him. He succeeded in landing, however, in Kent not far from Sandwich. Thence he made his way to Northumbria, only to find that, owing to his long absence, his see had been filled up, and that a St. Chad was bishop in his place. He retired to his old monastery at Ripon, and from thence went southwards and worked in Mercia, especially at Lichfield, and also in Kent.

“In 686 King Caedwalla issued a charter confirming the rights and territories previously given to St. Wilfrid by king Aethelwealh and the estate of the Hundred of Pagham including Shripney, Charlton, Bognor, Bersted, Crimsham, Mundham and Tangmere. The handing over of the charter is brilliantly depicted in the Lambert Barnard mural in the south transept of Chichester Cathedral commissioned by Bishop Robert Sherburne c 1508-1536.”

In 669 Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury visited Northumbria, where he found Chad working as bishop. He pointed out to him the defects of his position and, at his instigation, St. Chad withdrew and Wilfrid once more became Bishop of York. During his tenure of the see, he acted with great vigour and energy, completing the work of enforcing the Roman obedience against the Scottish monks. He founded a great many monasteries of the Benedictine Order, especially at Henlam and at Ripon, and completely rebuilt the minster at York. In all that he did he acted with great magnificence, although his own life was always simple and restrained. So long as Oswy lived all went well, but with Ecgfrid, Oswy’s son and successor, Wilfrid was very unpopular, because of his action in connection with Ecgfrid’s bride Etheldrida, who by Wilfrid’s advice would not live with her husband but retired into a monastery. It was just at this juncture that Theodore, possibly exceeding his powers as Archbishop of Canterbury, proceeded to subdivide the great diocese over which Wilfrid ruled, and to make suffragan bishops of Lindisfarne, Hexham, and Witherne. Wilfrid, whether or not he approved of the principle of subdivision, refused to allow Theodore’s right to make it, and appealed to the central authority at Rome, whither he at once went. Theodore replied by consecrating three bishops in Wilfrid’s own church at York and dividing his whole bishopric between them. An attempt was made by his enemies to prevent Wilfrid from reaching Rome, but by a singular coincidence Winfrid, Bishop of Lichfield, happened to be going to Rome at the same time, and the singularity of the name led to his being stopped while Wilfrid got through safely. At Rome a council was called by Pope Agatho to decide the case, and Wilfrid appeared before it in person, while Theodore was represented. The case was decided in Wilfrid’s favour, and the intruding bishops were removed. Wilfrid was to return to York, and since subdivision of his diocese was needed, he was to appoint others as his coadjutors. He came back to Northumbria with this decision, but the king, though not disputing the right of Rome to settle the question, said that Wilfrid had brought the decision and put him in prison at Bambrough. After a time this imprisonment was converted to exile, and he was driven from the kingdom of Northumbria. He went south to Sussex where the heathen inhabitants had so inhospitably received him fifteen years before, and preached as a missionary at Selsey.

In 686 a reconciliation took place between Theodore and Wilfrid, who had then been working in Sussex for five years. Through Theodore’s good offices Wilfrid was received back in Northumbria, where Aldfrid was now king. He became Bishop of Hexham at once, and before long, when York again fell vacant, he took possession there once more. For some years all went well, but at the end of that time great difficulties arose with the king because Wilfrid utterly refused to recognize what had been done by Theodore but annulled by Rome in the matter of the subdivision of his diocese, and he once more left York and appealed to Rome. He reached Rome for the third and last time in 704. The proceedings at Rome were very lengthy, but after some months Wilfrid was again victorious. Archbishop Brihtwald was to hold a synod and see justice done. Wilfrid started again for England but on his way was taken ill at Meaux and nearly died. He recovered, however, and came back to England, where he was reconciled to Brihtwald. A synod was held, and it was decided to give back to Wilfrid, Hexham and Ripon, but not York, a settlement which, though unsatisfactory, he decided to accept, as the principle of Roman authority had been vindicated.  Beyond all others of his time, St. Wilfrid stands out as the great defender of the rights of the Holy See. For that principle he fought all through his life, first against Colman and the Scottish monks from Iona, and then against Theodore and his successor in the See of Canterbury; and much of his life was spent in exile for this reason. But to him above all others is due the establishment of the authority of the Roman See in England, and for that reason he will always have a very high place among English saints. Eddius, the biographer of St. Wilfrid, was brought by that saint from Canterbury when he returned to York in 669. His special work was to be in connection with the music of the church of York, and he was to teach the Roman method of chant. He was an inmate of the monastery of Ripon in 709, when St. Wilfrid spent his last days there, and he undertook the work of writing the life of the saint at the request of Acca, St. Wilfrid’s successor in the See of Hexham. The best edition of the work is in Raines, “Historians of the Church of York” (Rolls Series). ARTHUR S. BARNES

