Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites — In the Allocutions of Pius XII

Divine Retribution

July 2, 2020

In the year 1563, a Lutheran nobleman in the city of Erfurt, ridiculed the Blessed Sacrament as it was carried in procession by the Rev. Father Th. Baumeier. “Behold” said he, “what a ridiculous thing that old man is carrying!” No sooner had he uttered these words than he fell speechless to the ground. Dr. J. Hebenstreit was instantly called in, but pronounced him beyond recovery. A few days after the nobleman was a corpse.1

1 William of Gent.

The Blessed Eucharist, our greatest treasure by Müller, Michael, 1825-1899, Pg 212.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 733

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Obstacles to the Counter-Revolution

July 2, 2020

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CHAPTER VII
1. Pitfalls To Be Avoided Among Counter-Revolutionaries

The pitfalls to be avoided among counter-revolutionaries very often consist of certain bad habits of agents of the Counter-Revolution.

“The themes of the counter-revolutionary meetings or publications should be carefully chosen.” Click here to read the TFP’s latest statement concerning the recent Supreme Court’s ruling.

The themes of counter-revolutionary meetings or publications should be carefully chosen. The Counter-Revolution should always be ideological in its approach, even when dealing with matters fraught with detail and incidentals. To go over questions of current or recent party politics may be useful, for example. But to overemphasize small personal questions, to make a struggle with local ideological adversaries the main objective of the counter-revolutionary action, to portray the Counter-Revolution as if it were a mere nostalgia (even though this nostalgia is, of course, legitimate) or a mere obligation of personal loyalty, however holy and just, is to depict the particular as if it were the general, the part as if it were the whole. It is to mutilate the cause one desires to serve.

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Ch. VII, Pgs. 90 & 91.

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July 3 – The Pope Who Condemned His Predecessor for Not Opposing Heresy

July 2, 2020

Pope St. Leo II

Pope (682-83), date of birth unknown; d. 28 June, 683. He was a Sicilian, and son of one Paul. Though elected pope a few days after the death of St. Agatho (10 June, 681), he was not consecrated till after the lapse of a year and seven months (17 Aug., 682). Under Leo’s predecessor St. Agatho, negotiations had been opened between the Holy See and Emperor Constantine Pogonatus concerning the relations of the Byzantine Court to papal elections. Constantine had already promised Agatho to abolish or reduce the tax which for about a century the popes had had to pay to the imperial treasury on the occasion of their consecration, and under Leo’s successor he made other changes in what had hitherto been required of the Roman Church at the time of a papal election. In all probability, therefore, it was continued correspondence on this matter which caused the delay of the imperial confirmation of Leo’s election, and hence the long postponement of his consecration…

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July 3 – The Twin

July 2, 2020

St. Thomas the Apostle

Little is recorded of St. Thomas the Apostle, nevertheless thanks to the fourth Gospel his personality is clearer to us than that of some others of the Twelve. His name occurs in all the lists of the Synoptists (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6, cf. Acts 1:13), but in St. John he plays a distinctive part. First, when Jesus announced His intention of returning to Judea to visit Lazarus, “Thomas” who is called Didymus [the twin], said to his fellow disciples: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). Again it was St. Thomas who during the discourse before the Last Supper raised an objection: “Thomas saith to him: Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” (John 14:5). But more especially St. Thomas is remembered for his incredulity when the other Apostles announced Christ’s Resurrection to him: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25); but eight days later he made his act of faith, drawing down the rebuke of Jesus: “Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed” (John 20:29)…

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July 4 – Unsung American Hero

July 2, 2020

St. Anthony Daniel

Huron missionary, born at Dieppe, in Normandy, 27 May 1601, slain by the Iroquois at Teanaostae, near Hillsdale, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada, 4 July, 1648. After two years’ study of philosophy and one of law, he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome, 1 October, 1621. Sent to Canada in 1633 he was first stationed at Cape Breton, where his brother Captain Daniel had established a French fort in 1629. For two years he had charge at Quebec of a school for Indian boys, but with this exception he was connected with the Mission at Ihonatiria, in the Huron country, from July, 1634, until his death fourteen years later. In the summer of 1648, the Iroquois made a sudden attack on the mission while most of the Huron braves were absent. Father Daniel did all in his power to aid his people…

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July 4 – St. Bertha of Blangy

July 2, 2020

St. Bertha (Abbess of Blangy in Artois)

