The progressives have progressed so far in their usurpation of the Federal Government these past few years there is no need anymore for them to even superficially pretend even handedness in their one-sided administration of “justice.” Nowadays, when a humanoid such as the one described below commits an unspeakable act, the only penalty it will have to face is three years probation, no jail time.
A mentally ill man pretending to be a woman, “smashed doors, destroyed a statue of the Virgin Mary, assaulted a church staffer, and sprayed graffiti at a Catholic church in Washington state.”
More:
According to the police report, Nota threw quite a tantrum: “She [sic] was crying hysterically, yelling obscenities, & refused to identify herself. At one point, when in the seated position, Nota threw herself to the ground & began rolling down the small grass hill… According to witness, Nota shouted, ‘According to the police report, Nota threw quite a tantrum: “She was crying hysterically, yelling obscenities, & refused to identify herself. At one point, when in the seated position, Nota threw herself to the ground & began rolling down the small grass hill… According to witness, Nota shouted, ‘Fk you! Fk the church! The church is grooming kids!’ Among the graffiti per police: ‘women haters’ ‘rot in your fake hell’ ‘abusers’ ‘kid f***ers’ ‘we hate women’ ‘kid groomers’ ‘we hate gay people.’”Fk the church! The church is grooming kids!’
More:
[S]he “smashed two glass doors with rocks,” and “police said he used a backpack full of spray paint cans to smash the police vehicle before turning himself in . . . A church staff member was spray-painted across their face while attempting to chase Nota away.”
It’s a much used rhetorical device, the “what if” argument, but that doesn’t lessen its efficacy: What if a real male, a white Republican, had committed similar crimes in a mosque and behaved in the same manner when busted by the police? Would a judge in the Biden Justice Department have sentenced him to three years probation, no jail time?
Brace yourselves, it’s only going to get worse.The next two years (at least) are going to be rough sledding indeed for decent folk in this country.
Your Tatler happened to watch a superb performance from 2018 of Puccini’s Tosca last night, via the Metropolitan Opera’s Met on Demand. In the first act, the villainous Roman chief of police Baron Scarpio has no qualms staking out the escaped prisoner Angelotti and his accomplice-in-hiding, the hero-painter Cavaradossi, in a chapel devoted to the Madonna in a church in Rome (the real-life Basilica di Sant’Andrea della Val, behavior some might regard as profane at the least and bordering on blasphemous.
I was reminded of that scene reading the report above from the House Judiciary Committee concerning FBI agents, similarly having no qualms, planting themselves in Catholic churches, their purpose being, as laid out in in an internal document in heavy bureacratese titled:
Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.
In English, what are the “new mitigation possibilities?” That would be the targeting of traditional Catholics who engage in such dissident activities as attending or participating in the Traditional Latin Mass. They are designated by the FBI, as reported by House Judiciary Committee, “RTCs,” Radical Traditional Catholics,” whom they claim are:
typically categorized by the rejection of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) as a valid church council; disdain for most of the popes elected since Vatican II, particularly Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II; and frequent adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology. Radical-traditionalist Catholics compose a small minority of overall Roman Catholic adherents and are separate and distinct from ‘traditionalist Catholics’ who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings and traditions, without the more extremist ideological beliefs and violent rhetoric.
Laying aside for the nonce the Bureau’s having no damn business investigating differences within the Catholic Church, it also does not delineate “good” TLM-ers from “bad” ones, but it is a certainty the bad ones to which they refer are members of the SSPX, the Society of St Pious X, a breakaway traditionalist organisation whose sacraments are nonetheless recognized by the Holy See.
It is no secret traditional Catholics are conservative, by definition of the word. What the FBI and the Biden administration, which no doubt is behind these investigations, find offensive is Catholics simply exercising their First Amendment rights of speech and religion, even if others find them distasteful or objectionable. The Bureau has abandoned its original charter, in which its principles are enumerated, in part, thus:
(1) conduct investigations consistent with the constitutional and legal rights of U.S. citizens; (2) conduct such investigations and collect such intelligence as is necessary for the security of the United States; (3) not conduct an investigation solely on the basis of the lawful exercise of constitutional or statutory rights, including the expression of a religious or political view or the right to peacefully assemble and petition the Government [emphasis added]; (4) conduct investigations with only such intrusion as is necessary for authorized purposes.
