It’s that time of year again. This Pentecost weekend, 10,000 traditional Catholic pilgrims walked en masse over the space of three days from Paris to Chartres. The annual “Notre Dame de Chrétienté” (Our Lady of Christendom) pilgrimage is mostly French but with a healthy spattering of Britons, Americans, and others to add to their happy numbers. It begins in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on the vigil of Pentecost and ends up at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres on Pentecost Monday, which is traditionally a day off in France. Traditional Masses are said each day (with confessions heard beforehand) along the route.

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Catholic Nobleman, Forester, Knight of Malta, Plotted to Kill Hitler

Philipp Freiherr (Baron) von Boeselager, the last surviving member of the conspiracy of anti-Nazi German officers, has died at 90 years of age. The freiherr‘s background and upbringing were distinctly Catholic. The Boeselagers are a Rhenish family with Saxon origins in Magdeburg. Philipp was the fourth of eight children and was educated by the Jesuits at Bad Godesborg. His grandfather had been officially censured by the Imperial German goverment for publically taking part in a Catholic religious procession.

Boeselager had most intimately been involved in the March 1943 plot to assasinate Hitler and Himmler when the the Fuhrer and the SS head were visiting Field Marshal Günther von Kluge on the Eastern Front. Boeselager, then a 25-year-old cavalry lieutenant under the Field Marshal’s command, was to shoot both Hitler and Himmler in the officers mess with a Walther PP. Himmler, however, neglected to accompany Hitler and so the Field Marshal ordered Boeselager to abort the attempt fearing that Himmler would take over in the event of Hitler’s death, changing nothing.

«Each day Hitler ruled, thousands died unnecessarily — soldiers, because of his stupid leadership decisions. And later, I learned of concentration camps, where Jews, Poles, Russians — human beings — were being killed.»

«It was clear that these orders came from the top: I realised I lived in a criminal state. It was horrible. We wanted to end the war and free the concentration camps.»

Boeselager later procured the explosives for the famous July 1944 plot (the subject of the upcoming film “Valkyrie“), under the cover of being part of an explosives research team. He handed a suitcase with the explosives on to another conspirator. When the bomb exploded in Hitler’s conference room, Boeselager and his 1,000-man cavalry unit made an astonishing 120-mile retreat in under 36 hours to reach an airfield in western Russia from where the aristocrat would fly to Berlin to join the other conspirators.

At the airfield, however, he received a message from his brother (Georg von Boeselager, a fellow cavalry officer who was repeatedly awarded for his consistent bravery on the battlefield) saying “All back into the old holes”, the code signifying the failure of the coup. Even more astonishingly than his swift retreat was his return, with his unit, to the front quickly enough not to raise any eyebrows. As a result, he was not known to be part of the conspiracy and escaped the gruesome tortures and executions dealt to many of his fellow conspirators.

After the war, his role in the plot was revealed and Philipp von Boeselager was awarded the Legion d’honneur by France and the Great Cross of Merit by West Germany. He joined the Order of Malta in 1946, eventually co-founding Malteser Hilfdienst, the medical operation of the German knights of the Order, and helping coordinate German pilgrimages to Lourdes.

The greater part of his post-war years was spent in forestry, and Boeselager served as head of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Waldbesitzerverbände (the coordinating body of private and cooperative forest-owners) from 1968 to 1988. Coincidentally, he was succeeded in that post by Franz Ludwig Schenk Count von Stauffenberg, the son of the July ’44 plot mastermind.

Well, the trailer for the film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel “Brideshead Revisited” is out, and the film is slated for a summer release here in the States. (Trailer | Official Site). Waugh fans can but lament that, whereas Waugh said the book was essentially about “the operation of divine grace”, the screenwriter of this adaptation openly admitted that the script “turns God into a villain”.

Rather than being bold and creating a genuine work of cinematic art to match the novel, they’ve decided to take the easy and conformist route and do a God-hating rompy flick. (Because we can’t have too many of those!). A shame, of course, but entirely predictable. Shall we at least have a look at the cast?

