FROM “The Suicide of Thought” by G.K. Chesterton:

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. For example, Mr. Blatchford attacks Christianity because he is mad on one Christian virtue: the merely mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity. He has a strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by saying that there are no sins to forgive. Mr. Blatchford is not only an early Christian, he is the only early Christian who ought really to have been eaten by lions. For in his case the pagan accusation is really true: his mercy would mean mere anarchy. He really is the enemy of the human race—because he is so human. As the other extreme, we may take the acrid realist, who has deliberately killed in himself all human pleasure in happy tales or in the healing of the heart. Torquemada tortured people physically for the sake of moral truth. Zola tortured people morally for the sake of physical truth. But in Torquemada’s time there was at least a system that could to some extent make righteousness and peace kiss each other. Now they do not even bow. But a much stronger case than these two of truth and pity can be found in the remarkable case of the dislocation of humility. (more…)

DR. WILLIAM MAKIS reports: Hirofumi Yanagase is a Japanese politician who is a member of the House of Councillors of Japan. VIDEO: Mr. Hirofumi, Yanagase speaks out: "Compared to 2021, the number of deaths has increased by more than 140,000. Compared to 2020, the number of deaths has increased by 210,000…the highest number since World War II” “Japan has been flooded with people complaining of feeling ill after receiving the COVID vaccine” “Amazingly, even though more than 2000 people have died after vaccination, more than 99% of these deaths cannot be evaluated” “According to our calculations, the percentage of reported deaths after COVID vaccine is more than 38 times higher in comparison with the flu vaccine” Out of more than 2000 deaths after COVID-19 vaccination, on March 10, 2023 a Japanese Ministry of Health panel made the first of a causal link between the death of a 42 year old woman and the COVID-19 vaccine (click here) cont.... Yanagese can be seen speaking before the House of Councillors here.  

"WESTERN Man towers over the rest of the world in ways so large as to be almost inexpressible. It’s Western exploration, science, and conquest that have revealed the world to itself. "Other races feel like subjects of Western power long after colonialism, imperialism, and slavery have disappeared. "The charge of racism puzzles Whites who feel not hostility, but only baffled goodwill, because they don’t grasp what it really means: humiliation. "The White man presents an image of superiority even when he isn’t conscious of it. And superiority excites envy. Destroying White civilization is the inmost desire of the league of designated victims we call ‘minorities’.” --- Joseph Sobran, 1946-2010  

After 28 years of failure in South Africa, this black woman now realises that, without white people running the government, her country has no future. Reminds me of the crowds of black farm workers cheering the return of white farmers in Zimbabwe. pic.twitter.com/LdciwMbhTF

— Way of the World (@wayotworld) March 12, 2023

“Let the power go back to the White people. We, as black people, we just have to accept that we failed dismally. For 28 years, we were given chance to prove ourselves, and we failed dismally.

“This thing of voting, one black person after the other, it won’t help us with anything. Let power go back to White people.

“When White people were governing this country — irrespective of whatever that they were doing — but our parents were working, kids used to get passes to go to universities, the town used to be clean.

“There was jobs everywhere. You apply you get a job. Even if you didn’t have qualifications, you could work in hotels — you could work wherever. You could even work in the farms — there were farms where people could work. (more…)

"OUR sanctification is an edifice built up of grains of sand and drops of water. For example, it consists of trifles at a glance repressed, a word held back, a smile checked, a line unfinished, a souvenir stifled, a welcome letter read only once and that rapidly, a natural reaction boldly restrained, a wearisome bore politely endured, an outburst of irritation suppressed at once, refraining from a useless purchase, overcoming fits of depression, tempering nature's transports with thoughts of God's Presence in us, overcoming repugnances: what is all this? Just insignificant trifles in the eyes of men who may not see them, but wonderfully clear to him who dwells within us. Here is what we have to watch closely. Here are both the smallest and the greatest proofs of fidelity that will draw down torrents of grace upon the soul." -- Mgr. Louis Gaston Adrien de Ségur (quoted here)  

"Truth does not depend on what one thinks but on the existence of things." --- St. Thomas Aquinas (On Truth, 1.2ad3)  

“THE first thing to see is that this enormous normality is like a mountain; and one that is capable of being a volcano. Every abnormality that is now opposed to it is like a mole-hill; and the earnest sociological organisers of it are exceedingly like moles. But the mountain is a volcano in another sense also; as suggested in that tradition of the southern fields fertilised by larva. It has a creative as well as a destructive side; and it only remains, in this part of the analysis, to note the political effect of this extra-political institution, and the political ideals of which it has been the champion; and perhaps the only permanent champion.

