FROM a letter written by David Goldstein, Jewish convert to Catholicism, in 1956:

Dear Mr. Solomon,

My lengthy reply to your inquiry as to how, I, of Jewish parentage, could become a Catholic, is, in summary, because I believed in Old Testament principles and predictions, which call for religious and moral guidance by God, through His authoritative, priestly, sacrificial Church. These I found manifestly full formed and majestic in the Catholic Church, that displaced the Church of our Jewish forebears, as foretold by Moses and the prophets.

I fully appreciate your feelings regarding the Spanish Inquisition, and the resultant suffering its decisions caused the State to inflict upon the Marranos, for the guilt of heresy. Whether or not the crime warranted the punishment, the fact remains that the heretics in Spain deserved punishment. Your judgment of the Inquisition is based upon failure to realize that European civilization was virtually a unit in faith during the Middle Ages. The Gospels and the laws of the Catholic Church formed the basis of legislation. Religion was considered of vital import to the State, as civil unity depended to quite an extent upon religious unity. Therefore an attack upon religion, through heresy, was an attack upon the prevailing order of society, which the Catholic Church caused to evolve from paganism, through the Dark Ages, to Christian order. Hence heresy was considered a crime by the State, and a sin by the Church. The severe methods of punishment resorted to by the State during the years of the Spanish Inquisition, which you resent as do I, were always condemned by the Church. They were not of Spanish origin. They were universal for centuries before there was an united Spanish Kingdom. Yet they never reached the number or severity in Spain that Catholics suffered in other countries for the “crime” of loyalty to their religious faith.

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“THE Lord who is omnipotent, dearly beloved, might have made all men equally rich, so that no one need ask anything from another. In his infinite goodness, however, the merciful and gracious Lord hath planned otherwise, in order to prove your disposition in these matters. He hath made misery, that he might discern mercy; he hath made the needy, that he might make use of the rich. For your brother’s poverty is your material of riches, if ye do not understand concerning the needy and the poor, and do not consider as your own what wealth ye have received. For God hath bestowed upon you your brother’s portion in this world, in order that ye should offer of your own willing affection something of his gifts to those in need, and that he may enrich you in your turn with that portion in eternity. For now Christ receiveth through them, and hereafter he will repay for them.”

— St. Paulinus of Nola, 354-431 A.D.

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ALAN writes:

A quarter-century after he died, my father has never been absent from my memory or awareness. I am continuously aware of the debts I owed to him. He accompanies me whenever I walk the streets of St. Louis. I remember most of all his frame of mind and sense of life.

Here is one example:

Many years had gone by since I last viewed the 1964 motion picture musical “My Fair Lady”. Early this month I watched it twice on consecutive evenings. And while doing so, I tried to imagine how my father saw it. It opened in early 1965 at the ornate Ambassador Theater in downtown St. Louis, a movie palace where Ginger Rogers danced on stage in the 1920s.

I do not recall talking with my father about that movie then or in later years. I regret that. But I am sure he saw it. There are many things in it that I know would have impressed him favorably, not least the marriage of music and lyrics, the witty dialogue, and the masculine authority worn unapologetically by Rex Harrison’s character. My father enjoyed the sound of language spoken correctly and carefully. That was one reason why he watched (but especially listened to) William F. Buckley and his guests on his “Firing Line” program. I imagine he was equally impressed by Rex Harrison’s meticulous respect for language and diction in his role as Professor Henry Higgins.

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“THE body of every man doth consist of five senses, and five being doubled, is ten. Forasmuch, therefore, as the whole body of the faithful doth consist of two sexes, the Holy Church is likened unto ten virgins. And forasmuch as in the Church the good are for the present mingled with the bad, and the reprobate with the elect, it is rightly said that, of the ten virgins, five are wise and five are foolish. There are many who have self-control, which do keep themselves from lusting after things outward, whose hope beareth them to things inward, who chastise the flesh, who long with intense home-sickness for their Fatherland which is in heaven, who seek an eternal reward, and who will not to receive for their labours the praise of men. These are they who reckon their glory, not in the mouths of men, but in the testimony of their own conscience. And many there be likewise who afflict the body by self-control, and yet who seek for their self-control applause from men.”

— Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604 A.D.)

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Hymn

O God of truth, O Lord of might,
Who orderest time and change aright,
Who send’st the early morning ray,
And light’st the glow of perfect day:

Extinguish thou each sinful fire,
And banish every ill desire;
And while thou keep’st the body whole,
Shed forth thy peace upon the soul.

Almighty Father, hear our cry,
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord most High,
Who, with the Holy Ghost and thee,
Doth live and reign eternally.
Amen.

Divine Office, Ad Sextam

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Edward Weisenburger
Archbishop of Detroit
June 12, 2026
Imam Al-Hasanain Mosque
Dearborn Heights, Michigan

“From the moment I arrived at this beautiful property (Imam Al-Hasanain Mosque) today, I deeply felt the divine presence… we are all members of the same human family. All churches, all mosques, all synagogues, all places where God extends His hand and touches with His are sacred… This is a truly wonderful and holy place… a place that, I believe, will lead all of humanity to a deeper communion with our one God … a new place of holiness has been established in the community.”