Died about 725. She was the daughter of Rigobert, Count of the Palace under Clovis II, and married Siegfried, a relation of the king. After twenty years, when he died, she determined to found a nunnery. Two buildings which she constructed fell down, but an angel in a vision guided her to another spot, and there after many difficulties a nunnery was built, which she entered with her two elder daughters, Deotila and Gertrude. A still later legend represents this Gertrude as much persecuted by the attentions of a great noble, Roger, who wished to marry her by force, but she was saved from his violence by her mother’s firm courage and trust in God. Some time before her death Bertha is said to have resigned her office of abbess and to have shut herself up in a little cell built against the church wall. But the whole story of Bertha, as Mabillon and the Bollandists agree, is of very late date and historically worthless. Her feast is kept on the 4th of July. (See Acta SS. for that day, and Décobert, “Ste. Berthe et son Abbaye de Blangy”, Lille, 1892)

Dunbar, Dictionary of Saintly Women (London, 1904); Chevalier, Repertoire des sources historiques: Bio-Bibliographie (Paris, 1905).

HERBERT THURSTON (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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July 4 – Patroness of victims of adultery, jealousy and unfaithfulness

July 2, 2020

St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal

A.D. 1336.

ST. ELIZABETH was daughter of Peter III, king of Aragon, and granddaughter of James I, who had been educated under the care of St. Peter Nolasco, and was surnamed the Saint, and from the taking of Majorca and Valentia, Expugnator or the Conqueror. Her mother, Constantia, was daughter of Manfred king of Sicily, and grandchild to the emperor Frederic II. Our saint was born in 1271, and received at the baptismal font by the name of Elizabeth, from her aunt, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who had been canonized by Gregory IX in 1235…

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July 5 – St. Michael de Sanctis

July 2, 2020

St. Michael de Sanctis

(DE LOS SANTOS).

Born at, Vich in Catalonia, 29 September, 1591; died at Valladolid, 10 April, 1625. At the age of twelve years he came to Barcelona, and asked to be received into the monastery of the Trinitarians, in which order, after a three years’ novitiate, he took vows in the monastery of St. Lambert at Saragossa, 5 Sept., 1607. When one day a Discalced Trinitarian came to St. Lambert’s to receive Holy orders, Michael felt himself drawn to this more austere congregation. After mature deliberation, and with the permission of his superior, he entered the novitiate of the Discalced Trinitarians at Madrid, and took vows at Alcalá; he became priest and was twice elected superior of the monastery at Valladolid. He lived a life of prayer and great mortification, was especially devout towards the Holy Eucharist, and is said to have been rapt in ecstasy several times during Consecration. He was beatified by Pius VI, 24 May, 1779 and canonized by Pius IX, 8 June, 1862. His feast is celebrated on 5 July. He is generally represented kneeling before an altar where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed.

Vita e miracoli di S. Michele dei Santi, published anonymously (Rome, 1862); CARMICHAEL, The Congregation of S. Michele dei Santi in The Catholic World, LXXIV (New York, 1902), 629- 41; GUERIN, Vies des Saints, 5 July; STADLER, Heiligen-Lexikon (Augsburg, 1858-82), 439-440.

MICHAEL OTT (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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July 5 – He founded the Barnebites and reformed two religious orders, but only lived 37 years

July 2, 2020

St. Antonio Maria Zaccaria

Founder of the Clerks Regular of St. Paul, commonly known as the Barnabites; born in Cremona, Italy, 1502; died 5 July, 1539.

While he was still an infant his father died, leaving the care of the child’s education to his mother, who taught him compassion for the poor and suffering by making him her almoner. After completing the studies given in the schools at Cremona he was sent to Padua for his philosophy, and in 1520, when he had finished this course, began the study of medicine in the university at that place. At the age of twenty-two he received his degree of Doctor of Medicine and returned to Cremona to practise his profession. Three years later he began to study theology and received holy orders in 1528. He now devoted himself with renewed energy to works of charity and mercy, visiting and consoling the sick in hospitals and poor-prisons…

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July 6 – Nobility dedicated to the eradication of slavery

July 2, 2020

Blessed Maria Teresia Ledóchowska (29 April 1863 – 6 July 1922) was a Roman Catholic nun and African missionary.

She was the eldest of seven children. Members of the Polish nobility, she and her siblings – including Wlodimir Ledóchowski, Ursula Ledóchowska and Ignacy Kazimierz Ledóchowski were born on the estate of their father, Count Antoni Halka-Ledóchowski. Their uncle was Mieczysław Cardinal Ledóchowski…

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July 6 – Mother-in-law Woes

July 2, 2020

St. Godelina

Born at Hondeforte-lez-Boulogne, c. 1049; died at Ghistelles, 6 July, 1070.