“The ideal for which it stands in the state is liberty. It stands for liberty for the very simple reason with which this rough analysis started. It is the only one of these institutions that is at once necessary and voluntary. (more…)

"THE best crosses are the heaviest, and the heaviest are those which arouse our greatest repugnance, those which we do not choose, the crosses we find in the streets, and better still those we find at home. These are to be preferred to hair-shirts, disciplines, fasts, and all other practices of austerity. There is always something of overnicety in the crosses we choose; because there is something of self in them, they are less crucifying. Humble yourself, therefore, and accept those which are imposed upon you against your will." -- St. Francis de Sales  

THE MONK BY THE SEA*
—- by Mark Anthony Signorelli

There lived a monk by the sea —
He walked along the sand,
He wandered silently
Without a friend at hand,

And when the last gray swatch
Of day hung in the sky,
He’d wander there and watch
The ships go sailing by;

And sometimes it would happen
When winter storms would blow,
Some rash and foolish captain
Would bring his ship to woe;

And the monk would see the boat
That floundered in the tide,
And he would hear the shout
The desperate sailors cried, (more…)

"[T]he efficacy of contrition does not simply consist in ceasing to sin, or in resolving to begin, or having actually begun a new life; it supposes first of all a hatred of one's ill-spent life and a desire of atoning for past transgressions. ".... The word means the breaking of an object into small parts by means of a stone or some harder substance; and here it is used metaphorically, to signify that our hearts, hardened by pride, are beaten and broken by penance. Hence no other sorrow, not even that which is felt for the death of parents, or children, is called contrition. The word is exclusively employed to express the sorrow with which we are overwhelmed by the forfeiture of the grace of God and of our own innocence. "... for as ulcers are lanced with a knife in order to allow the escape of the poisonous matter accumulated within, so the heart, as it were, is pierced with the lance of contrition, to enable it to emit the deadly poison of sin." --- Catechism of the Council of Trent, Transl. by John McHugh and Charles Callan, 1923  

Susan Bell,
Chair of the Board
National Audubon Society

Dear Mrs. Bell,

I am an ordinary bird lover who recently visited the society’s museum in Audubon, Pennsylvania. I am also a longtime admirer of the society’s namesake, John James Audubon, one of the greatest artists who ever lived.

I am writing in response to news that the board is considering removing Audubon’s name from the title of your organization, as have several chapters, and that it has already taken major steps to distance itself from him.

Audubon, as you well know, has been accused of “racism.” In an exhibit at the museum, on my recent visit, his life was described as, in part, “despicable.”

I do not believe Audubon, who wrote so movingly of the virtues and nobility of the American Indians he met in the wilderness, was “racist.” Not at all. Even so, I would like to join with those requesting his name be erased and his legacy officially canceled.

Please remove his name and disassociate his great works from your  “non-profit” corporation. I only offer this suggestion because your organization has solicited advice.

The truth is, Audubon doesn’t belong anymore.

A quixotic genius and self-taught explorer who experienced poverty and other hardships in his project to render the birds of America, Audubon wasn’t impressed with the Puritanical zealotry of certain 19th-century abolitionists. He would have even more so, I strongly believe, disavowed the fanatical Puritans of today, the zealots, killjoys and thought cops who rule “non-profit” corporations such as yours and who are imposing a variety of political guilt trips on every visit to the woods, mountains or wetlands.

Certainly Audubon would not have approved of the society’s use of political buzzwords such as “equity, inclusion and diversity.” He knew almost anyone with two legs could walk into the backwoods and anyone with ears could listen to birdsong. He well knew that birds are universally accessible, the most “inclusive” of creatures.

He was also a family man to the end, through great sacrifice. He wouldn’t have approved of your perverse promotion of drag queens and “queers.” Audubon loved nature. He was not at war with it, except in minor practicalities. As for your organization’s political obsession with  “climate change,” there too he doesn’t belong. He fought with weather on his exhausting excursions to capture and view birds, not against it in a cosmic political project that just so happens to coincide with the totalitarian objectives of a world state, which he certainly would have abhorred, valuing freedom and the wilderness as he did.

Audubon was a self-made man — not a crybaby or a whiner. He worked against extraordinary odds. He wasn’t anything like the pseudo-scientific technocrats, political victimologists or social engineers the Audubon Society promotes today. Audubon wasn’t even, first and foremost, a scientist.

He brought incalculable joy and wonder to humanity. His dramatic prints of birds are even better than real birds, such is the mystery of true art. Please let him be. Let him fall into obscurity.

Let those of us who love birds and beauty, who are proud of all that Americans of the past did to expand the knowledge of birds, cherish Audubon’s works without any trace of guilt. No offense, but we don’t need you as we continue to hold his legacy close to our hearts. I don’t mean this as a personal attack, but your organization has become a boring, scolding, obscene, sex-mad, equality-addled, over-funded, ornithological super-nanny, a monstrous threat to any genuine love of nature. Please let him rest in peace.

