THESE photos of Sunday’s Manif Pour Tous demonstration in Paris are exhilarating. It’s not just the huge crowds or the fact that all different ages are represented or the regional flags and patriotic colors or the Parisian buildings and streets. It’s the signs people are carrying: “Everyone is born of a mother and father,” “No, to the destruction of civilization,” “One mother and one father: It’s hereditary,” “Yes to human dignity,” “I am not for sale” and many more.

Common sense has woken from a deep sleep. That’s how it seems when reading these banners. Or as Tugdual Derville, a leader of Manif Pour Tous and a father of six children, recently said, “It is the soul of France that is waking up.”

Homosexual “marriage” is now legal in France, but it never will be a settled or accepted institution there. Such is the power of truth, once it is embraced by large numbers of people.

By the way, notice the absence of Muslims in these pictures despite the large Muslim presence in Paris and the absolute Islamic prohibition against homosexuality. Why aren’t they here? The answer is simple. They do not see themselves as Frenchmen.

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POPE FRANCIS has in many ways and on many occasions rejected the dignity and ceremony of the papal office, but at no moment has he done so more strikingly than when he thanked Cristina Kirchner, the President of Argentina, with a kiss. A reader at Tradition in Action asks whether Francis has refused his office, so consistently and often has he discarded the monarchical traditions and authority of his position.

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Annunciation, Rogier Van der Weyden (1400-1464)

CHRISTIAN motherhood is the noblest institution of motherhood that has ever existed. It lacks for nothing important and thus is perfection realized. This will always be true, even if every church in this world were somehow to shut its doors and people turned to modern versions of the catacombs.

Non-Christian mothers often benefit unconsciously from the ideals of the Christian institution of motherhood, which involves monogamy and the highest respect for and protection of maternal effort. It is the legacy they have inherited and they are often profoundly indifferent to and ignorant of the reasons why polygamy, repudiation of wives and concubinage no longer exist, at least not in their ancient forms. These non-Christian mothers may love their children as much, but their love is a seed that falls on less fertile ground. The same is true of the pseudo-Christian mother, of whom there are countless many.

The Christian mother is not satisfied to prepare her child for this world — for friends, school, college, marriage and life in general. Her project extends into eternity. Thus she possesses a certain detachment that makes her authority over her children especially powerful and makes her less unsettled by their storms, whims or unpopularity by the world’s standards. For the pagan mother, her life is a success if her child is well-liked.

The Christian mother is conscious of supernatural forces pitted against her. Thus she does not have the utopian expectation that she will feel fulfilled every moment of the day or that her marriage will be one long romantic episode. The devil loves nothing so much as to destroy a mother’s attachment to her domestic society. He will dedicate his greatest arts to engage in conversation with a woman alone in her home, faced with tedium and dreary poverty. He loves to tell her that real life is elsewhere, that all this is beneath her, that she was meant to do more impressive things. The Christian mother knows she is embattled and responds to these assaults heroically, with hope, prayer and confidence in God. She is his handmaid. She must cultivate tenderness and militance and thus her work is very difficult. To defend the home requires every aspect of her being: body, intellect, and soul. Feminists didn’t flee the home because it was easy. They fled it because it was hard.

Christian motherhood was born on the day the Angel Gabriel approached Mary. “Blessed art thou among women,” he said, as he knelt before the humble Jewish girl. Paintings of the Annunciation, such as this one by Rogier Van der Weyden, often depict Mary as gravely conscious of her responsibility. If she had not at that moment felt the immensity of God’s love, she would have been crushed by the awareness of her own inferiority.

On that day, which Catholics honor today with the Feast Of Our Lady Virgin and Queen, the exalted institution of Christian motherhood was born, and that birth led to the greatest of civilizational achievements, to levels of art and learning this world had never seen. Behind the greatest institutions of the West stands the Christian mother and her wisdom. That day was just yesterday. Today, in this materialistic and Vitalistic world, the Christian mother lives in the reverberations of that moment. She willingly denies herself many of the rewards of the feminist economy. And those rewards are undeniably good in and of themselves. She gives up status, potentially interesting diversions and material gain that would no doubt benefit her children to participate in a higher project, an undertaking which is in no way guaranteed of success.

The Christian mother cannot help but be gravely conscious, as Mary was on that day, of what she has lost and what lies before her. But even in the heart of darkness, her soul doth magnify the Lord.

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THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

Apropos the alarm of true Frenchmen concerning the betrayal of their country by the political class and the insouciance of that political class in importing savages by the tens of thousands to inflict on ordinary Frenchmen – here is the Finale of Act I of Les Troyens (first performed in 1862) by the greatest of all French composers, Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803 – 1869).  In this scene, Cassandra (sung and acted magnificently by Anna Caterina Antonacci), who can see the future, watches in helpless despondency while her deluded countrymen drag the lethal horse into their citadel, breaking down the walls to admit it.  The performance comes from the production at the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris, to mark the 200^th anniversary of Berlioz.  The situation in the scene is the situation – in France and elsewhere – today.

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A MAN identified only as Alexandre D. was arrested yesterday for stabbing a French soldier in the neck over the weekend. He is a recent convert to Islam and was seen praying before the attack. The 25-year-old soldier was stabbed in a shopping mall, and was treated in a hospital and released. Interior Minister Manuel Valls says other “radical” Muslims are under surveillance, as if there is an administrative solution to a threat that arises in the invisible heart of an observant Muslim.