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Note: This was just sent me by a mutual friend of Herr Zmirak and myself. At first thought it was a wry parody of a ZENIT article but, lo and behold, it is actually a real ZENIT article praising this loyal son of the Empire State (who proudly boasts of his descent from subjects of the Hapsburgs).

Stand-up Apologist
John Zmirak Called to Be Church’s Comedian

by Elizabeth Lev

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- In his 1980 novel “The Name of the Rose,” Umberto Eco dedicated a lengthy erudite section to the question, “Did Jesus Laugh?” Reading the works of Catholic author John Zmirak, he probably laughs a lot.

John Zmirak, a Queens-born author, journalist and apologist, regaled students and adults alike last week in Rome during the launch of his new book “The Grand Inquisitor.”

I spoke to Zmirak about how he reconciled a rapier wit with an ironclad faith, and was fascinated to hear the story of how this prickly pear of piety sprouted in the heart of 1970s Queens.

The first of Zmirak’s guides follows the liturgical calendar, covering the various feasts and seasons with his jovial wit and banter. In the second guide, John gives us a jaunty and alcohol-tinged A-to-Z journey through the Faith. But John Zmirak bears the scholar’s cap as well as the jester’s. Here’s his introduction to the life and work of Wilhelm Röpke, the Swiss architect of Germany’s postwar economic miracle.

While other adolescents challenged authority by flaunting curfews or smoking, Zmirak was a youthful rebel for God. During his sophomore year, his religion teachers at his local Catholic high school began teaching notions contrary to the faith. Not being particularly well formed, Zmirak absorbed the doubts and contradictions until one day he was told that the transubstantiation — the change of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ — wasn’t real.

The 15-year-old student balked, remembering vividly his mother explaining that when the bells rang “the bread turns into God.” (This by the way, is a reminder of the centrality of the role of parents in the formation of children.)

Zmirak found a Catechism and read the Church’s teaching for himself. Outraged, the teenager began a letter-writing campaign to his local bishop, persevering in the face of indifference and even hostility. One can almost imagine Zmirak as an early Christian martyr, proclaiming his faith and poking fun at his persecutors even as he faced the lions in the arena.

Zmirak’s unique perspectives and fine mind won him a scholarship at Yale, where he faced the full gale of secular intelligentsia. But he soon realized that it wasn’t the finely reasoned arguments against the tenets of Catholicism that were weakening the faithful, but ridicule.

Zmirak has an unusual take on what undermined the faith of Catholics in America. “It wasn’t eroded by earnest atheists and intellectual attacks,” he states. “What broke down ordinary people was a thousand clever comedic skits.”

So George Carlin and Saturday Night Live’s Father Guido Sarducci are responsible for the rise of the “cafeteria Catholics?” Zmirak says yes. “If you get people laughing, whatever your message is, it slides in unnoticed under the door.”

And thus Zmirak found his vocation. He thought that if humor could be used against the Church, then it could be used for it.

Two of the author’s most popular books are “The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living” and “The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Wine, Whiskey and Song.” Like handbooks for fraternity boys, these books dream up parties, games and drinking activities, all laced with good humor and anchored in Catholic belief.

The good-living guide is dedicated to the fine sense of humor of the Pope John Paul II. Zmirak points out that the Pope not only brought down the Iron Curtain, but also won hearts with his refreshing comedic moments. Even a generation raised on Seinfeld and Monty Python found him accessible.

His guide follows the liturgical calendar with hilarious takes on the individual feasts and recipes and party ideas to celebrate them. In the pages of his book, every day is a reason to make merry in the Catholic world.

The “Guide to Wine, Whiskey and Song” is the rarest of things — a successful sequel. From A to Z, Zmirak runs through the most well-stocked liquor cabinet imaginable, tracing every form of spirit and elixir back to its Christian origin. In the finest of traditions, he also provides drinking songs, the funniest being Monty Python’s “Philosopher Song” reworked to feature heretics.