The youngest of the three children born to Hemfrid, seigneur of Wierre-Effroy, and his wife Ogina, Godelina was accustomed as a child to exercises of piety and was soon distinguished for a solidity of virtue extraordinary for one of her years. The poor flocked from all sides to the young girl, whose desires to satisfy their necessities often involved her in difficulties with her father’s steward and even with her pious father himself…

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July 6 – The King Had Three Daughters, All Saints

July 2, 2020

St. Sexburga of Ely

Died about 699. Her sisters, Sts. Ethelburga and Saethrid, were both Abbesses of Faremontier in Brie, St. Withburga was a nun at Ely, and St. Etheldreda became Abbess of Ely. Sexburga was the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, and was married about 640 to Earconbert, King of Kent. She lived with her husband for twenty-four years, and by him had two sons, Egbert and Lothar, both successively Kings of Kent, and two daughters, both of whom became nuns and saints: St. Earcongota, a nun of Faremontier, and St. Ermenhild, who married Wulfhere, King of Mercia, and after his death took the veil and became Abbess of Ely. After the death of her husband in 664, Sexburga founded the Abbey of Minster in Sheppey; after a few years there she removed to Ely and placed herself under her sister Etheldreda, then abbess…

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July 6 – Bl. Thomas Alfield

July 2, 2020

Bl. Thomas Alfield

Stone marking the site of the Tyburn tree on the traffic island at the junction of Edgware Road, Marble Arch and Oxford Street

(AUFIELD, ALPHILDE, HAWFIELD, OFFELDUS; alias BADGER).

Priest, born at Gloucestershire; martyred at Tyburn, 6 July, 1585. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge (1568). He was afterwards converted and came to Douai College in 1576, but the troubles there compelled him to intermit his studies for four years, and he was eventually ordained and sent forth from Reims in 1581. Here he was associated with the celebrated mission of Blessed Edmund Campion and Father Persons, and he persuaded the latter to take as his servant his brother Robert Alfield, then recently converted, but who afterwards became a traitor of note. Thomas seems to have laboured chiefly in the north, where after a time he was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, 2 May, 1582. Here he at first made a “glorious” confession, and even endured torture; but being afterwards sent back to the north, he fell, and went to the Protestant Church. Upon regaining liberty he was deeply penitent for his fall, and returned to Dr. Allen at Reims to gather new resolution. Returning again to England he was induced by the famous seaman John Davis (about March, 1584) to make for him offers — presumably insincere on Davis’s part — of services to Spain. In August of the same year Dr. Allen’s celebrated “True and modest Defence” appeared in answer to Burghley’s “Execution of Justice”. To circulate such books as Allen’s was of the greatest service to the Faith. Alfield undertook the dangerous task with the help of a dyer by the name of Thomas Webley, and of one Crabbe. After some months he was again arrested, and again sent to the Tower, whence he was removed to Newgate and tried. Crabbe renounced the pope and thereby saved his life; the other two were hanged. A reprieve had, for some unknown reason, been granted for Alfield, but it arrived too late.

CHALLONER, Missionary Priests (Edinburgh, 1877); GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v. Alfield, Thomas; KNOX, Letters of Cardinal Allen (London, 1882); there are also several references to Alfield in the Record Office, London, many of which are given by SIMPSON in The Rambler, new ser., VII, 420-431.

PATRICK RYAN (Catholic Encyclopedia)

[Ed. note: He was beatified in 1929]

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June 30 – He began a crusade against the immorality of his time

June 29, 2020

Blessed Januarius Maria Sarnelli

One of S. Alphonsus’s earliest companions, fourth son of Baron Angelo Sarnelli of Ciorani, born in Naples 12 Sept., 1702; died 30 June, 1744.

From his childhood he was remarkable for modesty, self-denial, piety, and great diligence in his studies. At the age of fourteen he desired to become a Jesuit, but his father objected and directed him to study law. He succeeded admirably in the legal profession, while daily Mass, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and attendance on the sick in the hospital of incurables filled up all his spare time. At twenty-six he abandoned the bar and become a cleric. His zeal showed itself at once in his labours for children, whom he catechized with wonderful success…

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June 30 – How One Humble Servant Transformed the New York Upper Class

June 29, 2020

Servant of God Pierre Toussaint

Ven. Pierre Toussaint was declared venerable in 1996.

