July 27 – Hunted Priest

July 24, 2025

John Gerard Jesuit; born 4 October, 1564; died 27 July, 1637. He is well known through his autobiography, a fascinating record of dangers and adventures, of captures and escapes, of trials and consolations. The narrative is all the more valuable because it sets before us the kind of life led by priests, wherever the peculiar […]

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July 27 – St. Pantaleon

July 24, 2025

St. Pantaleon Martyr, died about 305. According to legend he was the son of a rich pagan, Eustorgius of Nicomedia, and had been instructed in Christianity by his Christian mother, Eubula. Afterwards he became estranged from Christianity. He studied medicine and became physician to the Emperor Maximianus. He was won back to Christianity by the […]

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What Ever Happened to the Liberty Promised in 1789?

July 21, 2025

In his classic work on the French Revolution, Pierre Gaxotte shows the abysmal difference that exists between the respect shows by the Ancien Regime for the legitimate liberties of the individual and the family and the strong inclination of the modern State to meddle in the intimate lives of its citizens, a tendency which appeared […]

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Meringue – A taste of Heaven!

July 21, 2025

Featherlight and spotless white, there is something about meringue that makes us think of Heaven, angels, magnificently dressed noble ladies enjoying a beautifully prepared High Tea served on the finest china and a grand silver service. Such is meringue’s nobility that we are not surprised in the least to hear that it was a favorite […]

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July 21 – He raised the king’s son back to life, but wished to be buried among the criminals

July 21, 2025

St. Arbogast (Gaelic Arascach). St. Arbogast has been claimed as a native of Scotland, but this is owing to a misunderstanding of the name “Scotia”, which until late in the Middle Ages really meant Ireland. He flourished about the middle of the seventh century. Leaving Ireland, as so many other missionaries had done, he settled […]

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Baroness Herbert of Lea: a convert to the Catholic Faith

July 21, 2025

Mary Elizabeth Ashe à Court-Repington was born in Richmond, Surrey, on July 21, 1822. She was the only daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Ashe à Court-Repington, member of Parliament, and the niece of William à Court, 1st Baron Heytesbury, British Ambassador to the Russian Imperial Court at St. Petersburg. In August 1846, at the age of […]

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Pontifical Orders and Titles of Nobility

July 21, 2025

Pontifical decorations are the titles of nobility, orders of Christian knighthood and other marks of honour and distinction which the papal court confers upon men of unblemished character who have in any way promoted the interests of society, the Church, and the Holy See. The titles range all the way from prince to baron inclusive, […]

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July 22 – The Siege of Belgrade (1456)

July 21, 2025

The Siege of Belgrade (or Battle of Belgrade, or Siege of Nándorfehérvár) occurred from July 4 to July 22, 1456. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II was rallying his resources in order to subjugate the Kingdom of Hungary. His immediate objective was the border fort of the town of […]

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July 23 – The most celebrated saint of the Northern kingdom

July 21, 2025

St. Bridget of Sweden The most celebrated saint of the Northern kingdoms, born about 1303; died 23 July, 1373. She was the daughter of Birger Persson, governor and provincial judge (Lagman) of Uppland, and of Ingeborg Bengtsdotter. Her father was one of the wealthiest landholders of the country, and, like her mother, distinguished by deep […]

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How Napoleon’s Man Arrested the Pope

July 17, 2025

Here we have the whole history of Radet*. Gillet, the representative of the people, appointed him brigadier-general to the Army of the North, whence he dispatched him as chief of constabulary to Avignon, where Bonaparte, on returning from Egypt, was so much struck with his behaviour that he sent him to Corsica, whence he recalled […]

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Families and the Justice of God

July 17, 2025

[previous] Being eternal, men will be judged in life eternal; but since nations are not eternal, they will receive their reward or punishment on this earth. The same happens with families. As such they are neither saved nor lost; they are rewarded for their qualities or punished for their defects on this earth. The Scriptures […]