Zmirak’s latest effort, “The Grand Inquisitor” is a different genre for him, a graphic novel. Dubbed the anti-“Angels and Demons,” the story is set during a conclave, involves kidnapped cardinals, but champions the cause of orthodoxy and fidelity to the magisterium.

“The Grand Inquisitor” features all the staples of a good noir thriller — dark, graphic design, striking portraits and flashes of razor sharp wit — but contrary to genre which invariably transmits an anti-Christian message, Zmirak’s story is rooted in love for the Church.

After several days with John Zmirak, it became clear that a deep faith and great intelligence provide ballast for what seems to be Christendom’s first stand-up comic. A refreshing reminder of how it takes all kinds to make the Catholic Church.

Today is St. George’s Day.

On this day in 303, St. George was killed; in 997, St. Adalbert of Prague died; in 1014, Brian Boru defeated the Vikings at Clontarf; in 1348, the Order of the Garter was founded by Edward III; in 1564,William Shakespeare was born; in 1616, both Miguel Cervantes and William Shakespeare died; in 1635, the Boston Latin School was founded; in 1661, Charles II was crowned at Westminster; in 1725, St. Gerard Majella was born; in 1775, J.M.W. Turner was born; and in 1794, Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes was guillotined for his defense of King Louis XVI before the Convention.

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A vignette from the Holy Father’s recent youth rally in Yonkers:

From For God, For Country, and For Yale, via Benedicite, Pater reverende.

The Church of Our Lady of Esperanza, 156th Street & Broadway. The Church was built by Archer Huntington at the urging of Doña Manuela de Laverrerie de Barril and designed by Huntington’s brother Charles. The sanctuary lamp was a gift from King Alfonso XIII of Spain. The present façade dates from 1924, when the Church was expanded under the direction of Lawrence G. White, the son of Stanford White of McKim Mead & White and himself a partner in his father’s firm.

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I pray good beef and I pray good beer
This holy night of all the year,
But I pray detestable drink to them
That give no honour to Bethlehem.

May all good fellows that here agree
Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me,
And may all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!
May all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel!

WITH THESE SIMPLE and lovely lines, the great Hilaire Belloc superbly expressed the esprit de Noël of the Christian curmudgeon. It amounts, more or less, to “Rend honor to the Holy Child, and to hell with the rest”. His Lines for a Christmas Card are obviously meant in a jovial and light-hearted spirit (naturally, we Catholics would not wish Hell on any poor soul), and completely intelligible but for this curious line, “May all good fellows that here agree / Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me”. What on earth is Audit Ale?

Before the Reformation, the English year was a calendar of feasts, festivals, and holidays—holy days, even. Four of these holy days, spaced fairly evenly throughout the year, were marked for such things as the collection of rents and the paying of feudal tributes. These four were Lady Day (March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation), Midsummer Day (June 24, the Feast of St. John the Baptist), Michaelmas (September 29, the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel), and Christmas (December 25, of course, the Feast of the Nativity of Christ).

Now, events such as the collection of fees and taxes and the giving of feudal tribute tend towards the dour, and so often a feudal lord would have a special ale brewed for these occasions, to ensure a certain amount of merriment among the commonfolk once their tribute had been paid and the burden lifted. This tended to be called ‘audit ale’, since it was brewed around the time of audit. They were not, you will be happy to learn, the only seasonal brews around. There was ‘leet-ale’ for when the manorial court, or court-leet, convened, and there was Whitsun-ale for Whitsuntide, and there were church-ales which went towards the upkeep of the parish church and alms for the poor. Indeed, in village of Sygate in Norfolk, there is an inscription on the gallery of the church which reads:

Also, interestingly, the very word ‘bridal’ comes not from the -al suffix English developed up from Latin, but rather from the Old English brýd-ealo: bride-ale or wedding-ale.