Alexandre D. had been under surveillance too. But then the French police have been busy arresting mothers of young children and Catholic university students. Why worry about followers of a creed that commands the violent conquest of France when there are so many dangerous people who want children to have a maman et papa? A Muslim must kill or maim before he is identified as a radical. A French patriot or Christian need merely wave a banner at the top of a building for the French security forces to determine he is as an extremist who should be arrested and detained.

Virgil’s Laocoön called out to the citizens of Troy,”O unhappy citizens, what madness?” But no one listened. Troy wanted to believe the wooden horse was a gift of peace and love. Or as David Cameron would say as Troy burned, “The horse is a betrayal of Greece.”

The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy by Domenico Tiepolo (1773),

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JOSEPH RUDYARD KIPLING, a reader, has posted a Youtube video of the construction site of the $100 million Turkish American Culture and Civilization Center in Lanham, Maryland. The facility, which will include a mosque, was dedicated on May 15th by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who said it “will likely become the largest and most striking example of Islamic architecture in the Western Hemisphere.” Maryland′s Governor Martin O’Malley attended the ceremony.

Imagine a $100 million facility devoted to Nazi-ism on American soil with the complicity of the American government. The Turkish American Culture and Civilization Center is every bit as dangerous as that.

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WHILE the bishop who oversees the National Catholic Committee on Scouting has approved of the new membership policy of the Boy Scouts of America, the Rev. Derek Lappe, of Our Lady Star of the Sea parish, is among those priests who have repudiated it. Fr. Lappe announced in his Sunday bulletin this week that the parish will no longer host the Boy Scouts. He offers a lengthy explanation. Here is an excerpt:

Through no fault of their own, through the breakdown of families, through the failures of society at large young people can find themselves struggling with same-sex attraction. The question is, what is the best way to help them? How do we offer hope and healing?

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DANIEL S. writes:

I suppose it comes as little surprise that the Swedish police stood back and allowed hordes of Muslim immigrants to roam the streets of Stockholm burning cars, buildings, and anything else they fancied. What does stand out is that the Swedish police issued parking tickets on the numerous burned out cars.

In a not so dissimilar vein, British authorities arrested at least three people for making anti-Muslim comments on Facebook and Twitter following the brutal murder of a British soldier by a pair of Nigerian Muslims. Read More »

IN the entry on the Boy Scouts’ recent decision to admit boys who are openly homosexual, Bartholomew says I am wrong to condemn the decision. He writes:

Including youth as “homosexuals” and excluding youth as “homosexuals” sends them the same message — that they are, in fact, “homosexuals.” The only difference is that the Includers think the Scouts should celebrate “homosexuals,” while the Excluders think the Scouts should quarantine them. Either way, Includers and Excluders agree that a) there is a specific kind of youth called a “homosexual” and b) these youthful “homosexuals” should be treated differently (Includers preferentially, Excluders discriminatorily) than normal youths. Read More »

IN a video posted at Gates of Vienna, David Wood replies to David Cameron’s statement last week that the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby was a “betrayal of Islam.”

DON VINCENZO writes:

Paul Tudor Jones, a hedge-fund billionaire, apologized on Friday for recent comments he made during a question-and-answer session at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce. Jones was so insensitive as to inform his audience that based on his wide experience over decades, women and men are not equally successful in finance for one major reason: once a woman bears a child, she can never be as “focused” as earlier and thus can never be as successful. “And I’ve just seen it happen over and over.” Read More »

ESTIMATES vary dramatically as to the number of people who demonstrated against the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in Paris on Sunday. They range from 150,000 to one million. Judging from the photos and videos posted at Galliawatch, the number is at least several hundred thousand.

The New York Times accepts the smaller figure and describes the demonstrators as religious conservatives. In fact, many of those drawn to the Manif Pour Tous events are not religious. Galliawatch reports that Frigide Barjot has quit the organization. A major French newspaper’s declared the rally a success and stated that France has split in two.

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I HAVE been away from my desk for two days, attending a family reunion. I plan to post comments that came in during that time shortly.

I hope you and your families are having a pleasant holiday and join with you in honoring those who have died in military service to this country.

THERE is a good side to the decision by the Boy Scouts of America to make a dramatic break with its tradition. It has already inspired many parents to cut their ties with the national group and start to form new organizations. Taylor Marshall proposes a Catholic version of the Boy Scouts. He calls it the Scouts of St. George. He offers a seven-point manifesto here. Marshall proposes that the group not register as a non-profit and accept no government oversight at all.

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FROM the Telegraph:

The Deputy Prime Minister [Nick Clegg] paid tribute for [sic] Muslim groups for responding to the brutal murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich on Wednesday with a call for “unity and calm”.

Mr Clegg said: “Over the last few days London has shown itself at its best: an unbreakable city once again refusing to bow to hatred and violence. Of all the groups and faiths represented here today, I would like to pay special tribute to London’s Muslim community. Read More »

YOU’VE got to appreciate the mendacious consistency of the press. This caption is from the Financial Times:

Policemen extinguish burning cars after youths rioted in Husby, Sweden, on May 20, 2013. Youths in the immigrant-heavy Stockholm suburb torched cars and threw rocks at police, in riots believed to be linked to the deadly police shooting of a local resident. Read More »

BILL R. writes:

I could not ask for better confirmation than this about who does and doesn’t condemn these acts or call them a “betrayal” of Islam. An Islamic cleric who taught Michael Adebolajo, the Woolwich attacker, and was banished from Britain in 2005 has praised him in an interview for “standing firm, courageous, brave.” This is what you actually get out of Islam in response to attacks like this if you get anything at all. So much for Adebolajo’s “betrayal” of Islam. Read More »