The Feast of St. Sylvester

Fr. Rutler preaches, illuminated by the midday winter sun, at the Church of Our Saviour on the Feast of St. Sylvester. And a fine sermon it was, too.

For unto us, a Child is born…

The Queen’s Christmas Message 2007

Available here at YouTube.

Britain: a ‘Catholic country’

The Original Church of England Overtakes the New One?

Catholics have overtaken Anglicans as the country’s dominant religious group, according to the Sunday Telegraph, as more people attend Mass every Sunday than worship with the (Anglican) Church of England. “This means that the established Church has lost its place as the nation’s most popular Christian denomination,” Jonathan Wynne-Jones reports, “after more than four centuries of unrivalled influence following the Reformation”. Sunday attendance at Anglican services has dropped a whopping 20% since the year 2000. Catholic Mass attendance in the past six years, however, has also dropped a dramatic 13%, a decline assuaged by the arrival of thousands of Polish immigrants since Poland joined the European Union.

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Obaysch the Hippo

Obaysch was the first hippopotamus in Britain since prehistoric times. The Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt agreed with the British Consul General to exchange Obaysch for some greyhounds and deerhounds, and the hippo arrived at London Zoo in May of 1850. The above photograph was taken in 1852 by Juan, Count of Montizón, later the Legitimist Bourbon claimant to the thrones of France and Spain.

Christmas in Iran

Gerald Warner Axed

Scotland’s Voice of Reason Silenced

I WAS MUCH disheartened when I was told that Gerald Warner’s weekly column in Scotland on Sunday has been axed. Gerald’s writing is a refreshing Caledonian tonic in contrast to the usual second-rate rants from second-rate minds the exemplifies most newspaper columns today. Gerald Warner refuses to allow the heresiarchs of our age to lay waste to our civilization unchallenged. He is (err… was) the only substantial reason for paying for a copy of Scotland on Sunday. Of course, S-o-S is not available here in New York, so every Saturday night I would wait until after midnight GMT (7:00pm New York time) to read Gerald’s column online. Often enough, I would dutifully tell all the folks on the sidewalk after Mass on Sunday that they had to read Gerald’s column this week. Sometimes I’d even print the damn thing out and read it aloud for the enjoyment of all. But alas! No more…

Some Gerald Warner highlights on this site:

The Café Society of Ferenc Molnár

FROM 1887, the Café Central (or Centrál Kávéház, in Magyar) has been a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, professionals, and others located on Budapest’s Károlyi Mihály street. One of its most famous patrons was the novelist and dramatist Ferenc Molnár (born Ferenc Neumann and often anglicized as Franz Molnar), whose 1906 book The Paul Street Boys is perhaps the most widely-read Hungarian novel. His 1909 play “Liliom” was later adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein into the musical “Carousel”. Both his plays “The Guardsman” and “The Swan” were later made into films (the latter being Grace Kelly’s final appearance on the silver screen), while “The Play at the Castle” was adapted by P.G. Wodehouse into “The Play’s the Thing” and by Tom Stoppard into “Rough Crossing”. (more…)

Krummau on the Moldau

Český Krumlov Revisited

THE CASTLE OF Krummau in Bohemia stands majestically on its crag in a bend of the Moldau river, presiding confidently over the town below. Český Krumlov, as the town is known in the currently-reigning Czech language, began in the thirteenth century under the Rosenberg family and was purchased by the Emperor Rudolf II in 1602. Yet it was under the princely house of Schwarzenberg (proprietors of Krumau from 1719 to 1945) that the castle flourished. The name Český Krumlov means Bohemian Krummau, to differentiate it from a Moravian town of the same name. (It is also often rendered as Krumau or Krumau-an-der-Moldau).

While the advent of Communism deprived the Schwarzenbergs of this great castle and numerous other vast properties of theirs behind the Iron Curtain, the Schwarzenbergs have since regained their natural prominence in Bohemia. His Serene Highness Prince Karl VII of Schwarzenberg, Duke of Krummau, Count of Sulz, Princely Landgrave of Kelttgau currently serves his country as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, as well as being a member of the Czech Senate which convenes in the Wallenstein Palace in Prague. For the sake of convenience, however, His Serene Highness goes by ‘Karel Schwarzenberg’. (more…)

St Andrews in London

A LITTLE SOMETHING for our good friends from university who’ve just moved to London from the countryside. I hope that when they are in the Cathedral they will pop into our patron’s chapel, glance at the mosaic of our dear old Royal Burgh of St Andrews, remember good times, and say a prayer for us all.

Hipódromo Argentino de Palermo

THE PALERMO RACETRACK is the main center for equestrian events in Buenos Aires. It was first built in 1876. In 1908 the current main stand was built to the beaux-arts design of a French architect, Louis Faure Dujarric. The Argentine Grand National, a race of 2,500 meters, has been run here annually since 1885. (more…)

Amen!

