ANNA MARIE writes:

I am recently engaged and planning a wedding for next August! Please pray for me. I was wondering if you had any advice/book suggestions for me to read as I prepare for marriage. Read More »

CHRISTOPHER writes:

I prayed five Glorious Mysteries for your mother yesterday. I have no real Catholics in my family so I always offer masses and prayers for people I don’t know because I know they will pray for me and my family.

God bless!

IF THERE is one idea that Americans of all political persuasions hold in common it is that democracy is the greatest of all political systems. More than an idea, it’s an emotional state. Love of country is love of “We the People.” It doesn’t matter how many liars are elevated to power, it doesn’t matter that the democratic state routinely imposes restraints that surpass those of tyrannical kings and make the woes of the American colonists seem utterly petty, it doesn’t matter that the government bureaucracies relentlessly expand, confiscating wealth and brazenly defying the people on issues such as immigration, democracy, we continue to believe, is the foundation of freedom. It will not let us down in the end.

But it has let us down and, according to the Belgian writer and historian Christophe Buffin de Chosal, this is the end. It will never deserve our trust again. Buffin de Chosal has produced a powerful and provocative critique on the nature of democracy. The End of Democracy, originally published in 2014 and recently translated into English by Ryan P. Plummer in a new edition by Tumblar House, is unsparing in its rejection of the modern democratic system.

Democracy has failed us, he argues, not because we are decadent. We are decadent because of democracy. Democracy by its nature promotes “spectacular advances in immorality.” It is not government for the people and by the people. It is government for the powerful by the powerful. Democracy never was a movement of the people. We are democracy’s dupes. Its revolutions were always imposed from above. Offering the masses the illusion of participation, it prevents popular resistance to its absolutist dictates. Both the English parliamentary revolution and the French Revolution were the successful efforts of powerful minorities subjugating the monarchy to its demands. The people were a ruse.  “Liberal democracy did not want liberty for all, but only the liberty of the wealthy,” Buffin de Chosal writes.

The reality is that democracy was invented for the purpose of bringing an oligarchy into power and keeping it there.

In his introduction to Buffin de Chosal’s work, historian Charles A. Coulombe embraces this thesis too:

Democracy has been a system in perpetual degradation. it has participated in the decline of the Western world, being both its cause and its fellow traveler. It is a factor of “decivilization,” and it leaves in its wake disappointed and politically immature peoples. Behind the screen of its rituals, it consolidates oligarchic totalitarian regimes which shall one day surprise — indeed this day has come — people who believed themselves free.

Democracy by its very nature leads to the all-encompassing intervention of the state. It controls education, the media (through the political interests supporting it), the issuance of money, the medicine we take and the food we eat. Our government drifts ever leftward because given the choice between freedom and security most voters will choose the security of government handouts. Though Buffin de Chosal is more focused on democracy in Europe, most of what he says applies to the United States too. He writes: Read More »

ALAN writes from St. Louis:

I know how terrible it is to lose a mother to whom one owes a tremendous moral debt.

Your remark about aging parents, “We have to put them to bed, as they once did us,” reminded me of the above sheet music from 1927.

This song was included in my father’s small collection of sheet music. I have never heard the song, but I know the sentiment well, and I’m sure you do also.

BOOKMARK this piece by John Horvat II so that the next time you read of Catholic organizations advocating open borders, you can revisit one of the greatest saint’s and theologian’s reasoning to the contrary. Nations are not morally required to accept all strangers.

My mother with the first of her seven children

MY MOTHER, Katharine Ann Curtin Quinn, who was born on August 8, 1930, died yesterday at 2:50 p.m. at Paoli Hospital in Paoli, Pennsylvania. She is survived by her loving husband of 64 years, William Paul; seven children, thirteen grandchildren, two sisters and two brothers. She died of heart failure after two weeks in the hospital, during which time her children, grandchildren and husband, who is 91, spent much time with her. We took turns staying by her bedside.

There is so much to say about my beautiful mother, who was a highly talented person, one of the first female computer programmers, a woman who left career early on to devote herself to family, but my heart is too filled with sadness, gratitude for my mother’s existence and prayers to elaborate now.

No one is more powerful than a mother. I could not believe anything else, given the influence of my own mother during my childhood. No one is more powerful than a mother because the human soul is immortal while things of this world — works of art, scientific advances, buildings and politics — are not lasting, and no one influences the soul’s development more than a mother. The love of a good parent is a reflection of the love of God. There is enough for everyone. There is no such thing as too many children. The heart expands to include each one as if it were the only one.

Please pray for her eternal rest.

My mother, who went by the name of Nancy, left each one of us with words of affection during her last weeks. She was often calm, lucid, and accepting of death despite pain (from four broken ribs and a broken pelvis) and difficulty breathing. Just before she went into the hospital, on her last two nights at home, I helped both of my parents to bed and stayed with them through the night. She had an undiagnosed broken pelvis. After I tucked in their blanket, she said to me, “You shouldn’t have to put your parents to bed.”

