Category: History

Arthur of the Ancient and Illuminated Seers of Bavaria writes:

Being the incredible history geek that I am, I have recently started
reading George Washington’s headquarters correspondence (there are
advantages to working at a university).

And I ws struck by something from his General Orders for November 5,
1775 (and Nov. 5 being Guy Fawkes Day in England):

"As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for
the observance of the ridiculous and chidish custom of burning the
Efficgy of the pope – He cannot help expressing his surprise that
there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common
sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at the Huncture;
at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the
friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to
consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause.  The defence of the
general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such
Cirumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not
to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offereng the most remote
insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren,
as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over
the common Enemy in Canada."

(Writings of Washington, Vol 4 Oct. 1775-Apr, 1776,  page 65, US
Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1931)

Now a cynic might point out this order is just a political ploy to
insure the support of the French Canadian Catholic population of
Quebec and there may be some justice to that.  But given the vehemence
with which this order is worded, I for one, get the impression that
Washington really had no truck with anti-Catholic sentiment despite
the fact ath he was personally a high church Anglican as well as a
Freemason.

Thought you might find it interesting.

Indeed. Thanks for passing it along!

I’m not one to underestimate the role that the necessities of wartime could play in such a declaration, but it is phrased with a vehemence suggesting that there is more here than cynical calculation in play. A general does not lightly refer to his own embattled troops’ behavior as "ridiculous," "childish," and "monstrous."

Washington also extended good will toward persons of other religions, writing affectiveto the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island that in America

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy [SOURCE].

What do you do with a World War II Nazi landing ship? Uh, well, you could convert it to other shipping purposes…. You could create a WWII museum…. You could turn it into scrap metal….

Too tame.  Let’s think outside the box (or the ship, as the case may be).

How about turning it into a floating monastery?  Sort of.

"Croatia’s defense ministry has donated a World War II Nazi ship to a local Roman Catholic monastery, which will turn it into a sailing church, the Jutarnji List daily newspaper reported Tuesday.

"The landing ship DTM-219 was used by Nazi Germany to transport tanks and infantry. It was given to communist Yugoslavia after 1945 as part of war compensation, [the newspaper] said.

[…]

"It will be used as sailing church for the young, who will be able to sail the Adriatic, pray and meditate as part of church-sponsored religious cruises, the daily said."

GET THE STORY.

Of course, I must warn the monks that, in Catholic Answers’ experience, not everyone will be keen on the idea of religious cruises.

When an order of nuns could no longer maintain the graves of two of the deceased in their care, they decided to rebury them elsewhere. But the decision wasn’t solely based on the bottom line of economics, but on the bottom line of love. They decided to bring the relatives home to the family plot.

"[Nathaniel] Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, died in New Hampshire in 1864. His wife, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, moved to England with their three children and died there six years later. She and their daughter Una were buried at Kensal Green cemetery in London.

[…]

"But when cemetery officials told the nuns that the grave site needed costly repairs, the order arranged to have remains reburied in Concord instead.

"On Monday, one modern casket containing the remains of mother and daughter was put on a horse-drawn 1860 wooden hearse and carried from a local funeral home through the town center to a church for the memorial service. About 40 family members and a group of nuns from the order followed the hearse in a procession."

GET THE STORY.

Why were the nuns so concerned about the disposition of the Hawthorne family remains? They are the Hawthorne Dominicans, and their foundress was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter, Catholic convert and saint-in-the-making Rose Hawthorne Lathrop.

FIND OUT MORE.

AND MORE.

Some might think Rose Hawthorne Lathrop’s conversion to Catholicism surprising, but I doubt her father, the great American literary artist, would have thought so.

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers. –Nathaniel Hawthorne

Yesterday was the day that G. K. Chesterton turned 132 year old!

(Not counting the time he was alive in the uterus.)

(And not counting the fact that he happens to be dead at the moment–which I’m sure he would say is immaterial [PUN!].)

Fortunately, his birthday has not gone unnoticed, and some folks in the blogosphere are having a multi-day celebration of it.

GET THE STORY.

A large sun temple of the Egyptian pharaohs has been dug up under an outdoor market in Cairo:

"The partially uncovered site is the largest sun temple ever found in the capital’s Aim Shams and Matariya districts, where the ancient city of Heliopolis — the center of pharaonic sun worship — was located, Zahi Hawass told The Associated Press.

"Among the artifacts was a pink granite statue weighing 4 to 5 tons whose features ‘resemble those of Ramses II,’ said Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities."

GET THE STORY.

<tongue in cheek>

Don’t these archaeologists remember what is commonly believed to have happened to the raiders of King Tut’s tomb?  Not to mention to the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

</tongue in cheek>

JIMMY ADDS: It’s always nice to hear from our old friend Zahi Hawass. Nice to know he’s keeping busy.

It took many, many years — some 145 of them — but the Pony Express has finally seen sweet justice served to the technology that rang its death knell. As of January 27, 2006, Western Union ended its telegram services.

"On the company’s web site, if you click on ‘Telegrams’ in the left-side navigation bar [sic; it’s on the right side], you’re taken to a page that ends a technological era with about as little fanfare as possible:

"’Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a customer service representative.’