With the advent of Protestantism—and most especially the Puritan variant thereof—feasts, seasons, and other joviality generally became frowned-upon. England was forced to be less English, as the monotonous bores took over. Still, remnants of the feasts and seasons remained. Lady Day was the first day of the year in the British Empire until 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was finally adopted. Similarly, the fiscal year in the United Kingdom begins on April 6, because that day in the Gregorian calendar corresponds to Lady Day in the old Julian calendar. In Oxford and Cambridge, meanwhile, colleges still brewed special ales for the time when grades were released; either to celebrate the achievement or to soften the blow. These brews kept the old moniker of ‘audit ales’ and Belloc most likely uses the term in this derivation. Even in my own time at St Andrews we often sipped home-brewed ale from ancient, battered pewter tankards, though we rarely needed the excuse of holy days to continue the tradition.

So this Yuletide perhaps you will consider home-brewing, and brew a special ale for the festal season now that the penetential time of Advent is passing. But, if you’re otherwise engaged, head into town and make sure to have a beer, and raise your pint to that Wondrous Babe whose birth brings us such mirth and cheer.

SAN FERNANDO CATHEDRAL in San Antonio, Texas, named after the holy King Ferdinand III of Castile, is one of the oldest cathedrals in the United States. Indeed, there is considerably debate as to precisely which church is the oldest cathedral in the United States. The Baltimore Basilica, recently restored, was the first cathedral to be located in the political entity known as the United States. The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Augustine in the Floridian city of that name was founded in 1594 (making it the oldest parish in the U.S.) but the current structure was not built until 1793, and the church did not become a cathedral until 1870. The core of San Fernando was built from 1738 to 1750, but the nave was replaced in 1868 with one of a neo-Gothic design. It became a cathedral when the See of San Antonio was erected in 1874. So the Baltimore Basilica (or the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to give it its full name) was certainly the first cathedral in the United States, though not the oldest church serving as a cathedral. To add to the fray, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace claims that it is the oldest continuously operating cathedral in the United States, since the Baltimore Basilica is no longer the cathedral of Baltimore, but rather merely co-cathedral to the bizarre art-deco-gothic Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in that city. It’s all quite mad really. Suffice to say, San Fernando is old and it is a cathedral; it’s an old cathedral. (more…)

A WEEK AGO AFTER the 11 o’clock Sunday Mass at St. Agnes, Dino Marcantonio, Matt Alderman, and I stood in front of the church and fantasized about how we would fix the old place. Well, perhaps ‘old’ isn’t the right word for the place. While the parish was founded in the 1840’s, the current church building only dates from the late 1990’s, built after the old Victorian edifice was consumed by fire. As for design, its heart is in the right place, but as they say the Devil is in the details. The interior is marred by quite obviously large joints between component parts of arches and cornices and the exterior just looks fake. Is craftsmanship dead? No, but it helps to search it out instead of accepting just any old thing.

At any rate, Matt Alderman has thrown together these esquisses of what his St Agnes would look like, and it’s all rather Austrian. (more…)

The clever kids over at Notre-Dame have struck again. Matthew Alderman (of Whapping fame) has published his hypothetical proposal for a church online and we thought we’d offer our most humble thoughts and comments upon the design. The Université de Nôtre-Dame du Lac over in South Bend, Indiana has arguably the best school of architecture in the country, if not all the Americas. Taking into account the state of most architecture schools these days, that isn’t saying much, but the School excels at teaching within the Western tradition of building, rather than inculcating the bland and soulless rejection of tradition which is modern architectural theory. You can see examples of the students’ works online at the School’s Student Gallery. (Of the rest, we found Lucas Hafeli’s art-nouveau mini-flatiron intriguing, as well as Erin Dwyer’s ferry terminal, and particularly enjoyed Brad Houston’s splendid arena). (more…)

The background story to Nôtre Dame de Bons Secours, from the Catholic Community Forum:

In 1727, French Ursuline nuns founded a monastery in New Orleans, Louisiana, and organized their area schools from it. In 1763 Louisiana became a Spanish possession, and Spanish sisters came to assist. In 1800 the territory reverted back to France, and the Spanish sisters fled in the face of France anti-Catholicsm. In 1803, short on teachers, Mother Saint Andre Madier requested reinforcements in the form of more sisters from France. The relative to whom she wrote, Mother Saint Michel, was running a Catholic boarding school for girls. Bishop Fournier, short-handed due to the repressions of the French Revolution, declined to send any sisters. Mother Saint Michel was given permission to appeal to the pope. The pope was a prisoner of Napoleon, and it seemed unlikely he would even receive her letter of petition. Mother Saint Michel prayed,