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October 13 – Reign of almost unbroken peace

October 12, 2026

St. Edward the Confessor

King of England, born in 1003; died 5 January, 1066.

St. Edward the confessor

God often gives bad princes in his wrath; but in a good king he bestows a great public blessing on a nation. A wise king is the upholding of his people. (1) As the judge of the people is himself, so are his officers: and what manner of man the ruler of the city is, such also are they that dwell therein. An unwise king destroyeth his people; but through the prudence of them that are in authority, the city shall be inhabited. (2) The happiness of the reign of St. Edward the Confessor is itself a panegyric of his virtue.

This prince was son of King Ethelred II who left by Elgiva, his first wife, Edmund Ironside, who was his successor; and, by his second wife, Emma, daughter to Richard I and sister to Richard II the third and fourth Dukes of Normandy, he had Alfred and Edward. In his unhappy and weak reign, the Danes, who from the time of King Athelstan had, for about sixty years, left this island unmolested, committed in all parts of it most horrible ravages. To redeem the country from these vexations, Ethelred engaged to pay them a tax, called Danegelt, of forty thousand pounds a-year, which was raised at the rate of twelve pence upon each hide of land, or as much as could be tilled with one plough in a year. Swein or Sweno, King of the Danes, conquered all England soon after, in 1015; but died the same year, leaving here his son Knute or Canute.

Ethelred, who had fled into Normandy, returned upon his death and recovered his kingdom; but, dying in 1016, left Mercia and some other parts in the hands of the Danes. Edmund Ironside, after several battles, came to an agreement, which was concluded in the isle Alney, in the Severn, near Gloucester, by which he consented to divide the kingdom with Canute, yielding up to him the kingdoms of Mercia, Northumberland, and the East-Angles. Shortly after, he was treacherously assassinated by the contrivance of Edric Strean, a Dane, Count of Mercia, on whom he had bestowed the greatest favours, and by whom he had been before often betrayed.

Combat between Canute the Dane and Edmund Ironside.

Canute took this opportunity to seize the whole kingdom, and ordered the late king’s two infant sons, Edmund and Edward, to be conveyed into Denmark, there to be privately made away with. The officer who conducted them was moved to compassion, and carried them into Sweden, where the king sent them to his cousin Solomon, king of Hungary. When they were grown up, Solomon gave in marriage to Edmund one of his own daughters, and to Edward his sister-in-law Agatha. Emma was retired with her two sons, Alfred and Edward, into Normandy. Canute demanded her of her brother, Duke Richard, in marriage, and his request was agreed to. But the two princes remained in Normandy, where Richard II. was succeeded, 1026, by his son Richard III. He reigned only one year, and by his death his brother Robert became duke of Normandy, who, at his death left no other issue than a bastard, known afterwards by the name of William the Conqueror.

