Columbus Day

I know, I know.  It was last week.  It used to be on the 12th of October but now it's the second Monday or something.  It may not even be Columbus Day any more for all I know;  Explorer day or Indian day or something.

But the point of this tardy mention is this site in which are several transcripts of talks on Christopher Columbus by the late Fr John Hardon.  Highly recommended.

(I need to thank someone for this citation but -- not for the first time I'm afraid -- I've forgotten who.  Apologies to whoever it was mentioned this to me.)

Feast of the Holy Rosary

Lots of church today.  It is not only the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary  -- a.k.a. Our Lady of Victory, commemorating the battle of Lepanto -- but our parish also celebrated our patronal feast of Bl John Henry Newman two days early.  So we had sung Mattins at 10:15, High Mass at 11:00 and recitation of the rosary at about 1:00-ish, or whenever it was the Mass ended.  I didn't look at my watch.  And there was a reception afterward with what looked like a lot of very good food and drink.

But I didn't partake.  The back was acting up again and all I really wanted at that point was to go home and sit in my chair with the perfect lumbar support.  So I did that instead.  But the repast did indeed tempt.

Here's a page on Our Lady of the Rosary.

And here's the best description of the battle of Lepanto you'll ever find.  Although I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding many more ponderous academic treastises.

Fr Hunwicke had something to say about Our Lady of Victory a few years ago.  In part:

That great Pontiff, S Pius V, established the Feast of our Lady of Victories to celebrate the triumph of Christian arms at the battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571, a victory won by the countless rosaries which clanked through the hands of the Rosary Confraternities of Western Europe. They begged God for the safety of Christendom against the invading Turk. Gregory XIII pusillanimously renamed the feast as 'of the Rosary', and popped it onto the first Sunday of October (a stone's throw from the Feast of the Protecting Robe of the Mother of God in some Byzantine calendars) where it stayed until the reforms of S Pius X. But, to this day, those who follow the Extraordinary Form are allowed, on the first Sunday of October, an External Solemnity of this feast. And, after all, no homilist could be forbidden to refer to this celebration as our Lady of Victories.

The link I had for that has vanished -- mysterious are the ways of Blogspot, its wonders to perform -- but he has two more pieces here and here.   Videlicet.

And as for Bl John Henry, most, if not all that he wrote can be found here, along with a link to a rather lengthy biography and another link to the progress of his canonisation.

Where are they now?

Hans Schulz, former sergeant in the Luftwaffe, appears to have made his way to the United States and advanced to the ranks of the episcopacy, where, it would seem, he fit right in.

Deploying the "P" Word

It is profoundly worrying when a man escalates accusations against himself – which could easily be verified or falsified in a moment – into an apocalyptic catastrophe involving the whole future of the Catholic Church.

The time has surely come. . . .

What Else Kept Me Occupied

Granuaille got a brand new chanter last week. Well, new to her anyway. It's actually an abw Naill from the early '90s, so perhaps I ought to say a new 25 year old chanter. A very good year for Naill chanters in my experience. (The chanter you see her wearing in the picture with the orange-ish sole isn't the new one; that's actually an old Hardy pitched a good deal lower than the new one.)

I did some preliminary tuning when it first arrived, but I finally got a chance to take her out last Friday to the park for a good workout. The chanter took an Apps reed with hardly any tweaking at all. Just a wee touch of tape on the E and F and she was singing. It's really a lovely, mellow chanter and I'm delighted with it.

And now I'm thinking maybe I should mellow out the drones and get a better blend. The old wygents in there now are pretty robust. Hmm, cane. I may be too old to spend my dotage messing about with cane. But it really does make for a sweeter pipe. Decisions, decisions.

(And, yes, there are only two drones. She's an Irish warpipe that Kintail made in 1982.)

Catching Up . . . sort of

It's been over a month, hasn't it.  Indeed, almost two months since we've cranked up blogspot, shifted The Inn in gear and pontificated about something or other. It's difficult to mind The Inn because it's online and in going online one is -- or at least I am -- immediately absorbed in the collapse of the current papacy.  I suppose if I had had something incisive or original to say I would've popped in for a bit. But I really didn't.

There are all sorts of sites to follow the Bergoglian catastrophe.  In my only occasionally humble opinion these are the best:

1 Peter 5
Rorate Cæli
What's Up With Francischurch?  (She doesn't publish as often as the others but it's always worth reading.)
The Moynihan Letters  (Tries to give the benefit of the doubt to PF, which I find difficult to read because I can't dig up a doubt to give PF the benefit of.   But he does reprint full copies of the relevant documentation.)
The Remnant  (THE trad bible for, oh, a half century or more.)
The Wanderer  (heavy on the politics but also full of factual reporting, much of which our most reverend fathers-in-God would prefer you not bother your pretty little head about.)

Most (all?) of those folks have Twitter feeds to keep you apprised of updates.

And that's where most of the online time went.  Well, that and the supreme court nomination exercize in rash judgement, calumny, and detraction.  (Does the Democrat party not realize that they are coming across to ordinary folk as certifiably insane, verging on the demonic?)  The Bergoglian affair does have more interest and importance sub specie æternitatis but the supreme court nomination hearings do capture the attention also.  You know, the way the six car traffic accident by the side of the road does.