But we do. We have to put them to bed, as they once did us.

“May the angels lead thee into Paradise; may the martyrs receive thee at thy coming, and bring thee into the holy city, Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, who once was poor, mayest thou have eternal rest.”

Read More »

KAEDE LIRA answers objections to the necktie, including the complaint that it is inconsiderate of the poor to wear nice clothes. Yes, Lira says, the tie can be elitist but that’s okay:

One class should not sacrifice its own dignity in dress under the pretext that ceremonious clothing degrades the poor. The lower classes are always raised and elevated when they look to the elites and imitate them in their dignity of dress and manners. To say the opposite is to pay tribute to the fallacies of Communism and Miserablism. Read More »

OLE DAMMEGARD argues that there were multiple shooters in Las Vegas and speculates that extremely wealthy, bored people are playing a form of modern gladiator games by hunting human beings down for sport. Listen halfway through for the speculations.

However, a trauma surgeon says the reports of bullet wounds were not plausible and a military surgeon found videos of victims unconvincing.

Anastasia Smith analyses the fake heroics outside Mandalay Bay.

THE mainstream media and the state of Florida have been orchestrating the possibility of a major confrontation at the University of Florida today when Richard Spencer, the media’s chosen representative of the Alt-Right, gives a speech.

In light of what appears to be a desire for a confrontation, it’s worth considering this post at Akmai Tree about Spencer’s CIA connections.

℣. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary,
℟. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee:
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

℣. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
℟. Be it done unto me according to thy word.

Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee:
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

℣. And the Word was made flesh.
℟. And dwelt among us. Read More »

CHILDREN’S TV indoctrinates Western children in globalism and the eradication of their culture:

[I]n the most unlikely change of all, Thomas [the Tank Engine] will leave his home on the Island of Sodor for adventures abroad, in episodes that support the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Mattel, the US toy giant that owns the rights to Thomas the Tank Engine, has collaborated with the UN on storylines featuring five of the goals: quality education, gender equality, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, and life on land.

Aside from political indoctrination, children’s TV is so hyper and ugly it creates restlessness and boredom.

WHERE are the feminists marching on Hollywood to protest sexual abuse of women in the industry? They are nowhere.

Here is a good overview by The Washington Post of the career of producer Harvey Weinstein, with its longstanding pattern of sexual assault, as first reported by The New York Times. America’s feminist-in-chief Hillary Clinton had a longstanding friendship with him.

The content of Hollywood movies has degraded women and turned them into sex objects more than the patriarchal past ever did. So has the actual production. Hollywood is misogynist — and that is true despite all the power and glory of female stars.

Pedophilia is an even worse problem in Hollywood. Read More »

JANE S. writes:

For the most part, I agree with the items on Mike King’s list. One could add to them. But his argument still falls short.

Where the brainy liberal chatterboxes show their true stupidity is in the way they lead their personal lives.

Example: I know a bright, well-educated young attorney in India. A die-hard feminist who sincerely believes that marriage is a conspiracy cooked up by the patriarchy to oppress women. She has parlayed this belief into a make-believe career: writing for women’s magazines, publishing short stories, giving speeches.

The only thing that makes it possible for her to support herself doing this is that she is 27 years old and still lives at home. Her parents have started nagging her to get married and move out, which she really resents. Even though she has a nice young fellow with a good job, who is kind and attentive, who loves her and is interested in marriage.

She sincerely believes that people should get over their antiquated beliefs, such as the expectation that a woman should get married. Read More »

I MISSED International Day of the Girl.

It’s one thing to destroy the childhoods of millions of girls in the West by turning them into angry misfits and pawns of greedy financiers, it’s another to destroy the childhoods of girls all over the world.

If you don’t hate these people, you are not alive. Read More »

I AM WRITING briefly today to ask readers to pray for my mother, Katharine Quinn, who is gravely ill and in intensive care in the hospital. Please pray for her comfort and her eternal happiness.

I will return to my post here shortly — in fighting form, as ever. Everything that happens — and I mean, everything — only motivates me more in this great struggle.

Thank you for your prayers for my dear mother.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Read More »

THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON reports:

The Center for Community Change’s largest contribution was $3,000,000 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which was initially created by Will Kellogg, the food manufacturer and founder of Kellogg Company. The Ford Foundation, which was first created by the founders of the Ford Motor Company, added a $2,350,000 donation. The Open Society Foundation, a foundation run by liberal billionaire mega-donor George Soros, gave $1,750,000 to the Center for Community Change.

Other donors to the organization include the California Endowment, which gave $524,500; the Marquerite Casey Foundation, which gave $515,000; Fidelity Charitable Gift, which donated $505,100; and the National Immigration Law Center, which gave $316,000. Read More »