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Regarding this chilling, in-your-face act of apostasy by Edward Weisenburger, I recommend the excellent commentary by “Interregnum.”

[Use your browser’s translation program to read in English. Easy to do!]

Notice how Weisenburger, who most definitely does not represent the Catholic Church, confuses the physical human family with the spiritual family that embraces those who are faithful, not to Allah, but to the one true God. The crackpot universal oneness he speaks of does not exist and has never existed. And that isn’t because true Christians are mean, mean people, but because the human race is fallen and prone, in a million ways, to substitute idols for God. Truthfully, it is Weisenburger and his ilk who are the meanies — denying with their blasphemous vanity the truths of salvation to Muslims.

Imagine an imam saying anything remotely similar about a Catholic Church (if such a thing existed anymore in anything but physical form). It wouldn’t happen! Muslims do not share the LUV. The faux-“Catholic” “ecumenism” of modern times is always a one-way street. An embarrassing obeisance, a submission, a cringe-worthy surrender to false gods, it’s a one-way street to apostasy.

Boy, the crooks at the U.N. must be laughing their heads off at this sentimental, garbage theology. (They, after all, are not themselves sentimentalists.) There is no place where I feel more at home. You’d feel equally at home, Mr. Hamburger, in the flames of eternity, where you’d yuck it up with the Muslims who will despise you forever for your lies and your brazen denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Ah, but you only wanted to be liked, eh?

By the way, even if these Muslims were Catholic, they would still belong in their own Arab countries because religion does not obliterate nature.

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“UNDER this symbol of love, Christ our High Priest, having suffered both cruelly and mystically, offered the twofold Sacrifice.

“Who would not love the Saviour who loves him? Who would not love him, by whom he has been redeemed? Who would not wish to take up his abode, for ever in this his Jesus’ Heart.”

— Hymn for Lauds, Feast of the Sacred Heart

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I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance.

— St. Luke 15:7

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“ONE day I saw the Son of God, holding in His Hand His own Heart, which appeared more brilliant than the sun and which was casting rays of light on every side; then, this amiable Saviour gave me to understand that all the graces which God unceasingly pours forth on men, according to the capacity of each, come from the plenitude of the Divine Heart.”

— St. Mechtilde, 1241-1298

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“THE sanctity of the Sacred Heart is the sanctity of One who is God as well as man. The Sacred Heart of Jesus hates sin as God hates it, loathes it with inexpressible loathing. How, then, can I, who am so full of sin, venture to appeal to the Heart to which sin is thus foul with a foulness that knows no bound or limit? At least I can pray that I may share in a greater degree this hatred of sin, and so learn to avoid it.

“Happily for us, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by reason of the Divine nature of our Lord, has also unbounded love tor sinners. His infinite sanctity makes Him long after them with an inexhaustible love, and an unceasing desire to see them rid of the sin that denies them. If sins still cling to me, it is not His fault, but my own. It is owing to my want of correspondence to His constant invitations to come to Him to be healed of all sin.”

— Rev. R.F. Clarke, S.J., “The Sanctity of the Sacred Heart“

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“HE desires us to avoid the slightest faults, but He does not wish us to worry too much even about the great ones. He decrees that joy, liberty and peace of heart shall be the eternal inheritance of all those who love Him truly.”

— The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Fr. John Croiset, S.J. (1959)

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“THE Sacred Heart of Jesus was the instrument of a human soul, which contained in it all the perfections, natural and supernatural, of which the human soul is capable. It was the ideal of which the soul, even of the greatest of the saints, was but an utterly inadequate realization. Its sweetness, its gentleness, its power to attract, its Divine beauty were unbounded and almost infinite. Let us contemplate that Sacred Heart, radiant with glory and splendor, and adore it with grateful love.

— Rev. R.F. Clarke, S.J., Meditations on the Sacred Heart

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“AT THE period of Jesus’ coming upon this earth, man had forgotten how to love, for he had forgotten what true beauty was. His heart of flesh seemed to him as a sort of excuse for his false love of false goods: his heart was but an outlet, whereby his soul could stray from heavenly things to the husks of earth, there to waste his power and his substance. To this material world, which the soul of man was intended to make subserve its Maker’s glory,— to this world, which, by a sad perversion, kept man’s soul a slave to his senses and passions, — the Holy Ghost sent a marvelous power, which, like a resistless lever, would replace the world in its right position: —it was the sacred Heart of Jesus; a Heart of flesh, like that of other human beings, from whose created throbbings there would ascend to the eternal Father an expression of love, which would be an homage infinitely pleasing to the infinite Majesty, because there was in that love of that human Heart the dignity of its union with the Word.

