The Mini-Canon

The unknown history of Eucharistic Prayer II from Louis Boyer via Rorate Cæli.

(It's worse than you thought.)

Apple Spam

If you found unwanted tracks of rock garbage from something called U2 in your Itunes file this morning, you will eventully find that you can't get rid of it without going through some extra steps.  This article explains where it came from and how to get rid of it.

Not a Vicar of Bray

Fr Blake on Cardinal Burke's demotion and where we are today:

So according to rumours Cardinal Burke is off to become Cardinal-Patron of the Order of Malta. It is hardly surprising considering his opposition to the new orthodoxies. If anyone has presented himself as the 'loyal opposition' it is Burke. Magister points out that he unlike many other Curial Cardinals has maintained his integrity and that is what I have heard from Rome. He is a Nathanael, 'an Israelite without guile'. Others might jockey for position, like renaissance princes, playing the Machiavellian games that are as much part of the Roman scene today as they were five hundred or a thousand years ago. 

Ratzinger might well have appointed his enemies to key positions, so long as they could hold an intellectual position together but things are different now, broken corpses are now on display in the city squares. It is not necessary for the Prince to say anything, or even to know his policies, it is actions that are important and being part of his party. 

L.A. Unified School District gets Serious About Truancy

A swat from a ruler on the palm of the hand used to be sufficient in the dear, dead days of my youth.  Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Armored Vehicle, not so much.  It says here in the Times that although the school police are returning grenade launchers, they are keeping the nifty vehicle shown above and the 61 rifles.

Mouth-off to the L.A.Teacher's Union at your peril.

Inclusivity at Catholic Charities. Or something.

You never know what's going to arrive in the mail, do you.  The above arrived this morning.  You can, of course, click on the picture and make it larger.   Actually, you can click on it and make it positively gigantic.

(Yeah, I know.  It was probably just some poor minimum-wage soul at the end of a long day inputting lebenty-leben thousand names into a data base.  But still.  I found it kinda funny in a sort of politically correct but slightly skewed way.)

Pet Peeve Dept

It's September now and time for all of those religious institutes that don't believe in Purgatory to start trolling for  money so they can "remember" my loved ones on All Souls Day.

I got my second oh-so-sweet appeal today.  There are seven pieces in this mailing and not  one mention of the word "Purgatory" anywhere.  Or suffering souls, for that matter.  Everyone, immediately upon expiration, seems to have toddled along happily right into heaven.

So . . . what exactly do these people think they're praying for?

Now that the summer is almost over. . . .

. . . . we've finally got the garden looking presentable.  Fortunately, the summer lasts a good deal longer here than in most  places.  September can be the hottest month of  the year and often is.

No, you don't get to see the "before" pictures.

Should be some decent sales on patio furniture, warm September or no.

The September Martyrs

At the Tea at Trianon twitter feed this morning Mrs Vidal reminds us of the September Martyrs of the French revolution.  The citation to the original page seems to have moved, but this is the original article here.

In 1790, the revolutionary government of France enacted a law denying Papal authority over the Church in France. The French clergy were required to swear an oath to uphold this law and submit to the Republic. . . .The revolutionary leaders’ primary target was the aristocracy, but by 1792, their attention turned to the Church, especially the non-jurors within it. 

. . . . The mob called out, “Archbishop of Arles!” Archbishop John du Lau of Arles (Jean-Marie du Lau d’Alleman) was praying in the chapel. When summoned, he came out and he said, “I am he whom you seek.” Thereupon, they cracked his skull, stabbed him and trampled him underfoot. Then the leader set up a “tribunal” before which the imprisoned were herded and commanded to take the oath. All refused; so, as they passed down the stairway, they were hacked to pieces by the murderers. 

The bishop of Beauvais had earlier been wounded in the leg. When summoned, he answered, “I do not refuse to die with the others, but I cannot walk. I beg you to have the kindness to carry me where you wish me to go.” For a moment, his courtesy silenced the assassins. But, when he, too, refused the oath, he was killed like the rest.

The rest is here.

The Christians of Iraq (and elsewhere in Mohametan Asia) face a similar situation: abandon the Church or die.

And  in the west . . .