Donald Trump For Pope

According to CNN, Donald Trump is taking a shot at the Papacy as well as the US Presidency:

I don’t have to do this, when you think about it. I really don’t. I’m rich. I’m really, really, rich. I built a great company; a tremendous company. I employ thousands and thousands of people. So my friends, they ask me, they say Donald, you have everything you can dream of. You’re rich, you have an amazing wife, an amazing family, you’re very successful, why run for Pope? And I say, you know what? I have to run. My Church needs me. The Catholics need me. I have to make the Catholic Church great again. I have to.

I especially enjoyed this:

The priest consecrates a bunch of hosts and then a layperson, usually a woman up at the altar in a pantsuit. Probably Hillary. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Hillary.

(Laughter)

You ever notice today that all the nuns dress like Hillary? When did that happen? When did nuns start dressing like Hillary? It’s scary. It’s really scary.

Trad Catholics, and anyone else, might enjoy reading the whole thing here.

Cheers,

LSP 

Edgar Allen Poe and the Blessed Virgin Mary

Everyone's heard of Edgar Allen Poe, the famously troubled 19th century author who wrote the Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, The Premature Burial and much more. It's perhaps less well-known that he wrote a "hymn" to the Blessed Virgin Mary, with reference to the Angelus. Here it is:

“Hymn”

At morn–at noon–at twilight dim–

Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!

In joy and woe–in good and ill–

Mother of God, be with me still!

When the Hours flew brightly by,

And not a cloud obscured the sky,

My soul, lest it should truant be,

Thy grace did guide to thine and thee

Now, when storms of Fate o’ercast

Darkly my Present and my Past,

Let my future radiant shine

With sweet hopes of thee and thine.

I like that, and if you think the Mother of Our Lord is Semiramis, you're a fool.

LSP 

Lepanto and Our Lady of Victory

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, commemorating the decisive defeat of the Muslim navy at Lepanto, on October 7, 1571.

A massive Turkish fleet under the command of Ali Pasha had set sail on the Mediterranean with the intent of invading Italy and conquering Rome. However, in a rare example of European Christian unity, a combined Catholic fleet was raised and placed under the command of Don John of Austria. This fleet met the Turks off Lepanto and routed them, in what some have described as the largest naval engagement to that point since Actium.

Here's an excerpt from Chesterton's Lepanto:

The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

The Christian victory is ascribed to the excellence of the Spanish marines, Don John's leadership and the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Victory.

We've forgotten Lepanto today, mostly. I'd argue that things would be rather different if the Jihad had landed in Italy in 1571.

I will celebrate this victory.

LSP

Lepanto

Battle of Lepanto

Inspired by Snarky Basterd, I thought I'd better post this, from the Battle of Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton.

But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still--hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

Stirring stuff - Lepanto. Then again, I'm for the Faith, along with GKC. But more of that on the Feast of Our Lady of Victories (Oct. 7).

God bless,

LSP