A band of merrie gentlemen haunt the Lizard Lounge late on a Thursday evening. (more…)

¡No Pasaran! has a post on Chile’s would-be dictator, Salvador Allende (seen above, helmeted, in the last photo taken of him alive). Many left-wing urban intellectuals both in the Americas and Europe fawn over Allende as the heroic democratically-elected savior of the proletariat who was cruelly overthrown by the reactionary military just moments before a Socialist paradise would have been achieved. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Belgian politicians are seeking to introduce euthanasia for children. It brought to mind this passage from St. Paul:

This is a battle in a war that probably won’t end any time soon.

… not yet gone. Cardinal Egan and his abomination squad have begun demolishing the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle in Harlem. St. Thomas is one of New York’s architectural gems, especially known for its perpindicular gothic vaulted ceiling. It has been determined that the stained glass, the worth of which may reach into the millions, cannot be removed, and so will be lost with the rest of the church. The altar is already gone, although in honesty, it was the least attractive feature at St Thomas, a bit frilly.

Preservationist M.H. Adams: The church is “the most significant structure to be destroyed in the city since Penn Station.”

Anti-Abomination.com quips “At least the moneychangers didn’t try to sell the temple.”

Gabriel Meyer, the fourth generation at Mayer of Munich (the firm that made St. Thomas’s windows), told Cardinal Egan in a letter:

But it would seem that Egan’s bureaucracy will trump history, Christian charity, and appreciation for beauty. The property will not be sold, but will be replaced by apartments to bring revenue into the Archdiocesan treasury. Cardinal Egan has done much since he ascended to the episcopal throne of our great metropolis. By this, and many other actions, he has shown his allegiance, and it is not to Christ.

(Via Fr. Jim Tucker) The Telegraph reports on the new monastery at Novy Dvur.

I have to say I rather like it. My only issue is that it ought to have a giant, massive crucifix floating above the altar. I know the whole point is supposed to be minimalism and absence but it’s ridiculous for the central feature of a church to be the absence of anything. The central feature of both The Church and any church should be Christ. So put some Christ into it.

Or perhaps if the entirety of the church were to be covered wall to wall in great pulchritudinous and polychromatic murals except the sanctuary, which would remain completely blank and white, thus focusing on the other-ness of the Eucharistic sacrifice compared to our world.

More photos. (more…)

Photo: Peter Tweed

Just over a fortnight to go, but a number of things I miss about St Andrews:

The people (too many to mention), wearing academic gowns, torchlit processions, dinner parties, St. Salvator’s Chapel, three-piece suits at Chapel, lady preachers making fools of themselves at Chapel, the after-Chapel bit of sherry, tweed, the Kensington Club, tweed, the ruins of the Cathedral, tweed, the Pier, the East Sands, the West Sands, Castle Sands, the Castle, the Castle Tavern, the Central, Broon’s, Ma Bell’s, not so much the Westport but their beer garden instead, eating at the Golf Hotel, reading the magazines in the common room of Canmore, reading everything else in the library of Canmore, big dinner thursdays, avoiding the Students Union at all costs, Queens Gardens, the Quarto, the Bouquiniste, chips, the late movie on Wednesday nights, anything and everything Richard Demarco is involved in, plotting reaction, writing the Mitre, reading the Mitre, reactions to the Mitre, St. Leonard’s Chapel, candlelit compline, the Scores, Boots’ meal deal, the evangelists in the streets, Parliament Hall, St. Mary’s Quad, St. Katharine’s Lodge, St. John’s House, the King James Library, the Bunk Room in St. Mary’s, Professor Haldane’s house, the hallway chat after the daily Rosary, the Parish garden, Fr. Halloran’s black vestments and the fact that he still uses them, the Latin Mass in Edinburgh and everything that goes with it, the Telegraph, the Spectator, making fun of people, being made fun of, evensong at Holy Trinity, the Renaissance Group, St. Salvator’s Hall, Hamilton Hall, University Hall, Lower College Hall, the Old Union Diner, Butts Wynd, St. Salvator’s Quad, North Street, Market Street, South Street, the Pends, the Cemetary, the cloister, the chapter house, driving up and down the Fife coast, awkward people, the Whiskey-tasting Society (oh boy!), unapologetic support for the monarchy, international diplomacy, an appreciation for Chesterton, representing New York abroad, beautiful and charming South African tutors, Dean’s Court, champagne, the Royal & Ancient, innocent decadence, Kinburn Park and the lawn bowling club, Bishop Kennedy’s tomb, the Buchanan, falling asleep in lectures, doing the crossword in lectures, inscribing the Sacred Heart of Jesus, monarchist slogans, or anachronistic pro-Rhodesian graffiti onto lecture hall desktops, tea after Mass, Country Life, the Kate Kennedy Procession, buying the papers at J+G Innes, formal events, wearing the old school tie, the Annual Boules Match in St. Mary’s College, the Younger Hall, plotting to start a croquet club, people willing to sacrifice their lives for their country, my complete inability to write an essay without Jameson’s, paninis from Cherries, Luvian’s wine shop, all the alleyways, the Byre Theatre, the bar at the Byre, Pimm’s on the lawn, Christianity being taken seriously, incessantly amusing people, life in St Andrews. Life in St Andrews!