Edith of Wessex, wife of St. Edward the Confessor

Canute reigned in England nineteen years, and was magnificent, liberal, valiant, and religious, though no virtues could excuse his ambition. Dying in 1036, he left Norway to his eldest son, Sweno, England to his son Harold, and Denmark to his son Hardicanute, whom he had by Emma. The two Saxon princes, Alfred and Edward, came over from Normandy to see their mother at Winchester. Godwin, duke or general of West-Sex, who had been the chief instrument in establishing Harold’s interest in that part of England, agreed with the king that the two princes should be invited to court, in order to be secretly made away with. Emma was startled at this message, which was sent to them at Winchester, and was apprehensive of a snare; she therefore contrived to send only Alfred, and, upon some pretences, to keep Edward with her. Godwin met Alfred at Guilford, where the young prince was seized, put first into the castle, and thence conducted to Ely, where his eyes were pulled out: he was shut up in a monastery, and died a few days after.

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October 13 – They denounced the religion of Mahomet

October 12, 2026

St. Daniel and Companions Friars Minor and martyrs; dates of birth unknown; died 10 October, 1227. The martyrdom of St. Berard and his companions in 1219 had inflamed many of the religious of the Order of Friars Minor with the desire of preaching the Gospel in heathen lands; and in 1227, the year following St. […]

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What Our Lady Said at Fatima on October 13, 1917

October 12, 2026

By Antonio A. Borelli* The Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima The Sixth Apparition — October 13, 1917 As on the other occasions, the seers first saw a bright light, and then they saw Our Lady over the holm oak. Lúcia: What does Your Grace wish of me? Our Lady: I wish to tell you […]

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October 14 – Barber Family

October 12, 2026

Daniel Barber Daniel Barber, soldier of the Revolution, Episcopalian minister and convert, b. at Simsbury, Connecticut, U.S.A., 2 October, 1756; d. at Saint Inigoes, Maryland, 1834. The conversion of the Barber family, despite the prejudices of a Puritan education and environment, was one of the most notable and far-reaching in its results of any recorded […]

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October 8 – St. Keyne

October 8, 2026

Keyne was a princess, one of the many children of King Brycan of South Wales. Growing up into a very beautiful young woman she was sought in marriage by many noble lords, but resolutely refused all of them. Instead, she took a vow of virginity and retired into solitude. It was after this resolution that […]

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October 9 – Superb and valiant knight

October 8, 2026

Baron Athanase-Charles-Marie Charette de la Contrie Born at Nantes, 3 Sept., 1832; died at Basse-Motte (Ille-et-Vilaine), 9 Oct., 1911. His father was a nephew of the famous General Charette who was shot at Nantes, 29 March, 1795, during the rising of the Vendee. His mother, Louise, Countess de Vierzon, was the daughter of the Duc […]

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October 9 – Even in his lifetime his reputation was for great holiness and miraculous powers

October 8, 2026

St. John Twenge Canon regular, Prior of St. Mary’s, Bridlington, born near the town, 1319; died at Bridlington, 1379. He was of the Yorkshire family Twenge, which family in Reformation days supplied two priest-martyrs and was also instrumental in establishing the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Bar Convent, York. John completed his studies […]

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October 10 – What if you come from a family of bad nobility?

October 8, 2026

St. Francis Borgia (also known as Francisco de Borja y Aragon), born 28 October, 1510, was the son of Juan Borgia, third Duke of Gandia, and of Juana of Aragon; died 30 September, 1572. The future saint was unhappy in his ancestry. His grandfather, Juan Borgia, the second son of Alexander VI, was assassinated in Rome […]

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October 10 – St. Paulinus, Archbishop of York

October 8, 2026

St. Paulinus Archbishop of York, died at Rochester, 10 October, 644. He was a Roman monk in St. Andrew’s monastery at Rome, and was sent by St. Gregory the Great in 601, with St. Mellitus and others, to help St. Augustine and to carry the pallium to him. He laboured in Kent — with the […]

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October 11 – Model Archduke, both spiritual and temporal

October 8, 2026

St. Bruno the Great, Archbishop of Cologne Bruno the Great (or Bruno I) (925–965) was Archbishop of Cologne, Germany, from 953 until his death, and Duke of Lotharingia from 954. He was the brother of Otto I, king of Germany and later Holy Roman Emperor. Bruno was the youngest son of Henry the Fowler and […]