Link: Catholics for Ron Paul

Columbus Circle: A Wider View

I THOUGHT THAT since we widened our window of opportunity, I ought to give you a wider view of this capture from the 1954 film ‘It Should Happen to You!’, previously displayed in our exposition on Columbus Circle and the Human Scale. The more recent rehabilitation of this grand public place was discussed in one of my diary entries. (more…)

Christopher Street, Greenwich Village

Beulah R. Bettersworth, Christopher Street, Greenwich Village
Oil on canvas, 30 1/8″ x 24 ¼”
1934, Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Old State House

Hartford, Connecticut

THE GREAT Russell Kirk once called the main chambers of the Old Connecticut State House “perhaps the most finely-proportioned rooms in all America”. The Senate of Connecticut met in the stately Senate Chamber (above) around a long table, as was the general fashion of the legislative councils which formed the upper house of most colonial legislatures. It was in the House of Representatives Chamber (below) that the famed Hartford Convention of December 1814 and January 1815 met and discussed New England’s possible secession from the Union. The State House was built in 1796 to the designs of Charles Bulfinch, on land which had been granted to Connecticut by King Charles II in 1662. (more…)

Grand Central Station at Night

Charles Frederick William Mielatz, Grand Central Station at Night
Etching on paper, 7″ x 10″
1890, Smithsonian American Art Museum

This, of course, is not the Grand Central we know today, but its immediate predecessor.

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While there’s life, there’s hope

IT WAS TERENCE who wrote Modo liceat vivere, est spes, meaning “While there’s life, there’s hope”. This coming Wednesday is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and it would be particularly appropriate to remember in our prayers to the Virgin the President of Cuba, Fidel Castro. Castro’s health has been deteriorating greatly of late, so we must earnestly pray to Our Lady that the Cuban president will accept the gracious mercy of Our Lord as he nears the end of his earthly life. (The recent and shocking defeat of the referendum to enshrine socialism in Venezuela has been attributed to the intervention of the Virgin of Coromoto, but rest assured that Our Lady is never too busy to hear our prayers). It would be very foolish and neglectful to think that Mr. Castro, who has been baptized after all, is somehow beyond the grace of God, so please remember him in your prayers: these Brigittine nuns certainly are!

Ian Smith, 1919-2007

Prime Minister of Rhodesia

The Rt. Hon. Ian Douglas Smith, who died on November 20 (the same day as Franco), was born on April 8, 1919 in the farming and mining town of Selukwe, Rhodesia. The youngest of three children, his father was a Scottish butcher who moved to Rhodesia and became a cattle rancher and horse breeder. Smith attended the Chaplin School in Gwelo from 1930 to 1937, becoming Head Boy, as well as Captain of Rugby, Cricket, Athletics, Tennis, and Boxing.

In 1939, Great Britain declared war on Germany, and Ian Smith left the family farm to join the Royal Air Force. Commissioned a Lieutenant in 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron, a crash in North Africa in 1943 injured him so gravely that his face had to be reconstructed, giving him a very fixed look on one side of his face. In July 1944, he was shot down over Italy and evaded capture, linking up with Italian partisan guerrillas and eventually escaping to England to rejoin the RAF.

He returned to Rhodesia after the war, and in 1948 married Janet Watt, a widow with two children, Robert and Jean, with their own son Alex born a year later. In 1948, Smith also ran in the general election for the Legislative Assembly as a candidate for the Liberal Party (a party that was, as Lord Blake wrote in his History of Rhodesia, “in accordance with the Rhodesian tradition of adopting the most misleading political nomenclature possible”).

“I was the youngest person ever to go into the Rhodesian parliament. I was twenty-nine years old. It so happened that in my little home town of Selukwe, which is a big mining camp, there were people who said ‘Look, surely you don’t expect us to vote for this chap Ian Smith. We remember him when he was in junior school here! And now you’re asking me to accept him as my Member of Parliament?’ Well it so happened that a few of my colleagues in the pub at the same time when the nominations had gone forward said ‘You know, when he decided to go to fight the war for Britain, and that was a number of years ago, you didn’t complain then, did you? What’s your case now?’ Well obviously they did not have a case and that pretty quickly scotched that one!”

In 1964, Prime Minister Winston Field resigned after the members of his party, the Rhodesian Front, felt he was unwilling to take on Britain in the fight for Rhodesian independence. (The British government was unwilling to grant Rhodesia dominion status unless a system of one-man, one-vote was instituted, a prospect considered anathema to Rhodesia’s property-based electorate). Ian Smith, a member of the Rhodesian Front, was chosen to succeed Field as Prime Minister. A year later, in November 1965, Prime Minister Smith and the cabinet declared independence from Great Britain. “We have struck a blow,” Smith told Rhodesia that day, “for the preservation of justice, civilization, and Christianity.” The Declaration of Independence was signed and enacted at 11:00 London time, on November 11 — Remembrance Day — a time particularly chosen to remind Britain of the great sacrifices the people of Rhodesia had made to preserve Britain’s independence in two world wars.