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July 17 – “You Do Not Know What You Do”

July 17, 2025

Execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family In the early hours of 17 July 1918, the royal family was awakened around 2:00 am, told to dress, and led down into a half-basement room at the back of the Ipatiev house. The pretext for this move was the family’s safety — that anti-Bolshevik forces were […]

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Moving God, Moving History

July 17, 2025

Written by John Horvat II There are times when history is seen from an all-too-human perspective. Granted, man is the principal agent in history. His great deeds and misdeeds fill the history books, blending fact, myth, and legend to intrigue future generations. However, man is not the only agent. There are times when men perform […]

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The Guillotine and Its Servants

July 17, 2025

By Gustave Lenotre* “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 […]

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July 18 – A soldier of hell who became a soldier of heaven

July 17, 2025

Godfrey of Bouillon Duke of Lower Lorraine and first King of Jerusalem, son of Eustache II, Count of Boulogne, and of Ida, daughter of Godfrey the Bearded, Duke of Lower Lorraine; born probably at Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1060; died at Jerusalem, 18 July, 1100 (according to a thirteenth-century chronicler, he was born at Baisy, in Brabant; see […]

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July 18 – “Don’t drink water, drink beer” said the bishop

July 17, 2025

Saint Arnulf of Metz Statesman, bishop under the Merovingians, born c. 580; died c. 640. His parents belonged to a distinguished Frankish family, and lived in Austrasia, the eastern section of the kingdom founded by Clovis. In the school in which he was placed during his boyhood he excelled through his talent and his good […]

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July 19 – Her whole family became saints

July 17, 2025

St. Macrina the Younger Born about 330; died 379. She was the eldest child of Basil the Elder and Emmelia, the granddaughter of St. Macrina the Elder, and the sister of the Cappadocian Fathers, Sts. Basil and Gregory of Nyssa. The last-mentioned has left us a biography of his sister in the form of a […]

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July 19 – Penitent Nobility

July 17, 2025

St. Arsenius Anchorite; born 354, at Rome; died 450, at Troe, in Egypt. Theodosius the Great having requested the Emperor Gratian and Pope Damasus to find him in the West a tutor for his son Arcadius, they made choice of Arsenius, a man well read in Greek literature, member of a noble Roman family, and […]

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July 20 – Carolingian Reformer

July 17, 2025

St. Ansegisus Born about 770, of noble parentage; died 20 July, 833, or 834. At the age of eighteen he entered the Benedictine monastery of Fontanelle (also called St. Vandrille after the name of its founder) in the diocese of Rouen. St. Girowald, a relative of Ansegisus, was then Abbot of Fontanelle. From the beginning […]

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Saint Louis, the height of chivalry

July 14, 2025

Unlike [Frederick II of Germany], Louis frequently ignored a practical course of action that would derive a benefit for himself and chose instead one that entailed suffering for the benefit of the Church and Christendom. Of all the problems that beset Christian life, the continual harassment by the Saracens of the Holy Places, the pilgrims […]

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Modernization, Brutalization, Primitivism

July 14, 2025

By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira The feminine soul is a source of grace, delicacy and sensitivity. It enriches the moral and social life of mankind with spiritual values that a man is far from capable of giving it. The equilibrium of the human race requires women with a rich mental make-up in the gifts inherent […]

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July 14 – He seems to have escaped the curse of Adam’s sin

July 14, 2025

St. Bonaventure Doctor of the Church, Cardinal-Bishop of Albano, Minister General of the Friars Minor, born at Bagnorea in the vicinity of Viterbo in 1221; died at Lyons, 16 July, 1274. Nothing is known of Bonaventure’s parents save their names: Giovanni di Fidanza and Maria Ritella. How his baptismal name of John came to be […]

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July 14 – Controversial Archbishop