More Yale fun today, and because I was stupid enough to leave the top bit of our brewing apparatus back home, I shall be up again tommorrow evening.

Quite sadly, thanks to traffic on I-95, we missed our reservation for luncheon at Mory’s, and so ate at a more than satisfactory Italian place instead. Nothing like penne basilico and a bloody mary on a Saturday afternoon in New Haven, eh?

Nonetheless, Adam and his friend Neer have an exceptional apartment on Park Street in New Haven, just across the street from Yale’s Pierson College. It’s on the top floor, giving it a great view of some gothic towers, and its got some some neo-classical woodwork to boot.

However the best thing of all about the apartment is that the previous owners, for no known reason, left a two-seater choir pew on the fire escape. With misericords and everything, although not ornate. Robert O’Brien would be jealous. So today we dusted the thing off, cleaned it up, and hauled it into the apartment. It fits in perfectly, especially since it blends in with all the woodwork.

I mean really, what luck! I doubt when I move into our flat in Southgait Hall in a few weeks that there will be any random ecclesiastical furnishings lying about from previous occupants. Of course, within a few days of us living there it will no doubt be full of Leon’s army things, Y*****’s art, and my newspapers.

Adam’s filling out his law school applications, and Neer his medical school applications, and it being their last year, I offered to take the choir pew off their hands once the academic year is over. Perhaps then I shall turn my room into a would-be Pluscarden.

Every now and then, the Tablet has articles which are spot on. Read about the Blessed Antoni Gaudi in this week’s edition. Well worth a read.

On Friday, May 16 of 2003, the Carmelites offered a mass in York Minster to commemorate the 550th anniversary of the Papal bull ‘Cum Nulla’ allowing the Order to enroll nuns and the laity. York Minster used to be home to a Carmelite congregation, kicked out when the Minster – the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe – was appropriated by the government. It survives today as the cathedral for the Archdiocese and ecclesiastical province of York. The official website conveniently makes no mention of the great church being nicked from the Carmelites, but at least they let them offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in their old home.

York Minster was in the news not too long ago, when Canon Professor Edward Norman – one of their clerics and supposedly one of Anglicanism’s leading intellectuals – decided to swim the Tiber (so to speak). (more…)

The Irish Parliament House, now the Bank of Ireland, on College Green in Dublin, is one of my favourite buildings in the world. You can go there and visit the House of Lords chamber. Unfortunately, the House of Commons chamber burned down shortly after the Irish Parliament was merged into the British one in 1800. It is supposedly the first purpose-built parliament building in the world, though no longer in use.

Via Mere Comments.

The other evening whilst out on the town with Will Moller (Groton ’02, Kenyon ’06), I was pleased to learn that Groton still graduates its male student in straw boaters.

I think straw boaters are about due for a revival. And not those horrific plastic numbers that proliferate around convention and campaign time. The real deal. The trouble is the best place to start a straw boater revival is St Andrews, and we’re only all in St Andrews when straw boaters aren’t really “in season” as the sartorialists would say.

The Scotsman has given in to the current Fleet Street mania and become a tabloid. The newspaper had experimented with the tabloid size for its Saturday edition and then just a few days ago converted the weekday editions as well.

For my fellow Americans in the audience, a little explanation. Going tab is all the rage amongst respectable newspapers in Britain over the past year. The ancient Times of London comes in both broadsheet and tabloid format. The Independent was the first broadsheet to publish both a broadsheet and tabloid edition, and then decided to become a permanent tabloid. The Guardian, to my knowledge, has kept out of the tabloid fray, and the venerable Daily Telegraph remains commited to broadsheetism.

The benefits of publishing in tabloid size are that the newspaper is easier to handle and read. Financially, however, it means page size, and thus potential advertising space, is reduced by half.

I am not a fan of this tabloid revolution. I fantasize periodically about the Mitre being published in broadsheet format instead of A4. Perhaps my anti-tabloidism is culturally ingrained. After all, we Anglophones are used to the formula of broadsheet = trustworthy. This formula is not true, for example, in France, where the two main respectable newspapers, le Figaro and le Monde, are printed in a format slightly smaller than the standard US/UK tabloid.