— — Dom Prosper Guéranger, “The Feast of the Sacred Heart,” The Liturgical Year

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FROM The Life and Letters of Saint Francis Xavier, (Letter LXXIX, 1549-1552):

“We shall write to you about Japan, just as far as we get acquainted with it, and what we ourselves have learnt. In the first place, the nation with which we have had to do here surpasses in goodness any of the nations lately discovered. I really think that among barbarous nations there can be none that has more natural goodness than the Japanese. They are of a kindly disposition, not at all given to cheating, wonderfully desirous of honour and rank. Honour with them is placed above every thing else. There are a great many poor among them, but poverty is not a disgrace to any one. There is one thing among them of which I hardly know whether it is practised anywhere among Christians. The nobles, however poor they may be, receive the same honour from the rest as if they were rich; nor can any noble, however poor and needy, be induced to contract marriage with even the richest plebeian. They think that by coming down to ally themselves with plebeians they lose a great deal of dignity and estimation, and thus it is that they despise riches in comparison with dignity. They have a great many observances of courtesy among themselves. They are very fond of arms and weapons, and rely upon them very much. The highest and lowest alike always wear their swords and daggers—even boys of fourteen years of age. They never bear an insult either in word or deed. (more…)

From St. Francis Xavier’s “Letter on the Missions,” written from India, to St. Ignatius de Loyola, 1549:

May the grace and charity of our Lord Christ always be with us! Amen.

My own and only Father in the Heart of Christ, I think that the many letters from this place which have lately been sent to Rome will inform you how prosperously the affairs of religion go on in these parts, through your prayers and the good bounty of God. But there seem to be certain things which I ought myself to speak about to you; so I will just touch on a few points relating to these parts of the world which are so distant from Rome. In the first place, the whole race of the Indians, as far as I have been able to see, is very barbarous; and it does not like to listen to anything that is not agreeable to its own manners and customs, which, as I say, are barbarous. It troubles itself very little to learn anything about divine things and things which concern salvation. Most of the Indians are of vicious disposition, and are adverse to virtue. Their instability, levity, and inconstancy of mind are incredible; they have hardly any honesty, so inveterate are their habits of sin and cheating. We have hard work here, both in keeping the Christians up to the mark and in converting the heathen. And, as we are your children, it is fair that on this account you should take great care of us and help us continually by your prayers to God. You know very well what a hard business it is to teach people who neither have any knowledge of God nor follow reason, but think it a strange and intolerable thing to be told to give up their habits of sin, which have now gained all the force of nature by long possession. (more…)

FROM The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, Book III, Letter LV, (c. 1545-1548):

I have very good reason to thank God for the fruits which came of this work. The converts took up the practice of singing hymns of the praises of God with so much ardour, that the native boys in the street, the young girls and the women in the houses, the labourers in the fields, the fishermen on the sea, instead of singing licentious and blasphemous songs, were always singing the elements of the Christian doctrine. And as all the songs had been put in the language of the country, they were understood equally well by the newly made Christians and the heathen. And, by the favour of God, the Portuguese in the country and the rest of the inhabitants, both Christian and heathen, took such an affection for me that I found favour in their eyes. I passed from thence into the islands that are called ‘of the Moor,’ about sixty leagues from Molucco. There were here many Christian villages unattended to for a length of time, both on account of their great distance from India, and because the natives had put to death the only priest who was among them. In these islands I baptized a great number of children, and in the space of three months, for I remained that length of time, I visited all the Christian villages, and made them devoted to Christ and to myself. All these isles are full of dangers, on account of the feuds which rage among the inhabitants and their civil wars; the race is barbarous, totally ignorant of letters, devoid of any written monuments of the past, and without any notions of reading or writing. It is their practice to take away the lives of any whom they hate by poison, and in this way a great many are killed. The soil is rugged and destitute of productions which support life. There is no corn nor wine; the natives scarcely know what flesh meat is; they have no herds nor flocks, nothing but a few swine, which are rather objects of curiosity than food. Wild boars abound; good water is very rare; rice is plentiful; there are  trees in great numbers from which they get a kind of bread and of wine, and others out of the woven bark of which the clothing which they all use is made. I have written all this to you, my dearest brothers, that you may know how much these islands overflow with heavenly joys. (more…)

ALAN writes:

These are the exact words that were posted at the St. Louis Police Department’s website:

“….officers are investigation a shooting that injured two 18-year-old males injured on April 9, 2026 in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood…..”

When I lived in that neighborhood sixty years ago, I could walk the streets any time of day or night and not get injured by “a shooting”.  It was so long ago that there were even things like common sense and proofreading. We had two daily newspapers, but they never reported that “officers are investigation” anything or that people who were injured were injured. (more…)

“THE more thou grudgest by impatience, either against God for any tribulation or sickness, or other bodily disease sent by Him, or against thy neighbour, for aught that he doth against thee, the less is the image of Jesus reformed in thee. I say not that such grudgings or fleshly angriness are deadly sins; but I say that they hinder the cleanness of heart and peace of conscience, that thou canst not have perfect charity, by the which thou shouldst come to life Contemplative. Cleanse thy heart also from venial sins as much as thou canst; and that the ground of sin might by grace of Jesus Christ be somewhat shaken in thee. For though it be so that thou feelest no evil against thy neighbour for a time, yet art thou not secure that the ground of anger is quenched in thee; neither yet art thou lord and master of the virtue of charity. (more…)