Sincerely,

Laura Wood

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ALAN writes: In the 1950s-‘60s, this corner storefront in south St. Louis was the home of Mrs. Smith’s Confectionary. On summer days in 1958-’59, my boyhood pal Jeff and I walked into this confectionary to buy as many packs of Topps baseball cards as our dimes and nickels would allow. The baseball cards were wonderful. The pink bubble gum that came with them was a challenge to endure for more than five minutes. At that time, there was no Diversity in the neighborhood. The building looked much the same as it does in this newspaper photo from 1976. Below is Mrs. Smith's Confectionary, 2022 A.D.  (After The Diversity): There is no word yet on whether a plaque will be awarded to The Diversity who added these charming touches to the building.  

FROM Meditations for Each Day in Lent by St. Thomas Aquinas

Christ underwent every kind of suffering

“Every kind of suffering.” The things men suffer may be understood in two ways. By “kind” we may mean a particular, individual suffering, and in this sense there was no reason why Christ should suffer every kind of suffering, for many kinds of suffering are contrary the one to the other, as for example, to be burnt and to be drowned. We are of course speaking of Our Lord as suffering from causes outside himself, for to suffer the suffering effected by internal causes, such as bodily sickness, would not have become him. But if by “kind” we mean the class, then Our Lord did suffer by every kind of suffering, as we can show in three ways:

1. By considering the men through whom He suffered. For He suffered something at the hands of Gentiles and of Jews, of men and even of women as the story of the servant girl who accused St. Peter goes to show. He suffered, again, at the hands of rulers, of their ministers, and of the people, as was prophesied, Why have the Gentiles raged; and the people devised vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together against the Lord and against his Christ (Ps. ii. i, 2). (more…)

"THE Religion of Man is propagated by all modern means. One of its popular appeals is to Peace, but there is no peace, only agitation. 'Peace' as constantly shouted simply means surrender --  surrender to the forces striving to bring all mankind to a condition of state slavery. The Church's most persistent enemies have always contended that it was only religion, particularly the Catholic religion, by insisting upon divinely revealed absolute truths, which obstructs a peace based on secular good fellowship. Presumably peace and the good life would follow from a worldwide brotherhood in which all men would be equal. And so it is that such words as 'discrimination' and 'prejudice' have taken on a special meaning. They are the capital sins of the Religion of Man. "'Love' is another 'relevant' word. As it is now commonly noised about, literally no one takes it to mean or even include the love of God. Man is now to be the sole object of love, which as conceived now is only sentiment and emotion. Quite certainly those who will openly oppose this new religion in the future will reap the hatred of the Love shouters, as they do even now in some degree. Pope Benedict XV warned in his time that 'all the worst and most disordered elements of society ardently desires the revolution.'  Long before Pope Benedict's time, the French revolutionists set up the guillotine in the name of Liberty, Equality and…

“SOME think that one should not speak of the dead except in sighs and tears, or in the accents of tragedy. This may be the reason why some persons absolutely bar this subject from their conversation, and sometimes even will not have the name of a departed member of the family mentioned in their presence. This indicates a false conception of sorrow and also of immortality. To live in the memory of the departed does not mean to live in the horrors of their agonies and to perpetuate the heartbreaks of separation. On the contrary, it is to live in their former presence and in its continuation in the spiritual world. It means to feed on their instructions, to rekindle the living flame of their tender affection, and to put into our lives and conduct the seal of their good example.

“This should be the aim of our conversations when we speak about the dead. These conversations might be serious, but they should remain serene, and nothing should prevent their being sweet and enjoyable; indeed the proper discipline of grief demands it. Man cannot bear the doleful and lugubrious for any length of time. To speak of our departed in such tones will soon tire others and even ourselves. In that case nothing else is to be done but to banish them from our thoughts and from the course of our daily lives, and thus bury them a second time and forever.

“We can do something better to prove that we mourn their loss; it is to allow them to continue holding the place they occupied while they were still alive, and to include them in our confidences, our chats and in our meditations as well.

“Whether our solitary meditations be silent reveries or our meditations in public be an unburdening of ourselves to friends, they must always be endowed with the same character, that of a tonic and cordial for the soul. All that might depress, weaken us, render us less apt to accomplish our task, or bear our burden less bravely, must be banished. All that can purify, strengthen us, increase our love of life and our power for greater good must be found in them.”

— Marguerite Duportal, A Key to Happiness: The Art of Suffering, 1944 (more…)

“LIVING on the surface of the soul, we come to live on the surface in everything; for he who knows not how to penetrate within the soul has forgotten how to penetrate into the depths of anything else. He is taken up with externals, and matters of detail become chiefly important to him. Thus in duties and obligations, he sees the letter rather than the spirit, the bark rather than the sap, the body rather than the soul. He knows that such and such details are prescribed, ‘and certain others forbidden. He sees the external side of the law, the material fact of the prescription, and this is the only thing to which he attaches a certain amount of importance. He does not see the inward side, the reason and end of the prescription, the spirit of the law ; and thus he brings an external and mechanical fidelity to the material observance of the letter which he sees and which killeth, without drawing any inspiration from the spirit which quickeneth,! and which he does not see. (more…)