July 14, 2025

Boniface of Savoy Forty-sixth Archbishop of Canterbury and son of Thomas, Count of Savoy, date of birth uncertain; d. in Savoy, 14 July, 1270. While yet a child he became a Carthusian. In 1234, as sub-deacon, he was elected Bishop of Belley in Burgundy: and, in 1241, administered the Diocese of Valence. His connection with […]

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Ardent Ultramontane

July 14, 2025

Louis-François Richer Laflèche French-Canadian bishop, b. 4 Sept., 1818, at Ste-Anne de la Perade, Province of Quebec; d. 14 July, 1898. He studied the classics and theology at Nicolet College. Having offered his services to the pioneer Bishop Provencher of Red River, he was ordained in 1844, and traveled 750 leagues by canoe to reach […]

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July 15 – After conversion, he ordered the statues of the pagan gods chopped up and burned

July 14, 2025

St. Vladimir the Great Grand Duke of Kiev (Kieff) and All Russia, grandson of St. Olga, and the first Russian ruler to embrace Christianity, b. 956; d. at Berestova, 15 July, 1015. St. Olga could not convert her son and successor, Sviatoslav, for he lived and died a pagan and brought up his son Vladimir […]

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July 15 – Saint Pompilio Maria Pirrotti

July 14, 2025

Saint Pompilio Maria Pirrotti (29 September 1710 – 15 July 1766), born Domenico Michele Giovan Battista, was born on 29 September 1710 as the sixth of eleven children to the nobleman Girolamo Pirrotti and Orsola Bozzuti – his father was a Doctor of Law. One brother was named Pompilio Maria Pirrotti. He was baptized the […]

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July 16 – Of the noble family of Odrowatz

July 14, 2025

St. Ceslaus Born at Kamien in Silesia, Poland (now Prussia), about 1184; died at Breslau about 1242. He was of the noble family of Odrowatz and a relative, probably a brother, of St. Hyacinth. Having studied philosophy at Prague, he pursued his theological and juridical studies at the University of Bologna, after which he returned […]

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July 16 – Founder of Louisiana

July 14, 2025

Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville Founder of the colony of Louisiana, b. at Villemarie, Montreal, 16 July, 1661; d. at Havana, 9 July, 1706. He was the third son of Charles Le Moyne, a native of Dieppe Sieur de Longueuil in Canada, and of Catharine Primot. Several of his brothers distinguished themselves greatly as explorers […]

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Queen Marie Antoinette’s Rejection of Voltaire

July 10, 2025

But she could not pardon Voltaire for his attacks on the ancient faith of France; and if she did not go so far as to regard him as an extravagant, as her mother did, she felt little sympathy for him. When, in the spring of 1788, that philosopher made a visit to Paris which was […]

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Military, Social, and Religious History of Chivalry and Knighthood

July 10, 2025

Chivalry (derived through the French cheval from the Latin caballus) as an institution is to be considered from three points of view: 1) the military, 2) the social, 3) and the religious. We shall also here consider: 4) the history of chivalry as a whole. 1) MILITARY In the military sense, chivalry was the heavy […]

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July 10 – Charlemagne Was Punished for His Rudeness to Her

July 10, 2025

St. Amalberga A virgin, very much revered in Belgium, who is said to have been sought in marriage by Charles, afterwards Charlemagne. Continually repulsed, Charles finally attempted to carry her off by force, but though he broke her arm in the struggle he was unable to move her from the altar before which she had […]

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Resolving Prior Objections

July 10, 2025

Chapter I Resolving Prior Objections When a train is ready to leave, normal procedure requires both engineer and passengers to be in their proper places, and the conductor to signal for departure. Only then can the train begin to roll. So also, at the outset of an intellectual work it is customary to set forth […]

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July 11 – Worthy descendant of St. Elizabeth