"The decline of telegram use goes back at least to the 1980s, when long-distance telephone service became cheap enough to offer a viable alternative in many if not most cases. Faxes didn’t help. Email could be counted as the final nail in the coffin."

GET THE STORY.

Somehow I don’t think that the telegram will inspire as much fond sentiment in the centuries to come as did the Pony Express, which continues to fascinate students of the Old West to this day.

Adolf Hitler, who according to popular myth had Pope Pius XII on his payroll, [heavy sarcasm]loved the Catholic Church and "his pope" so much[/heavy sarcasm] that he wanted to build a new St. Peter’s Basilica in Berlin and had chief architect Albert Speer working up plans for the project:

"Speer built a scale model of how he planned to recreate the columns of St Peter’s Square, which encircle the piazza in front of the Basilica.

"The Moscow museum’s director, David Sarkisian, told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘The plan was for the new Berlin to be ready in 1950 after Nazi Germany had defeated the Allies.

"’Hitler would declare Germany the ruler of a world empire and at the centre of its capital Berlin was to be a recreation of St Peter’s Square in the Vatican.

"’Speer’s plans included the columns from the square and at the centre instead of a fountain as in Rome there would be a huge statue of Benito Mussolini.

"’Hitler considered the Eternal City [Rome] to be the only city in the world to rival Berlin so he wanted to better it in every way possible.’ Speer’s documents show that Hitler took a great interest in the plans and was delighted with the architect’s model."

GET THE STORY.

As a side note, for those interested in a thorough refutation of the Catholic urban legend that Pius XII was "Hitler’s Pope," I highly recommend Rabbi David G. Dalin’s The Myth of Hitler’s Pope.

GET THE BOOK.

Ireland has its very own Adam, an Irish warlord named Niall of the Nine Hostages — wonder how he got that name! — who is estimated to have more than three million male descendants. (Because of the manner in which the study was conducted, female descendants were not counted.)

"The scientists, from Trinity College Dublin, have discovered that as many as one in twelve Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a 5th-century warlord who was head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland.

"His genetic legacy is almost as impressive as Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who conquered most of Asia in the 13th century and has nearly 16 million descendants, said Dan Bradley, who supervised the research.

"’It’s another link between profligacy and power,’ Bradley told Reuters. ‘We’re the first generation on the planet where if you’re successful you don’t (always) have more children.’"

GET THE STORY.

"We’re the first generation on the planet where if you’re successful you don’t (always) have more children."

Right. That’s because modern man has convinced himself that children stand in the way of success. As ancient man well knew but modern man has forgotten, children contribute to a person’s success, they don’t inhibit it.

Catholicism is probably the only religion that so perfectly fits human nature. You might say that if God hadn’t given it to us, we might have had to invent it. I say this because so much of Catholic sensibilities and customs are mirrored in secular life, often by those who would be horrified to be considered crypto-Catholics.

For example, there are rumors that relic-hunting scientists in Austria have found the skull of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and will reveal the results of DNA testing in an Austrian television documentary commemorating Mozart’s 250th birthday:

"In a documentary entitled Mozart: The Search for Evidence, researchers will reveal the conclusions of tests carried out on the skull at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck last year. DNA from shavings from the skull was compared with genetic material from the thigh bones of Mozart’s maternal grandmother and niece.

"Until now, tests on the skull, which belongs to the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, have proved inconclusive, but today Dr. Walther Parson, the forensic pathologist who led the analysis said his team had ‘succeeded in getting a clear result.’

"Dr. Parson said the result had been ‘100 percent verified’ by a US Army laboratory but declined to elaborate."

GET THE STORY.

By the way, anyone planning a birthday party for Mozart should consider sending an invitation to Pope Benedict, who is known to be a great admirer of the composer and once said of Mozart’s music, "His music is by no means just entertainment; it contains the whole tragedy of human existence."

A reader writes:

On Thursday there will be a Diane Sawyer special about the evidence for a female Pope Joan.  Are there any holes in the historical record that could account for this or is it a completely rediculous claim?  Where could I find some information on this?

I normally recommend J. N. D. Kelly’s book The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, because Kelly is a Protestant historian and he has an appendix in this book that totally slams the Pope Joan myth.

Unfortunately, most couldn’t consult this book before the broadcast, so I suggest these sources:

WIKIPEDIA ON POPE JOAN.

THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA ON POPE JOAN.

The fact that ABC is dumping this story on Thursday in the week between Christmas and New Years (a LOW viewership time) suggests that they don’t have confidence in it, which only increases their culpability in broadcasting it.

OUTRAGE MAY BE EXPRESSED HERE.

Incidentally, a number of years ago I was at my desk at Catholic Answers when I was routed a call from a major Hollywood producer (who shall remain nameless, but who was quite famous and had a lot of credits to his name) who wanted to ask me about sources for Pope Joan to help his upcoming TV/movie project on her.

He was quite alarmed when I told him that Pope Joan was a myth, and he indicated that he was going to go back to the people who had pitched the idea to press them about this fact.

The project never got made.

I wish all producers had as much integrity as this guy did!

Unfortunately, they don’t, and there is a Pope Joan movie coming out of Germany next year.