Noted with Pleasure: Jerome K. Jerome.

One of the favorite humorists of your correspondent’s father, he is quickly becoming that of your Tatler’s, too.

From the opening of one of Jerome’s most popular works:

THE IDLE THOUGHTS
OF
AN IDLE FELLOW

—

ON BEING IDLE.

Now myself I really am au fait. The gentleman who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdom’s font for nine guineas a term – no extras – used to say he never knew a boy who could do less work in more time; and I remember my poor grandmother once incidentally observing, in the course of an instruction upon the use of the prayer-book, that it was highly improbable that I should ever do much that I ought not to do, but, that she felt convinced beyond a doubt, that I should leave undone pretty well everything that I ought to do.

Your Tatler will not admit this character flaw of Jerome’s is shared by himself as well, but will not deny it either.

A quirky fact: only in England would a fellow’s Christian name and surname being identical, be pronounced differently. In this case they would be: Christian name, Jer’um (rhymes with harem); surname, Jerome, like the saint.

A Little Good News about TLM in Paris, Countered with a Depressing Speculation about TLM in Santa Fe.

Count your blessings, but they may be ephemoral.

The Twitterer above asks rhetorically, “why do we get this extraordinary permission?” That is best answered with: don’t ask, just be grateful.

Still, the pessimism in your Tatler wonders, since Notre-Dame is being converted into a museum, maybe TLM is being considered just a museum piece, “living history,” celebrated for the benefit of tourists.

A similar situation exists in Santa Fe, with the lovely and historic San Miguel Chapel. Sold by the Archdiocese to the Christian Brothers in 1881 (and beautifully kept up by the latter, much to their credit), the ancient chapel is really only a museum. Latin masses are celebrated there, but by outsiders and take place as tourists tromp through the tiny space, chattering, with phones held high taking videos.

Lately however, even those masses have been suspended owing to the COVID virus and they have yet to resume. Whether or not they do is an open question as it is up to Archbishop Wester, a Pope Francis toadie if there ever was one, who dutifully shares his master’s revulsion for TLM. He has been making celebrations of it increasingly difficult throughout his diocese and may suppress them entirely at San Miguel Chapel, where they are already conveniently ended. It would this save the Archbishop a bit of muss and fuss as His Mediocrity continues the mission stamping out TLM at his superior’s behest.

Two Passing Thoughts.

Pares inter pares?

1. Is the Pope the Biden of the Vatican or is the President the Francis of the White House?

2. Does the old saw in response to the question with an obvious answer: “Is the Pope Catholic,” connote the same sense of certainty it did in the past? The usually paired question pertaining to the outdoor habits of bears is still solid, if you’ll pardon the expression. (Thanks to BAS.)

Things to Come?

The Brave New World of Inclusive Catholicism.

It never would have occurred to your Tatler (pronouns he/him) that “non-binary drag artist” and “Catholic” would appear in the same sentence. Likewise the following:

Non-binary drag artist Virgin X has released a new single, “Splinters,” in which they discuss their fraught relationship with Catholicism. [Editor’s note: Virgin X uses the pronouns “they/them.”]

[. . . ]

Music and performance, for Virgin X, is a means to challenge ways of thinking that exclude LGBTQ people. Virgin X’s new music release reminds Catholics that there is much to be done to make the church inclusive of all.

When Pope Francis prattles on about diversity and inclusivity, is this what he they has have in mind? In addition to all other trappings, intra and extra-worship, provided by Mx Virgin X and [you guess the possessive pronoun] colleagues, might we also expect a specially inclusive Novus Ordo mass with those nasty sex-specific pronouns eliminated? An example:

“At the time they were betrayed and entered willingly into their Passion, they took bread and, giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to their disciples . . .”

If nothing else, the future of our Holy Church should prove interesting. Deus misereatur.

Killing Two Birds with One Stone.

Heinous behavior begets lost elections, (but don’t tell the Democrats).

A splendid thesis, the tweet above. It begs to be developed into a full-blown essay, though your Tatler sees a possible flaw with reason number two. Since today’s Democrats refuse to acknowledge the notions of decency, morals or taste, they cannot be expected to defend themselves for their lack of them.

Which actually is just ducky. Democrats’s inability to feel shame, plus the vast social cocoons in which they confine themselves with their own kind, means they will continue advocating and engaging in depravities like child drag shows all the way up to election day. If the polls are any indicator of their fate that day, perhaps wiser Democrats, assuming there are any remaining, might do some self-examination the day after, but that seems doubtful to this writer.

Driving Them Underground.

Pope Francis brings in more henchmen.

The Catholic News Agency reports Pope Francis made significant appointments recently to the vast Vatican bureaucracy: among many others, Cardinal Blase Cupich as a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life.