July 10, 2025

Frédéric-François-Xavier Ghislain de Mérode A Belgian prelate and statesman, born at Brussels, 1820; died at Rome, 1874. The son of Félix de Mérode-Westerloo who held successively the portfolios of foreign affairs, war, and finances under King Leopold, and of Rosalie de Grammont, he was allied to the best names of France, — Lafayette, Montmorency, Clemont-Tonnerre, […]

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The Revolutionary Principles of 1789 Contained the Synthesis of All the Teachings of the False Prophets

July 10, 2025

When promulgating the decree on the heroic virtue of Blessed Marcellin Champagnat on July 11, 1920, Benedict XV pronounced an allocution from which we borrow the following passages: “One need only turn one’s thoughts to the early nineteenth century to recognize that many false prophets appeared in France at that time, and from there aimed […]

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July 12 – Aristocrat Missionary to the United States of America

July 10, 2025

Comte de Charles-Auguste-Marie-Joseph Forbin-Janson A Bishop of Nancy and Toul, founder of the Association of the Holy Childhood, born in Paris, France, 3 Nov., 1785; died near Marseilles, 12 July, 1844. He was the second son of Count Michel Palamède de Forbin-Janson and of his wife Cornélie Henriette, princess of Galéan. He was a Knight […]

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July 13 – Saintly Elite

July 10, 2025

St. Marie-Azélie “Zélie” Martin née Guérin (23 December 1831 – 28 August 1877) was a French laywoman and the mother of Saint Thérèse de Lisieux. Her husband was Saint Louis Martin. Marie-Azélie Guérin was born in Saint-Denis-sur-Sarthon, Orne, France and was the second daughter of Isidore Guérin and Louise-Jeanne Macé. She had an older sister, […]

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July 13 – Author of “The Golden Legend”

July 10, 2025

Bl. Jacopo de Voragine (Also DI VIRAGGIO). Archbishop of Genoa and medieval hagiologist, born at Viraggio (now Varazze), near Genoa, about 1230; died 13 July, about 1298. In 1244 he entered the Order of St. Dominic, and soon became famous for his piety, learning, and zeal in the care of souls. His fame as a […]

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Ten Year Anniversary – In Memoriam: Marquis Luigi Coda Nunziante

July 7, 2025

In Memoriam of the Ten Year Anniversary of Marquis Luigi Coda Nunziante On July 7, 2015 the Marquis Luigi Coda Nunziante di San Ferdinando passed away at his estate in Colognole (Firenze). An exemplary family man, a refined man of society and a fervent Catholic, he spent most of his time doing social apostolate on behalf of […]

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July 7 – Only two cardinals dared to stand with the pope

July 7, 2025

Blessed Pope Benedict XI (Nicholas Boccasini) Born at Treviso, Italy, 1240; died at Perugia, 7 July, 1304. He entered the Dominican Order at the age of fourteen. After fourteen years of study, he became lector of theology, which office he filled for several years. In 1296 he was elected Master General of the Order. As […]

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How the French Loved Queen Marie Antoinette

July 7, 2025

Marie Antoinette reigned not only by her grace, but by her goodness. She sent relief to the poor, to the wounded, to the victims of fires. She heard that the family of the Chevalier d’Assas, notwithstanding the historical devotion of the captain to the regiment of Auvergne, was living in the country in oblivion and […]

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July 8 – The Pope who fought the democrats

July 7, 2025

Pope Blessed Eugene III Bernardo Pignatelli, born in the neighbourhood of Pisa, elected 15 Feb., 1145; died at Tivoli, 8 July, 1153. On the very day that Pope Lucius II succumbed, either to illness or wounds, the Sacred College, foreseeing that the Roman populace would make a determined effort to force the new pontiff to […]

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July 8 – Archbishops of Baltimore and St. Louis

July 7, 2025

Francis Patrick and Peter Richard Kenrick Archbishops respectively of Baltimore, Maryland, and of St. Louis, Missouri. They were sons of Thomas Kenrick and his wife Jane, and were born in the older part of the city of Dublin, Ireland, the first-named on 3 December, 1797, and the second on 17 August, 1806. An uncle, Father […]

