"Prigozhin, Putin, and Western Christendom: The West is Currently Sick, but it is not Evil, and it can Recover" -- by Roberto de Mattei

Roberto de Mattei

August 30, 2023

The crash of the plane on which Wagner Brigade leader Yevgeni Prigozhin was traveling on August 23 caused no less uproar in the world's media than his attempted rebellion against Putin that occurred exactly two months earlier, on June 24, 2023. In both the first case and the second, the most cerebral hypotheses have been put forward to explain the event. There are those who attribute the bombing not to the Russians but to Ukrainians or the Americans; there are those who are convinced that there was a double on the plane and Prigozhin is still in Africa; and there are those who deny the bombing, claiming that it was all a set-up to allow Prigozhin to disappear and, at the same time, Putin to demonstrate his strength. The hypothesis that Prigozhin was made to be assassinated in revenge by Putin seems all too obvious and normal in a world where narratives are superimposed on reality, creating a climate of dark uncertainty in which nothing can be stated categorically and clearly. We are so accustomed to "abnormality" that a "normal" reading of events seems trivial to us, not least because these events present themselves to us in an often contradictory and confusing manner. 

De Mattei: “Columbus noster est!”

Roberto de Mattei 

Corrispondenza Romana

June 17, 2020

 “Columbus noster est!” “Christopher Columbus is ours!” These words of Leo XIII, in his encyclical Quarto Abeunte Saeculo, issued July 16, 1892, on the IV Centenary of the discovery of America, are like a distant echo to us, at a time when iconoclastic fury in the United States of America is destroying the figure of the Italian navigator.

Leo XIII states in this encyclical that Christopher Columbus’s venture: «is in itself the highest and grandest which any age has ever seen accomplished by man; and he who achieved it, for the greatness of his mind and heart, can be compared to but few in the history of humanity. By his toil another world emerged from the unsearched bosom of the ocean: hundreds of thousands of mortals have, from a state of blindness, been raised to the common level of the human race, reclaimed from savagery to gentleness and humanity; and, greatest of all, by the acquisition of those blessings of which Jesus Christ is the author, they have been recalled from destruction to eternal life. (…) For Columbus is ours; since if a little consideration be given to the particular reason of his design in exploring the mare tenebrosum, and also the manner in which he endeavored to execute the design, it is indubitable that the Catholic faith was the strongest motive for the inception and prosecution of the design; so that for this reason also the whole human race owes not a little to the Church. (…) This view and aim is known to have possessed his mind above all; namely, to open a way for the Gospel over new lands and seas. (…) Columbus certainly had joined to the study of nature the study of religion, and had trained his mind on the teachings that well up from the most intimate depths of the Catholic faith. For this reason, when he learned from the lessons of astronomy and the record of the ancients, that there were great tracts of land lying towards the West, beyond the limits of the known world, lands hitherto explored by no man, he saw in spirit a mighty multitude, cloaked in miserable darkness, given over to evil rites, and the superstitious worship of vain gods. Miserable it is to live in a barbarous state and with savage manners: but more miserable to lack the knowledge of that which is highest, and to dwell in ignorance of the one true God. Considering these things, therefore, in his mind, he sought first of all to extend the Christian name and the benefits of Christian charity to the West, as is abundantly proved by the history of the whole undertaking”».  

Hence, Christopher Columbus belongs to the Church, and any affront to him is directed at the Church, which has the duty to defend his memory. This spirit inspired Count Antoine-François-Félix Roselly de Lorgues (1805-1898) who dedicated his life to promoting the cause for Christopher Columbus’s canonization. Encouraged by Pius IX, in 1856, in Paris, Roselly de Lorgues published a two-volume work entitled: Cristophe Colomb. Histoire de sa vie et de ses voyages; d’après des documents authentiques tirés d’Espagne et d’Italie, which achieved world-wide success. In this work, Roselly de Lorgues, for the first time, offers his thesis for the canonization of the “Admiral of the Ocean”.  He writes in a subsequent work: “…he was the ambassador of God to unknown nations that the ancient world were unaware of”  and “ the natural legate of the Holy See in those new regions”. (Della vita di Cristoforo Colombo e delle ragioni per chiederne la beatificazione, tr. it., per Ranieri Guasti, Prato 1876, p. 83)

De Mattei: In Memoriam: The French Historian and the Italian Philosopher

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

January 8, 2020

Roberto de Mattei, Augusto Del Noce, Jean de Viguerie

The French historian, Jean de Viguerie departed this life on December 15^th 2019. Two weeks later, on December 30^th , there was the 30^th anniversary of the death of the Italian philosopher Augusto del Noce. What did these two figures of 20th century Catholic culture have in common?