The FBI has morphed into a tool of the far left to persecute dissenters from their progressive, “social justice” agenda. It is far beyond reform and must be abolished. If it is replaced, which I am not sure is necessary, it should be by a vastly smaller organization, strictly limited by the terms of the original FBI charter.
Another convert, this one far more illustrious than your Tatler, but his tale of conversion as told in this marvelous account, bears similarity to mine. In fact, all the conversion stories I’ve read, from Newman’s on down, have a common theme. Whether the convert-to-be was deeply religious, but of a different faith, or an irreligious gadabout like Gary Cooper or worse, at some point, they sensed an emptiness in their lives that seemed unfillable until they became acquainted with the teachings and history of the Holy Catholic Church.
That emptiness, as was revealed to Cooper and all other converts, can only be filled by the Holy Ghost in the person of Jesus Christ, and He is accessible fully only through the Catholic Church. Once the emptiness is filled, one’s life is forever changed. From there on, no matter how difficult life seemed before, it becomes somehow bearable. As Cooper said with elegant simplicity, and he speaks for me as well, it’s “the best thing I ever did.”
The quote below from Newman puts it nicely.
God knows what is my greatest happiness, but I do not. There is no rule about what is happy and good; what suits one would not suit another. And the ways by which perfection is reached vary very much; the medicines necessary for our souls are very different from each other. Thus God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our happiness, but we neither know what our happiness is, nor the way. We are blind; left to ourselves we should take the wrong way; we must leave it to Him.
A surprisingly even-handed account of the Latin Mass movement in the Catholic Church. I was so gratified I took out a (trial) subscription to the New Yorker.
The Crucifixion Bartolomé Estebán Murillo ca. 1675
Some years ago, Good Friday, I was seated in a pew at my beloved Anglo-Catholic parish in Manhattan. The Mass of the Pre-Sanctified was being celebrated. For those not in the know, it is a liturgy long ago removed from the Catholic Missal, having been abolished in the reforms of 1955. It is, however, still celebrated by Anglo-Catholics.
During the mass, I was marvelling at the beauty of it, the chants, the clouds of billowing incense, and the celebrants resplendent in their black vestments. Then something strange happened. Amid the glory and pomp, I distinctly heard a voice, not mine, in my head say to me: “Jesus is not here.” I was startled by that, and after mass pondered the meaning of it while riding the uptown train to Washington Heights, where I lived. I continued to ponder it for quite some time after.
One day, while walking down Ninth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen to my job, I again heard a voice in my head, but this time it was clearly mine, and it solved the mystery I had been pondering all the while. The voice told me: “You have to go to Rome.”
I had in the past considered the possibility of swimming the Tiber, owing to the increasing disarray in the Episcopal Church, in which I had been raised. Additionally, I was deeply impressed by the new pope, Benedict XVI. At the same time, though, I believed the little jewel of a church I attended was sufficient for salvation, and I should stay put. Now I no longer believed it.
I did not know any Catholic priest, either in person or by name, whose counsel l might seek, but a little later the name of a priest did occur to me, one whose writings and talks on ESPN I had much enjoyed, Fr. George Rutler. I found his church online and since there was no email address on the website, I sent him a letter snail mail, including in it my email address, asking if I might see him. The very next day I received an email from Father that simply read: “Come see me.” I did.
That was the beginning of my embracing the full Catholic faith. Father and I talked for a good hour. He suggested some books I should read, including Newman’s Apologia, Augustine’s Confessions and several others. He told me catechism classes at his church were just beginning for the year and that I might like to attend them, but he also told me I didn’t have to: “I give Anglicans a pass,” he said. I went to one anyway and was so impressed by the two young men conducting the class I decided to attend all of them
We had to work in those classes. We read the entire Catechism, many papal bulls and encyclicals and were even given writing assignments. After seven months I felt I was a reasonably well-informed catechist.