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October 11 – He dared step into the gap during the crisis

October 8, 2026

Pope Boniface VIII (BENEDETTO GAETANO) Born at Anagni about 1235; died at Rome, 11 October, 1303. He was the son of Loffred, a descendant of a noble family originally Spanish, but long established in Italy—first at Gaeta and later at Anagni. Through his mother he was connected with the house of Segni, which had already […]

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October 5 – Second founder of the Dominicans

October 5, 2026

Bl. Raymond of Capua Called “the second founder of the Dominicans,” Raymond della Vigna was born in Capua of a prominent family in the kingdom of Naples. He entered the Dominican Order when attending the university in Bologna and went on to fill several posts, including prior in Rome and lector in Florence and Siena. […]

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October 5 – St. Galla

October 5, 2026

A Roman widow of the sixth century; feast, 5 October. According to St. Gregory the Great (Dial. IV, ch. xiii) she was the daughter of the younger Symmachus, a learned and virtuous patrician of Rome, whom Theodoric had unjustly condemned to death (525). Becoming a widow before the end of the first year of her […]

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Had Louis XVI Listened to His Sister, Madame Elizabeth…

October 5, 2026

…the Crown Would Have Been Saved On the fatal day, 5th October [1789], when the people attacked Versailles, she was on her terrace at Montreuil when she saw the crowd advancing on the Palace, and flew at once to join the Royal Family there. Gifted as she was with an excellent judgment, Mme. Elizabeth possessed […]

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October 6 – Princes and popes coveted the advice of this silent man

October 5, 2026

St. Bruno Confessor, ecclesiastical writer, and founder of the Carthusian Order. He was born at Cologne about the year 1030; died 6 October, 1101. He is usually represented with a death’s head in his hands, a book and a cross, or crowned with seven stars; or with a roll bearing the device O Bonitas. His […]

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October 16 – Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France and Capetian Widow

October 5, 2026

Most Reverend Monsignor Director of this Academy, Gentlemen Academicians: A simple listing of the titles with which she was known during her short life as Marie Antoinette of Habsburg, and later Marie Antoinette of Bourbon, brings to memory the series of extraordinary and unforeseen events that together make up the fabric of the most interesting […]

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The Blessed Sacrament and the Apostolate in the Modern World – Conclusion

October 5, 2026

Continued from Part II Contradiction between everyday life and the statistics – What a terrible phenomenon that undermines the Catholic population itself, and which leads the Brazilian spirit, unfortunately so accommodating, to a monstrous situation. We are a nation with an overwhelming Catholic majority. Statistics in fact show a near unanimity of Catholics in Brazil. […]

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The Catholic Theory of War and the Soldier

October 5, 2026

One has hardly arrived at this conclusion when a great problem arises quickly in our minds. “Did the Church sanction war?” We know of no more important question, nor one more intimately connected with our subject. The Church’s theory is well known: in three words—She hates war! Vainly have certain sophists endeavored to tone down […]

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The Intervention of Our Lady in History

October 5, 2026

By Jeremias Wells Just as in our daily lives we should always be cognizant of the presence of God, so in our analysis of historical events we should always keep in mind the power and intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary over the sweep of history. In this series of studies titled Revolution and Counter-Revolution […]

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October 7 – How the Rosary saved Christendom

October 5, 2026

by Jeremias Wells The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary Here is but a small fraction of the victories directly obtained from God through the Holy Rosary: The Battle of Lepanto which saved Rome and Vienna, and thus the Pope and the Emperor, from Moslem subjugation The deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski The victory […]

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October 7 – Lepanto: Turkish might buckles in the grandest naval battle of History

October 5, 2026

The Turkish fleet came on imposing and terrible, all sails set, impelled by a fair wind, and it was only half a mile from the line of galliasses and another mile from the line of the Christian ships.D. John waited no longer; he humbly crossed himself, and ordered that the cannon of challenge should be […]