Jean de Viguerie, born in Rome in 1935, followed a brilliant academic career, becoming Professor emeritus at the University of Lille-III, without ever making compromises to the dominant culture. «La foi irriguait toute la vie de Jean de Viguerie et nourrissait sa vie de professeur» wrote his disciple, Philippe Pichot Bravard.

Viguerie had a thorough, deep knowledge of the 20^th century. In my opinion, his fundamental work is Christianisme et Révolution. Cinq leçons d’Histoire de la Révolution française (Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1986). The reading of this book, alongside La Révolution française by Pierre Gaxotte (Edition by Jean Tulard, Complexe, 1988) offers us a synthetic, but illuminating picture of what happened in France between 1789 and 1795. His most original work though, is Les deux patries. Essai historique sur l’idée de patrie en France (Dominique Martin Morin, 1998). The French historian demonstrates how in the 19th century, a new concept of « patria » superimposed itself on the traditional one, rooted in a concrete place and a precise historical memory. It was in the name of this ideology that France went into the First World War. The Union Sacrée of 1914, between nationalists of the left and the right, was a continuation of the call to arms launched in 1792, when the National Assembly declared “La Patrie en danger!” [The Homeland is in danger!].

De Mattei: The 'Assisted Suicide' of the Church and Society

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

August 21, 2019

All attention in Italy at the moment is focussed on the political crisis. Yet there is another much graver and vaster crisis, which constitutes the background for the political crisis: the religious and moral crisis of the West. The political crisis is visible; it enters our homes through the mass-media and even a distracted eye or ear perceives it. The religious and moral crisis can be perceived only by those who have a developed, spiritual sensitivity. Those immersed in the materialism of modern life, have a refined capacity in appreciating the pleasures of the senses, but are spiritually darkened, if not completely blinded. The religious and moral crisis is a crisis that happens when man loses sight of his ultimate end and the criteria that must guide his actions. A society that is immersed in agnosticism, dissolves and dies.

In Italy, for example, the government crisis has made us forget an important date. A hearing is scheduled for September 24^th with the Constitutional Court, to judge the legitimacy of Article 580 of the Penal Code, which punishes the crime of instigating or aiding suicide. The highest juridical authority of the Italian State invited Parliament to promulgate a new law before this date, otherwise it will be the Court itself that will determine the route to take. But the Court has already affirmed that in certain cases, suicide may be permitted (and thus “assisted” on the medical and administrative level) given that: “the absolute prohibition of assisted suicide ends up, in limiting the sick person’s freedom of self-determination, in his choice of treatment, including that aimed at liberating him from suffering.” (Ordinance  n.2017 of November 16^th, 2019). The self-determination of the individual is the supreme rule of a society which ignores the existence of a moral law written in the heart of every man and to which men and societies must comply if they want to avoid self-destruction.

De Mattei: What is at stake after the European elections of May 26

Roberto de Mattei 

Corrispondenza Romana

May 29, 2019

The elections of May 26th were an important episode in a conflict that goes way beyond the destiny of the European Parliament or any national government. In fact, a lobby exists that has as its aim, the destruction of Christian identity and the construction of cosmopolitan organisms that are assuming sovereign power of life and death over its European citizens. An example of this plan is what has just happened in France, where the Paris Court of Appeals handed over to the United Nations Organization, the ultimate decision on the life of Vincent Lambert, the French paraplegic condemned to death by his wife and the doctors at Rheims Hospital, where he is a patient.      