(1766-1853)
Born to slavery in Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti), Toussaint came to New York in 1789 with his master, Jean Bérard du Pithon, a French noble and prosperous planter who was fleeing the turmoil unleashed in Saint Domingue by the French Revolution. Two years later, his master died without having been able to recover the family fortune, thus leaving Madame Bérard in poverty. Distressed at the plight of his mistress, Toussaint did not allow her poverty to come to light. He provided for the table by applying his skills as a fashionable hairdresser for the ladies of New York’s high society, served dinners to his mistress and her guests elegantly dressed as butler, and entertained everyone after the meals with the music of his violin…

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July 1 – The Marquis of Lescure destroys two thirds of Westermann’s army and saves the lives of captured enemy soldiers

June 29, 2020

While the grand army were under the walls of Nantes, several engagements had taken place in La Vendée. Westermann, at the head of a German legion, advanced into the heart of the Bocage, after making himself master of Parthenay, on the 20^th June…

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July 1 – Condemned to death for promoting the Catholic faith, he responded “Deo gratias”

June 29, 2020

Saint Oliver Plunket

Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, born at Loughcrew near Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland, 1629; died 11 July, 1681. His is the brightest name in the Irish Church throughout the whole period of persecution. He was connected by birth with the families which had just then been ennobled, the Earls of Roscommon and Fingall, as well as with Lords Louth and Dunsany. Till his sixteenth year, his education was attended to by Patrick Plunket, Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, brother of the first Earl of Fingall, afterwards bishop, successively, of Ardagh and Meath. He witnessed the first triumphs of the Irish Confederates, and, as an aspirant to the priesthood, set out for Rome in 1645, under the care of Father Scarampo, of the Roman Oratory…

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July 1 – Venerable Thomas Maxfield

June 29, 2020

Ven. Thomas Maxfield

(Vere Macclesfield)

English priest and martyr, born in Stafford gaol, about 1590, martyred at Tyburn, London, Monday, 1 July, 1616. He was one of the younger sons of William Macclesfield of Chesterton and Maer and Aston, Staffordshire (a firm recusant, condemned to death in 1587 for harbouring priests, one of whom was his brother Humphrey), and Ursula, daughter of Francis Roos, of Laxton, Nottinghamshire. William Macclesfield is said to have died in prison and is one of the prætermissi as William Maxfield; but, as his death occurred in 1608, this is doubtful.

Thomas arrived at the English College at Douai on 16 march, 1602-3, but had to return to England 17 May, 1610, owing to ill health. In 1614 he went back to Douai, was ordained priest, and in the next year came to London…

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July 1 – St. Gal

June 29, 2020

St. Gal

Of the ninety-eight bishops who have occupied the see of Clermont-Ferrand (Auvergne) the sixteenth and twenty-third bore the name of Gal, and both are numbered among the twenty-nine bishops of this church who are honoured as saints. The first and most illustrious was bishop from 527 to 551, the second, form 640 to 650. Born of a senatorial family of Auvergne, the first St. Gal early embraced the monastic life, and then became councillor to St. Quintianus, who he was to succeed in the See of Clermont. Tierry I, King of Austrasia, having invaded Auvergne, took Gal prisoner and attached him to the oratory of his palace. He regained his liberty some years later and returned to Clermont. Quintianus having died, Gal was chosen as his successor in 527…

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July 2 – Caught Between Two Masters

June 29, 2020

Saint Otto

Bishop of Bamberg, born about 1060; died 30 June, 1139. He belonged to the noble, though not wealthy, family of Mistelbach in Swabia, not to the Counts of Andechs. He was ordained priest, but where he was educated is not known. While still young he joined the household of Duke Wladislaw of Poland; in 1090 he entered the service of Emperor Henry IV, and about 1101 was made chancellor. In 1102 the emperor appointed and invested him as Bishop of Bamberg. In the conflict of investitures he sided chiefly in political matters with Henry IV, although he avoided taking sides openly. He refused to be consecrated by a schismatic bishop. Through ambassadors he declared his loyalty to the Holy See…

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July 2 – St. Swithin

June 29, 2020

(SWITHUN) Bishop of Winchester; died 2 July, 862. Very little is known of this saint’s life, for his biographers constructed their “Lives” long after his death and there is hardly any mention of him in contemporary documents. Swithin was one of the two trusted counsellors of Egbert, King of the West Saxons (d. 839), helping […]

1 William of Gent.

CHAPTER VII 1. Pitfalls To Be Avoided Among Counter-Revolutionaries

Pope St. Leo II

St. Thomas the Apostle

St. Anthony Daniel

St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal

St. Michael de Sanctis

St. Antonio Maria Zaccaria

St. Godelina

St. Sexburga of Ely

Bl. Thomas Alfield

Blessed Januarius Maria Sarnelli

Servant of God Pierre Toussaint

Saint Oliver Plunket

Ven. Thomas Maxfield

St. Gal

Saint Otto

Archives

Contact Information

Links to Nobility Sites

TFP-Related Sites

TFP Books

Links of Interest

Sites and Blogs in French

Sites and Blogs in German

Sites and Blogs in Italian

Sites and Blogs in Portuguese

Sites and Blogs in Spanish

CHAPTER VII
1. Pitfalls To Be Avoided Among Counter-Revolutionaries