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In Forming the Holy League, St. Pius V Prepares for Victory at Lepanto

October 5, 2026

The Holy League agreement announced on 25 May had been solemnized five days earlier in the presence of [Saint] Pius V in his capacity as Pope, and signed by representatives of himself as ruler of the Papal State, King Philip of Spain, the republics of Venice and Genoa, Grand Duke Cosimo of Tuscany, Duke Emanuele […]

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The Nobility of the Holy Family & Prayer For The Month of October

October 1, 2026

Mary, Joseph, and, Therefore, Jesus Were Born of Royal Stock From a sermon of Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) about Saint Joseph: Firstly, let us consider the nobility of the bride, that is, the Most Holy Virgin. The Blessed Virgin was more noble than any other creature that had been born in human form, that […]

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October 1 – The martial and pious death of Don John of Austria: “A man sent by God”

October 1, 2026

Alarm was ended on the fourth day, seeing that the fever and other ills left D. John. But the next day, which was a Saturday, he suddenly grew worse, and while the other invalids went on getting better and became convalescent, he showed other symptoms of a strange illness, palpitations which made him get up […]

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October 1 – St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Chapter VI & Chapter VII

October 1, 2026

ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX Excerpts from THE STORY OF A SOUL: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX SOEUR THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX, THE LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS ______________________________ PROLOGUE: THE PARENTAGE & BIRTH OF MARIE FRANÇOISE THÉRÈSE MARTIN and CHAPTER ONE – EARLIEST MEMORIES CHAPTER II: A CATHOLIC HOUSEHOLD and CHAPTER III: PAULINE ENTERS THE […]

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October 1 – Blessed Ralph Crockett

October 1, 2026

Blessed Ralph Crockett English martyr, b. at Barton, near Farndon, Cheshire; executed at Chichester, 1 October, 1588. Educated at Cambridge, and ordained at Reims in 1585, he was captured on board ship at Littlehampton, Sussex, 19 April, 1856, with three other priests, Thomas Bramston, George Potter, and his fellow martyr, Edward James (b. at Breaston, […]

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October 1 – The Hon. George Spencer

October 1, 2026

In religion, Ignatius of St. Paul). Passionist, born at the Admiralty, London, 21 Dec., 1799; died at Carstairs, Scotland, 1 Oct., 1864. He was the youngest son of the second Earl Spencer and Lavinia, daughter of Sir Charles Bingham. From Eton he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, received Anglican orders, 13 June, 1824, and became […]

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October 2 – The Holy Guardian Angels

October 1, 2026

That every individual soul has a guardian angel has never been defined by the Church, and is, consequently, not an article of faith; but it is the “mind of the Church”, as St. Jerome expressed it: “how great the dignity of the soul, since each one has from his birth an angel commissioned to guard […]

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October 2 – Falsely charged, mutilated and martyred

October 1, 2026

St. Leodegar (also Leger or Leodegarius) Bishop of Autun, born about 615; died a martyr in 678, at Sarcing, Somme. His mother was called Sigrada, and his father Bobilo. His parents being of high rank, his early childhood was passed at the court of Clotaire II. He went later to Poitiers, to study under the […]

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October 3 – Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

October 1, 2026

(December 13, 1908 – October 3, 1995) Brazilian intellectual and Catholic activist. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira was born in São Paulo to Lucilia Corrêa de Oliveira, a devout Roman Catholic, and educated by Jesuits. In 1928 he joined the Marian Congregations of São Paulo and soon became a leader of that organization. In 1933 he […]

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October 3 – Mother Théodore Guérin

October 1, 2026

This year marks the 20th anniversary of her canonization. Many of the early pioneers faced the hardships of this country where wars, famine and disease were the norm. Leaving everything behind, heroic souls came not only to save the souls of Indian nations, but also to minister to these frontier families. One such person was […]

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October 3 – Enemy of King St. Louis, but still his friend in Christ