Both these cardinals have expressed enthusiastic support for Francis’s motu proprio, Traditionis custodes, which basically tears up Benedict XVI’s earlier encyclical, Summorum pontificum. The latter considerably loosened restrictions on usus antiquior, the traditional Latin mass, celebrated, albeit with additions and subtractions over the years, but essentially the same, for 1500 years.

Over 50 years ago Pope Paul VI, at the behest and with the assistance of revisionist Cardinal Archbishop Bugnini and others, chopped up and made mincemeat of the old mass, though by taking snippets from it here and there and inserting them into the new rite claimed it was essentially the same as the ancient rite of old. It was hardly that; the innovators were simply telling lies.

It should be noted there were no demands from the faithful or most clergy for the desecration, rather it was done by executive fiat. Though Benedict did some tinkering with Novus Ordo to make it more palatable, as well correct egregious errors, it is still a travesty compared with the old rite, though your Tatler will admit, grudgingly, it does “gets the job done” and attending an NO mass fulfills one’s obligation.

The traditional Latin mass after Benedict’s encyclical was making slow, but steady progress returning to Catholic churches worldwide, but Francis, if you read his motu proprio, makes it clear he not only despises TLM, but those attending and taking part in it. He is hell-bent on crushing it. The recent appointments to the cardinalate that share Francis’s revulsion to TLM, indicate he is serious about snuffing it out.

Francis will not succeed; there are too many priests and laymen who love the old Latin mass and will jump through all the many additional hoops now required of them. In cases where that proves impossible, it will be celebrated regardless. The best Francis may expect is TLM, like Catholic masses in England and Ireland long ago, will be driven underground (the return of priest holes?), further dividing our deeply troubled Holy Church.

Sancta Maria ora pro nobis.

Biden’s Remaining Pleasures.

He’ll be lying as he’s lowered into the grave.

Your Tatler’s colleague at For What it’s Worth takes a trip down Memory Lane, posting a tweet of a young, vigorous Joe Biden splendidly lying with command and authority. Today, while most his limited faculties have been recalled by their maker, his preternatural gift for prevaricating remains, though even that has diminished to the point his lies are only believed by himself–and mainstream media, of course.

Still, since lies are likely, along with ice cream cones, among the President’s few remaining pleasures, it’s best we not call this shell of a man on account for them; it’s not as if we can stop him, anyway.

UPDATE: Our president’s engaging in a bit of his favorite activity is actually called out for it in today’s Washington Post. Understandable: believing untruths day in, day out can be terribly fatiguing.

The Lethal Threat of Anthropomorphic Firearms.

Warning! Warning! I shoot humanoids!

The mysterious phenomenon of guns firing by themselves.

Victoria Taft, writing at PJ Media, reports on a terrifying new trend reported by mainstream media lately, injuries and killings committed by cognizant self-firing guns. She offers up a plethora of injuries caused by them recently in Portland, Oregon.

[P]olice report that ten guns shot ten people over a 24-hour period of time starting Friday night, Memorial Day weekend. No guns have been arrested.

She then gives details on each of the guns-on-people shootings, of which your Tatler, not desiring to frighten his readers, will provide but two.

  • 05/27/2022, 5:57 a.m. An employee retrieving a scrap metal dumpster discovered a gun inside being held by a man, and a disturbance resulted in the gun firing itself. The gun is still on the lam.
  • 05/27/2022 6:03 a.m. A man was found shot to death in a house by a gun that fired itself. No gun has yet been arrested for the crime.

Of course, what Taft is lampooning is the policy of gun-hating major media to assign blame not on the perpetrators of shootings, rather the weapons they use, although they more or less limit blameworthy implements to guns. All of this of course is to rally public support behind additional gun control measures, irrespective of all previous attempts proving utterly ineffective.

The media and Democrats’s (pardon the redundancy) ultimate aim, no surprise, is banning all private ownership of guns. While in the past, their tactics have garnered limited support restricting gun ownership, poles lately indicate the strategy is falling flat, that a majority of those polled prefer beefed up police forces and prosecutors and judges taking a tough stance on criminals rather than further restricting gun ownership.

It must be noted though, poll results on this matter swing widely, with stricter gun control enjoying greater popularity in the aftermath of mass shootings. That is why Democrats and media pile on with frenzied joy in support of it directly following the carnage. The hope is in the heat of the moment legislation further restricting or even banning guns can be rushed through before things cool down. Pretty-boy Pierre Trudeau is doing just that in Canada.

Ultimately, though, in the United States we have the Second Amendment protecting citizens’s rights to bear arms. Previous thinking on the left, which had been gaining traction for some time, that the plainly written Second Amendment doesn’t really mean what it says, has been discredited by the courts. Completely banning gun ownership or even overly restricting it requires a constitutional amendment passing by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress, or a national convention of the states passing same by a three-quarters vote. In short, it’s not going to happen unless the commies take over.

Meanwhile, those nasty anthropomorphic guns will keep shooting people.