It is clear that power of legislation on the life of Lambert does not pertain to the French judges, nor those of Europe or the United Nations. Positive laws, both national and international, do not have their source in the entities that emanate or apply them, but in a divine law that is preexistent to the laws of men and by the laws of men cannot be changed.   Now, the natural and divine law prohibits the killing of the innocent and any human law claiming to establish the contrary must be considered a non-law, invalid and iniquitous. Further, inasmuch as the only guardian of the divine and natural law is the Catholic Church, it is first of all up to the men of the Church to proclaim the inalienable right to life.  But today the voice of the men of the Church is gone.  The only problem  the leaders of the Church seem to be interested in is that of hospitality to migrants from outside of Europe. An absolute, unconditional, total hospitality. We are not dealing here with the ancient virtue, whether Christian or secular, of hospitality, but of an ideological choice, wherein the philosophy of hospitality is presented, in reality, as a theory of renouncing European identity, or rather, its replacement.

Salvini: “Personally, I entrust Italy, my life and your lives to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let’s entrust ourselves to the six Patrons of Europe.”

H/T Messainlatino blog

Yesterday, the leader of an Italian political party, at a packed rally in Piazza Duomo, Milan, invoked the intercession of Our Blessed Lady and the Holy Patrons of Europe “for the peace and prosperity of our peoples”: words that immediately stirred the hearts of Catholics who love Jesus and His Church "usque ad effusionem sanguinis".

De Mattei: Dare, Monsignore!

An Appeal from the Lepanto Foundation

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER...

Twenty-five years ago, on 8 February 1994, the European Parliament voted on a resolution that invited the nations of Europe to promote and give legal protection to homosexuality. In his Angelus address on 20 February 1994, the Holy Father Pope John Paul II appealed to public opinion worldwide, affirming that “the legal approbation of active homosexuality is not morally admissible [...]. The Resolution of the European Parliament has called for the legitimization of a moral disorder.The Parliament has unduly given institutional value to deviant behaviors, which do not conform to God’s plan”.

In May of that same year, the Lepanto Cultural Center [Centro Culturale Lepanto] handed out a manifesto in Strasbourg to parliamentary representatives, called “Europe at Strasbourg: Represented or Betrayed?”. The manifesto made an indignant protest against the promotion of a vice condemned by both Christian and Western conscience, and asked the European bishops “to unite their voices to that of the Supreme Pastor [John Paul II] in order to multiply it in their dioceses, by publicly denouncing the moral fault with which the European Assembly has stained itself and warning the flock entrusted to their care of the growing attacks of anti-Christian forces in the world”.

Today, one after another, the principal European nations, including many of those with the most ancient Catholic tradition, have elevated sodomy to a legal right by recognizing, under different forms, so-called “same-sex marriage” and introducing the concept of the crime of “homophobia.” The Pastors of the Church, who should have formed an unbreakable dam of opposition against the homosexualization of society promoted by the political class and by the media-financial oligarchies, have in fact fostered it by their silence. Even at the highest levels of the Church, the practice of homosexuality and of a so-called “gay-friendly” culture that justifies and encourages homosexual vice has spread like a cancer.

De Mattei: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

December 19, 2018

In December 1918, Europe celebrated the first Christmas of peace after four years of non-stop bloodshed. The world that was born, however, was no longer that of yesterday.

On November 3rd, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire had signed the armistice of Villa Giusti with the Allied Armed Forces in Padua. On November 7^th,  the German Chancellor received an ultimatum from the German Socialists, who imposed the abdication of Kaiser William II for Friday November 8^th.  The Grand Duke of Baden, notified the Sovereign, who was at his General Quarters in Spa, that he could no longer rely on the army and that a civil war was looming. Right up until the morning of November 8^th, the Sovereign manifested his intention of reestablishing order and taming the Revolution at the head of his troops. But during the night between the 8^th and 9^th everything collapsed. The Emperor’s military and civil advisors, gathered together in Spa, insisted that the Kaiser abdicate and leave for Holland.  On November 9^th  he announced his abdication as Emperor of Germany, not as King of Prussia, and entrusted the Command of the Army to Field Marshal von Hindenburg, appointing him to negotiate the armistice.  That same day the Emperor left Germany, never to return. 

Meet the new Italian Minster for The Family and Disability: The Honourable Lorenzo Fontana

When the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum was issued by Pope Benedict XVI in July 2007, Municipal Counsellor of Verona at that time, Mr Lorenzo Fontana had this to say:“This is an event of historical importance, which marks a return to tradition”.  The New Minister who has been a Member of the Lega Nord * since he was 20 years old, [he is now 38] attends the Traditional Latin Mass and in actual fact was married in that rite. He has a daughter.