Smith led Rhodesia as Prime Minister for the next fifteen years, continuing the battle against the Communist terrorists whose ferocity only grew with each passing year. The economic sanctions leveled against Rhodesia by the United Nations had the reverse effect of encouraging internal investment and sparking a boom in the Rhodesian economy. The sanctions-busting smuggling of oil was the most difficult aspect of sanctions economically. But the governments of South Africa (then under apartheid) and Portuguese Moçambique (ruled by the Catholic dictator Antonio Salazar), while refusing to officially recognize Rhodesia were helpful in ensuring that the sanctions and embargo could be ignored.

For over ten years Rhodesia prospered, but towards the end of the 1970s, things began to change. Portugal’s Salazar, who had been on such friendly terms with Smith, died in 1970, and Moçambique became independent in 1975 and immediately became a one-party state ruled by the Soviet-backed FRELIMO. While Rhodesia, South Africa, and the United States backed the RENAMO resistance movement in Moçambique, the Communist control of the important port of Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) made breaking the oil embargo much more difficult. Furthermore, South African Prime Minister John Vorster started a policy of engagement with that country’s independent black-ruled neighbors in contrast to the previous policy of isolation. Wooing these countries, however, meant giving the cold shoulder to Rhodesia, and South African economic help trailed off.

Smith soon saw that the only way to prevent Rhodesia falling into the hands of the Communists was to compromise with the country’s non-violent Black moderates, chief among them Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa. An agreement was worked out whereby power, once held by the overwhelmingly (but not completely) white property-qualified electorate, would now be shared by white and black Rhodesians alike. There would be an Assembly of 100 members: 72 elected by the non-racial common roll (i.e. universal adult suffrage), 20 elected from the non-racial property role (previously the only electorate, in which voters had to own a certain level of property), and the remaining 8 reserved for white members who would be selected by 92 elected members. A Senate would exist as an upper house: 10 members elected by the lower house, 5 members elected by the Mashonaland council of chiefs, 5 members elected by the Matabeleland council of chiefs, and the remaining members appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister.

In 1979, under the new settlement, a general election was held which international observers had confirmed as free and fair. Bishop Muzorewa and his moderate nationalist UANC party gained a majority of seats in the Assembly and so formed the government. Muzorewa became Prime Minister, and changed the name of the country to Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. Out of respect for the old leader and to include whites in the new government, Ian Smith was included in the Cabinet, though only as a Minister-without-portfolio.

The war against the Communists continued, albeit now under black leadership, but remarkably the international community refused to accept the compromise settlement and declined to recognize the new Republic of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. Neither sanctions nor the oil embargo were lifted and thus the country still suffered an energy crisis. The British government under Thatcher forced Muzorewa to the bargaining table. Thatcher invited both Muzorewa and the Communist guerrillas (the Patriotic Front under Robert Mugabe) to participate in roundtable talks in London at Lancaster House.

It was agreed that Zimbabwe-Rhodesia would revert to its previous role as a British colony while elections could be held which were not restricted to non-violent parties. In exchange for being allowed to participate in these elections, the Patriotic Front agreed to abide by a cease-fire agreement, to renounce the use of force for political ends, to campaign peacefully and without intimidation, and to accept the outcome of the election. The black moderates and whites were assured that, should any party violate these strictures the Governor was bound to forbid them from standing in the elections. Predictably, Mugabe’s guerrillas did not abide by a cease-fire, but engaged upon an active campaign of violent intimidation of the electorate. The British turned a blind eye, hoping to hold the elections and then “get out of Dodge” as soon as possible, handing over power to the victor.

Mugabe was declared the victor by a landslide and the rest is history.

THE DEATH OF Ian Smith struck me in particular as he was always a sort of hero to me. (I will always remember having his picture on my wall during my university days). He steered Rhodesia clear of both the stagnant racialist waters of South African-style apartheid as well as the destructive materialist waters of Communism and embraced a common-sense approach the chief aim of which was the preservation and advancement of peace and prosperity for the greatest number of Rhodesians. His deep love of his country was obvious, as he devoted his entire life to its service. But most of all, from all quarters, Ian Smith is continually hailed as a gentleman, and gentlemen are fewer and fewer in the realm of politics these days.

May God in His mercy grant eternal rest to the soul of Ian Douglas Smith, and may perpetual light shine upon him. Amen.

Remembering ‘Smithy’

THE FOLLOWING ARE remembrances of Ian Smith which had been left on various internet sites and Facebook groups dedicated to him. I think these words speak for themselves.

A Glimpse at Smithy

From the Australian and the Sunday Times of London, I decided to excerpt these two articles to give our readers a better glimpse at Ian Smith, the man. (All boldface is mine).

From Graham Davis, writing in the Australian, 22 November 2007.

From R.W. Johnson, writing in the Sunday Times of London, 25 November 2007.