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July 9 – At the center of the controversy, when the Pope deposed King John of England

July 7, 2025

Stephen Langton Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, b. in the latter half of the twelfth century; d. at Slindon Manor, Sussex, July 9, 1228. Although the roll of English churchmen has few names more illustrious, Langton’s fame is hardly equal to his achievements. Even among his own countrymen too few have an adequate knowledge of […]

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

July 3, 2025

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). […]

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July 3 – The Twin

July 3, 2025

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 […]

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July 4 – Pope in Very Critical Circumstances

July 3, 2025

Pope Benedict V Date of birth unknown; died 4 July, 965. Benedict V was elected Pope (May, 964) in very critical circumstances. The powerful emperor, Otho I, had forcibly deposed the unworthy John XII, and had replaced him by a nominee of his own who took the title of Leo VIII. But at the first […]

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July 4 – Chaplain and servants of the Arundell family

July 3, 2025

Venerables John Cornelius and Companions John Cornelius (called also Mohun) was born of Irish parents at Bodmin, in Cornwall, on the estate of Sir John Arundell, of Lanherne, in 1557; martyred at Dorchester, 4 July, 1594. Sir John Arundell took an interest in the talented boy and sent him to Oxford. Not satisfied with the […]

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July 5 – St. Michael de Sanctis

July 3, 2025

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 […]

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July 6 – Bl. Thomas Alfield

July 3, 2025

Bl. Thomas Alfield (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 […]

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July 6 – Mother-in-law Woes

July 3, 2025

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 […]

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

June 30, 2025

Servant of God Pierre Toussaint (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 […]

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June 30 – Thomas Whitbread

June 30, 2025

Ven. Thomas Whitbread (Alias HARCOURT). Born in Essex, 1618; martyred at Tyburn, 30 June, 1679. He was educated at St. Omer’s, and entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus on 7 September, 1635. Coming upon the English mission in 1647, he laboured for more than thirty years, mostly in the eastern counties. On 8 […]

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June 30 – Diplomatist and Historian

June 30, 2025

Daniel O’Daly A diplomatist and historian, born in Kerry, Ireland, 1595; died at Lisbon, 30 June. 1662. On his mother’s side he belonged to the Desmond branch of the Geraldines, of which branch his paternal ancestors were the hereditary chroniclers or bards. He be came a Dominican in Tralee, Co. Kerry; took his vows in […]

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June 30 – Franciscus Sonnius

June 30, 2025

Franciscus Sonnius Theologian, b. at Zon in Brabant, 12 August, 1506; d. at Antwerp, 30 June, 1576. His real name was Van de Velde, but in later years he called himself after his native place. He went to school at Bois-le-Duc and Louvain, and afterwards studied medicine for a time, then theology; in 1536 he […]

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June 30 – Father of Ecclesiastical History

June 30, 2025

Ven. Cesare Baronius Cardinal and ecclesiastical historian, born at Sora in the Kingdom of Naples, 30 August, 1538; died at Rome, 30 June, 1607; author of “Annales Ecclesiatici”, a work which marked an epoch in historiography and merited for its author, after Eusebius, the title of a Father of Ecclesiastical History. Baronius was descended from […]

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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 30, 2025

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 20th June. On the 1st July he burned the town of Amaillon; he then […]

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July 1 – St. Gal

June 30, 2025

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 […]

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July 2 – St. Swithin

June 30, 2025

(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 […]

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July 2 – Caught Between Two Masters

June 30, 2025

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; […]

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Physical Comfort – Moral Well Being

June 26, 2025

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Comparing is one of the best ways of analyzing. So if we want to analyze our era, it’s legitimate to compare it. And with what? With the future, which is still unknown, is impossible, because unknown objects cannot serve as a term of comparison. Therefore, the comparison can only be […]

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