Bishop Schneider: Behind the migrant phenomenon there is a plan to change the European population

Francesco Boezi

"Il Giornale"

June 27, 2018

A plan to call Christianity in Europe into question. This is the vision of the Kyrgyzstan  Bishop, Athanasius Schneider, who focused on this and other themes which very much also concern the vision of the Catholic Church.

Excerpts from an interview to “Il Giornale”:

THE ULTIMATE INTERVIEW to Understand all About Pope Francis: Marcello Pera, Italian politician and close Ratzinger friend

Benedict XVI greeting Marcello Pera

Marcello Pera is an influential intellectual in Italy. A former president of the Italian Senate, he is a close friend of Benedict XVI, and even co-authored a book of lectures with him on the decay of the West (Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam)

In an interview with Naples newspaper Il Mattino, published on July 9, 2017, Marcello Pera presented what can reasonably be called the general view of Pope Francis by the wide moderate spectrum of Italians, and Europeans, of all classes.

***

"Bergoglio just wants to do politics, the Gospel does not matter at all"

Pera: "The indiscriminate welcoming [of migrants] risks exploding tensions"

Il Mattino

Naples, July 9, 2017

Interview by Corrado Ocone

Pope Francis, in a new exclusive interview granted to Eugenio Scalfari for "Repubblica" intervenes in the political debate with strong and explosive opinions that at one time would be considered "leftist". This time, the Pontiff turned to the great of the earth assembled in Hamburg for the G20, opposing as a matter of principle to every policy intending to control and limit mass immigration from poor nations to Europe. In order to better understand the ideas, and above all the political and media action of the Pope, in relation to those of his predecessor, we have posed some questions to the former President of the Senate Marcello Pera. He, a [classical] liberal and Catholic, has, as it is known, shared many ideas with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (even writing in four hands with him a book: Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, Mondadori, 2004).

Mr. President, what is the judgment you have reached regarding the continuous calls made by Pope Bergoglio on the welcoming of migrants? An indiscriminate, unconditional, total welcoming?

"Frankly, I do not get this pope, whatever he says is beyond any rational understanding. It's evident to all that an indiscriminate welcoming is not possible: there is a critical point that cannot be reached. If the Pope does not make reference to this critical point, if he insists in a massive and total welcoming, I ask myself: why does he say it? What is the true end of his words? Why does he lack a minimum of realism, that very little that is requested of anyone? The answer I can give myself is only one: the Pope does it because he hates the West, he aspires to destroy it, and he does all he can to reach this end. As he aspires to destroy the Christian tradition, Christianity as it has realized itself historically.

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: The Western Civilization is daughter of the Catholic Church | Looking forward to TLM as Ordinary Form

by Fr. Richard G. Cipolla
St. Mary's, Norwalk, Connecticut

Together we look forward to the time when the Traditional Roman Mass 
will once again be the Ordinary Form of the Mass

And who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?  But even if you suffer anything for justice’s sake, blessed are you  So have no fear of their fear and do not be troubled; but hallow the Lord Christ in your hearts.   (I Peter 3: 14-15)

We have a president of this country who acts sometimes like a bull in a china shop.  One cannot help but wonder what he will say at the G-20 summit in Hamburg.  But he did give a speech in Poland a few days ago that caused quite a stir.  The Poles were quite stirred by the speech and liked it. The liberal press was stirred to attack what he said, especially in one part of the speech.  He asked whether the West had the courage and grit to defend Western civilization against those whose values are inimical to that civilization.  And he mentioned faith as a part of that civilization, and without being more specific he meant the Christian faith. 

I happened to be listening to NPR on my drive home through the back roads so I could avoid the eternal traffic on 95.  Late every afternoon they have a series on topical questions and choose one person from the left and another from the quasi-right, quasi because NPR seems to associate conservatives with red-neck Neanderthals who would be invited.  There was a woman from the Boston Globe as one of the participants-I need not say which side she represented.  The other was David Brooks from the New York Times, who, for that paper of record is a centrist, and does not always tow the Times line.  The woman chided Trump for his speech as being nationalistic and narrow and exclusionary, this based on his mention of Western civilization and as something worth fighting for.  David Brooks, to my pleasant surprise, said that he thought it a good speech and saw nothing wrong in Trump’s positive assessment of Western civilization that is worth fighting for.  He the civilization of Plato and Aristotle, of Rome, of the moral, teaching that was the basis for cultural and civic traditions that came from the ancients and were developed through two millennia:  this is something very real, and although far from perfect, was something Brooks is happy to be a part of.