O most Holy Virgin Mary, if you obtain for me a prompt and favorable answer to this letter, I promise to have you honored at New Orleans under the title of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

and sent her letter on 19 March 1809. Against all odds, she received a response on 29 April 1809. The pope granted her request, and Mother Saint Michel, commissioned a statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor holding the Infant Jesus. Bishop Fournier blessed the statue and Mother’s work.

Mother Saint Michel and several postulants came to New Orleans on 31 December 1810. They brought the statue with them, and placed it in the monastery chapel. Since then, Our Lady of Prompt Succor has interceded for those who have sought her help.

A great fire threatened the Ursuline monastery in 1812. A lay sister brought the statue to the window and Mother Saint Michel prayed

Our Lady of Prompt Succor, we are lost if you do not come to our aid.

The wind changed direction, turned the fire away, and saved the monastery.

Our Lady interceded again at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Many faithful, including wives and daughters of American soldiers, gathered in the Ursuline chapel before the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, and spent the night before the battle in prayer. They asked Our Lady for the victory of the American forces over the British, which would save the city from being sacked. General Andrew Jackson and two hundred men from around the South won a remarkable victory over a superior British force in a battle that lasted twenty-five minutes, and saw few American casualties.

It is still customary for the devout of New Orleans to pray before the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor whenever a hurricane threatens New Orleans.

Hat tip: Irish Elk. The image used below is of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor in New Orleans.

C.f. the Cardinal Kung Foundation.

Various sites have put up photos from this year’s annual traditionalist Pentecost pilgrimage to Chartres, and I thought, as I did last year, I would gather a few of them and present them to you. (more…)

A comment of Mr. Hiss on Fr. Sibley’s blog mentioned the Church of St. Jean Baptiste on the Upper East Side. There are few churches in New York, let alone all America, which are as beautiful as St. Jean Baptiste (or “St. JB’s” as people ridiculously call it). A restoration only a few years ago brought the church back to its full splendour.

It used to be the national parish of the French Canadians in New York, hence the French name, and is now home to the National Shrine of St. Anne, formerly further downtown in what became St. Anne’s Armenian Catholic Cathedral (one of a few beautiful and very active church buildings being pawned off by the wretched bureaucrats who run the Archdiocese of New York).

The church is open most of the day and definitely worth stepping into even if you only have a few minutes. Their parish website (link above) has a somewhat detailed history of the parish and the architecture of the church.

The parish and girls’ high school are now staffed by priests of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament as well as sisters from the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, and the Body of Christ is adored all day long except during Mass.

Today we bring you the story of a man known as both Brother Louis of the Trinity, OCD, and Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu.

D’Argenlieu graduated from the Ecole Navale in Brest and was awarded the Legion d’Honneur for his actions in the Great War. After the war, he became a Carmelite friar, taking the name of Louis de la Trinité. As the Second World War commenced, he once again put on the uniform and partook in the defence of France from the pagan Nazis. Once France was vanquished, he escaped to London where he allied himself with General de Gaulle and the Free French Forces, eventually becoming the commander of the Free French Naval Forces. At the Liberation of the Paris, he strode down the Champs Elysée with de Gaulle and Leclerc and attended the Te Deum at Notre-Dame.

Incidentally, he was also the one who suggested the adoption of the Croix de Lorraine as the symbol to differentiate the Free French Forces from those of Vichy France.

In 1947 however, while Governor-General of Indochina, his request to leave the Armed Forces was granted, and he returned to life as a Carmelite, dying at the Priory of Avon in 1964.

More about Admiral d’Argenlieu/Father Louis here, here, and here.

Here are some photos from this years Pentecost Paris-Chartres Pilgrimage. (more…)

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