Not long afterward, at the Easter Vigil in the Church of Our Saviour in New York, I was confirmed and received into the Holy Catholic Church by Fr. Rutler.
My Catholic journey has since had its ups and downs. One of the ups was shortly after being received, coming across the Church of the Holy Innocents in New York and learning of its incipient celebrations of the Tridentine Mass. I soon took part in them by joining the church’s Schola Cantorum, in which we sang the chants of the mass. It was an experience I treasure to this day.
One of the downs included the unexpected retirement of Benedict XVI, who was one of the inspirations that led me to the Catholic Church. His successor, alas, has not proved inspirational and after much frustration over the years, this past January I decided to leave Holy Church for the Eastern Orthodox Church. I attended Divine Worship for a few weeks at a beautiful church in Santa Fe. When sure this was the direction in which I wanted to go, I emailed the pastor of my local church informing him I was leaving. That same day he called me and had the same message Father Rutler had for me years back: “Come see me.” Again, I did and after two hours of productive argument and reasoning, I told my pastor I would carefully consider all we had discussed and let him know my decision. Two days later I called and told him I was staying.
And stay I will. For all her manifold faults, her lousy liturgies, scandals beyond number, and a pope who seems determined to drive out of the Church all that is beautiful, traditional and true, this is the Church founded by Peter the Church whose birthday we celebrate on Maundy Thursday. Our Lord promised us the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church and much as the devil has attempted to destroy Her over the millennia, he has failed to do so and will continue to fail. Even if I do not live to see it, Holy Church will triumph over her present woes.
Tonight’s Easter Vigil marks the 15th since my reception into the Catholic Church. I pray I may see many more of them. Deo gratia, amen.
Earlier this week I wrote about Robert F. Kennedy tossing his hat into the ring for the race to presidency in ’24. I suggested he might be a welcome lifeboat for Democrat party leaders hoping to find an alternative to bumbling Joe Biden. It turns out RFK, Jr. is anything but welcome and party leaders may do anything they can to sink his candidacy, this according to a report in PJ Media.
Interestingly, the reason why party leaders may be out to get RFK, Jr. is the one I cited as a credit to the man: his brave stand on the all-too-cozy relations between drug companies and regulatory agencies, as well the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The author of the report, Ben Bartee, claims the Dems are just fine with these cozy relationships as some of their biggest donors like Bill Gates are also recipients of Big Pharma’s largess. They want to keep things just as they are, which explains why they are mum on this scandal.
Barti writes:
Imagine the damage RFK Jr. could do to the biomedical state were he permitted to broadcast his honest perspective to an audience of millions in a televised debate. This is, again, why he must be stopped at all costs before the primary ever gets to that point.
In other words, the Dem’s would rather stick with flan-for-brains Joe Biden, who will anything they tell him to do, including keeping Big Pharma’s gravy train chugging along.
‘One of the foremost colleges [Magdalene] at the University of Oxford cancelled its annual St George’s Day celebration for 2023 – and will celebrate the end of Eid instead . . .
‘The event customarily featured a banquet in which all academics, staff, dons, and students were invited to dine together from a “special English menu”.
‘On April 23, the college’s first day of “Trinity” term, students will be offered a meal which will “follow Muslim customs”. They have been told that “the meat dish will be halal and no alcohol will be served”.
‘The decision has caused contention. Dons at Magdalen College and staff at Oxford University denounced the move.’ One academic at the college told the Daily Telegraph:
‘“The cancelling of St George’s Day is yet another example of the deep antipathy that the leaders of so many of Britain’s academic institutions seem to feel towards the country that built and maintains them.”’
No kidding, fella, but the pig is out of the barn, if you’ll pardon the expression. Where were you and your colleagues decades ago when the encroachment started, beginning as a trickle, but gradually increasing to a torrent; why were you, your colleagues, and the politicians bending over backward to accommodate the Muslim host, instead of welcoming them but insisting they observe and accept the ancient traditions of Mother England? It’s reached the present state because you allowed it to and there’s no going back now. TiSbaH ‘ala khair.
THE TAOS TATLER. 