What Brooks did not say, and probably dared not say, is that without the Christian appropriation of ancient Western culture, which deepened that culture in so many ways, the culture of which we are an integral part would not exist.  And to be more specific:  without the Catholic Church the past two thousand years would be incomprehensible and void of much meaning.  The Church’s strong influence in every facet of culture—from government to inventing the hospital, from the art and music that was inspired and supported by the Church to the development of rational thought that made possible modern science, but above all for the truly civilizing influence of the Church that turned barbarians into the English and the French.

You Suggest: New summer school in London - pursuing wisdom through learning

The following report is from a reader: 

Benedictus is a new Liberal Arts initiative in London, England. This project runs a two-week programme during the month of August.

This Summer there will be an amazing opportunity to explore Christian civilization and the great search for truth of which Catholics are the heirs. During the two weeks of the Summer School the group will participate in the continuing conversation of Christendom -- a living dialogue with its greatest thinkers, writers and artists.

The Benedictus Summer School is rooted in the classical and Catholic intellectual tradition, and its principles centre on the development of the whole person, through the joyful pursuit of wisdom.

The Summer School will take place in London from Sunday 2nd August - Friday 14th August 2015, and is open to those aged 18-25.

Click here to visit the Benedictus website to learn more about the Summer School. To watch a quick video, see below:

A Break for Good News: From the Abbey of Saint Mary of Lagrasse - Ordinations, a Prize - and a beautiful video

Video: "A Day at the Abbey"[Update: now also available at Youtube]

A Traditional Catholic Jewel in the Languedoc: the Abbey of Saint Mary of Lagrasse (Abbaye de Sainte-Marie de Lagrasse) of the Canons Regular of the Mother of God (Chanoines Réguliers de la Mère de Dieu), right outside Lagrasse, near Carcassone (Aude).

From there come two items that fill us with hope in our difficult times for the Church and for Europe.

1. Ordinations.

COLUMBUS NOSTER EST

Monastery of Sant Jeroni de la Murtra, near Barcelona,
where the Catholic Monarchs welcomed Columbus back from the Indies in 1493

Now that four centuries have sped since a Ligurian first, under God's guidance, touched shores unknown beyond the Atlantic, the whole world is eager to celebrate the memory of the event, and glorify its author. Nor could a worthier reason be found where through zeal should be kindled. For the exploit is in itself the highest and grandest which any age has ever seen accomplished by man; and he who achieved it, for the greatness of his mind and heart, can be compared to but few in the history of humanity.

Unnecessary for a Prince to Have Best Qualities, Essential for Him to Appear to Have Them

In 2001, the Nobel [Peace Prize] was denied to Pope John Paul II due to an impediment made public by the Lutheran Bishop of Oslo, Gunnar Staalseth, member of the committee. No prize to a pope – he said – until the Church has brought up to date its magisterium on contraception.

Sandro Magister, earlier today

New classical radio station

From Radio Netherlands Worldwide:

From 3 June, Radio Netherlands Worldwide is offering listeners around the world a new service: classical music radio via the internet.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, it will broadcast classical music by Dutch composers and performers to an international public,... . RNWClassical.com. That's the trademark of this English language 'broadcaster' on the RNW websites. Its goal is to reach an international public with classical music by Dutch composers and performers. However, although music speaks for itself in all languages, the specialists who present it will do so in English.

BBC Radio 3 has, of course, been available online for years, as well as several other venues (including several on-demand websites, such as the Orgelconcerten page hosted by Dutch broadcaster NCRV). We invite our readers to post their favorite online radio stations in the comments.

___________________

Updated: Suggestions from our readers:

(1)Traditional Catholic Radio;

(2)Classical Minnesota Public Radio;

(3)FD Auditorium (Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI): Filodifusione Quinto Canale);

... would you like to add your tip?