October 1, 2026

St. Thomas of Hereford (THOMAS DE CANTELUPE). Born at Hambledon, Buckinghamshire, England, about 1218; died at Orvieto, Italy, 25 August, 1282. He was the son of William de Cantelupe and Millicent de Gournay, and thus a member of an illustrious and influential family. He was educated under the care of his uncle, Walter de Cantelupe, […]

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October 4 – He chose a greater chivalry

October 1, 2026

St. Francis of Assisi Founder of the Franciscan Order, born at Assisi in Umbria, in 1181 or 1182 — the exact year is uncertain; died there, 3 October, 1226. His father, Pietro Bernardone, was a wealthy Assisian cloth merchant. Of his mother, Pica, little is known, but she is said to have belonged to a […]

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October 4 – He copied the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

October 1, 2026

St. Petronius Bishop of Bologna, date of birth unknown; died before 450. The only certain historical information we possess concerning him is derived from a letter written by Bishop Eucherius of Lyons (died 450-5) to Valerianus (in P. L., L, 711 sqq.) and from Gennadius’ “De viris illustribus”, XLI (ed. Czapla, Münster, 1898, p. 94). […]

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September 28 – Good King Wenceslaus

September 28, 2026

(Also Vaclav, Vaceslav.) Duke, martyr, and patron of Bohemia, born probably 903; died at Alt-Bunzlau, 28 September, 935. His parents were Duke Wratislaw, a Christian, and Dragomir, a heathen. He received a good Christian education from his grandmother (St. Ludmilla) and at Budweis. After the death of Wratislaw, Dragomir, acting as regent, opposed Christianity, and […]

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September 28 – Franciscan money lender

September 28, 2026

Bl. Bernardine of Feltre Friar Minor and missionary, born at Feltre, Italy, in 1439 and died at Pavia, 28 September, 1494. He belonged to the noble family of Tomitano and was the eldest of nine children. In 1456 St. James of the Marches preached the Lenten course at Padua, and inspired to enter the Franciscan […]

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33 Years Later: Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira’s Speech for the Launching of his book

September 28, 2026

USA Book Launching of Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII   Distinguished Chairman, Mr. Morton Blackwell, Imperial and Royal Highness, Archduchess Monica of Austria, Your Grace, Duke of Maqueda, illustrious writer of the preface to the Spanish edition of the book that brings us together today, reverend and beloved Priests, […]

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September 29 – The Angelic Inspiration of Chivalry

September 28, 2026

Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael _____________________ Saint Michael the Archangel: “Who is like God?” In Hebraic, mîkâ’êl, means “Who is like God?” The Scriptures refer to the Archangel Saint Michael in four different passages: two of them, in Daniel’s prophesy (chap. 10, 13 and 21; and chap. 12, 1); one in Saint Jude Thaddeus (single […]

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September 29 – Military Orders of St. Michael

September 28, 2026

Military Orders of St. Michael (1) A Bavarian Order, founded in 1721 by Elector Joseph Clemens of Cologne, Duke of Bavaria, and confirmed by Maximilian Joseph, King of Bavaria, 11 September 1808. Pius VII, 5 Feb. 1802 granted to priests decorated with this order all the privileges of domestic prelates. Under Louis I it was […]

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September 29 – In battle or in prison, he never missed Mass

September 28, 2026

Blessed Charles of Blois (1320- September 29, 1364) Charles is the son of Guy I of Blois-Châtillon, count of Blois, by Margaret of Valois, a sister of king Philip VI of France. Early in life, he felt a call to be a Franciscan friar, but political duty kept him in secular life. Following his marriage […]

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September 30 – The cantankerous noble who became a saint

September 28, 2026

St. Jerome, Father and Doctor of the Church Born at Stridon, a town on the confines of Dalmatia and Pannonia, about the year 340-2; died at Bethlehem, 30 September, 420. He had a brother much younger than himself, whose name was Paulinian. His father, called Eusebius, was descended from a good family, and had a […]

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