Nonetheless, one of the aspects of broadsheets that I enjoy is that they aren’t easy to read on subways and whatnot. It’s best to sit down in a comfortable chair in a well-lit location and peruse the goings-on and thoughts of New York, the nation, and the world in the New York Sun than to get tiny bits of news in a “convenient” format.

“Chuck Schumer has a problem with people who have deeply held religious views, so he’s repeatedly blocked traditional Catholics from serving as federal judges.”

Just watched this television advert for Dr. O’Grady, and it hits the spot!

“As this new nation grew from weakness to strength to world power, the hand of Divine providence was always humbly sought and thankfully acknowledged. But today, we meekly watch as cultural revolutionaries try to destroy the purest of our traditions… It’s time to tame the liberal elite.”
Dr. Marilyn O’Grady, Conservative Party candidate for the United States Senate

This November, New York will face its first serious three-way U.S. Senate race in (my) living memory. Liberal incumbent Chuck Schumer is being challenged by fellow liberal Howard Mills as well as by a conservative, Dr. Marilyn O’Grady.

The politicos among the audience will remember that a similar situation in the 1970’s resulted in the Conservative Party candidate Jim Buckley defeating both the liberal Democrat and liberal Republican candidates to capture one of the Empire State’s two Senate seats.

I think the chances of this happening again are somewhat smaller today. Unfortunately, this time around the two-liberals-and-a-conservative model will likely split the block of voters who normally vote Republican rather than split voters that are doctrinally liberal. Shame on the NYGOP for having so many willy-nillies among its ranks!

A number of commentators have weighed in on the printed page about the “end of the electoral alliance” between the Republican and Conservative Parties. It hasn’t really ended, per se. The Conservative Party is just refusing to endorse Republican candidates that aren’t conservative, which is one of its founding purposes, and something it should have done in the recent gubernatorial election.

Check out Marilyn’s website here, and the Conservative Party’s rather lacklustre site here. (Both links are also on the sidebar at left).

Bon Voyage has to be one of the best films I’ve seen ever. A true classic. Cinema at its most magnificent and magnetic. Bon Voyage is entertaining, thrilling, amusing, beautiful, and full of intrigue. Hollywood hasn’t made a film that could even approach its quality in years.

Alright, alright, I’ll admit its a film that appeals especially to me. It is, after all, French, and depicts a period of French history of which I am particularly interested in: the advent of the Vichy regime. But this is no history film. It is certainly not a “romantic comedy” as described on the back of the DVD box. It was a pleasure in every way. Certainly not the usual claptrap you get from Los Angeles designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. This is a film where all the contributing factors (beautiful women, gunfire, and intrigue) are in proportion.

Well I could go on for ages. Just see it! Rent it, buy it, confiscate it, see it!

The official Bon Voyage website from Sony Pictures Classic.

Well folks, another entry is long overdue, and it will surprise you not that my computer is still out. As such, the unanswered emails are piling high, but I promise they will be taken care of.

Reading.

I’ve finished Buckley’s Miles Gone By and I have to say I found it immensely enjoyable. It is a collection of biographical musings from across the years, akin to his previous Nearer, My God. The former, I’m glad to report, avoids the slight haphazardness of the latter, perhaps because it is much longer and the selections included are well grouped. One of the tales which I particularly enjoyed was of WFB and Brent Bozell (whose brother is in Solesmes) at Yale. WFB and some cronies had piled there money together to purchase an aircraft, which Buckley and Bozell one day landed on the great lawn of the Ethel Walker School, where Buckley’s younger sister was studying. Upon disembarking the aircraft, they were promptly invited to tea with the headmistress. The audio CD which accompanies the book is a mere fancy.

Of Paradise and Power was particularly enlightening. Though Mr. Kagan’s general supposition about the difference in American and European worldviews (as well as Europe achieving a Kantian perpetual peace only by existing under the wing of the United States, a Hobbesian leviathan) seems quite well thought out, I did find myself disagreeing with one or two of his conclusions. Plus it irritated me when he referred to Britons as Europeans. Such silliness.

Speaking of silliness, I’ve started reading Wodehouse. Bought Young Men in Spats, a collection of tales from the Drones Club, and a volume of three of the Jeeves-and-Wooster novels. So far, both are thoroughly enjoyable.

et cetera…

I was very pleased to catch up with Mr. Nicholas Merrick last night, via whom I also ran into Mssrs. Simon Tuchman and Steven Lagotte. Good old Nicholas, I’m very pleased to say, is not a Buddhist as was previously thought for some unknown reason, and Deo gratias Simon is no longer of the Marxian persuasion in terms of economic thought and whatnot. Floreat Thorntona!

Michael Ulsterman (as he is known to me), our favourite Oirishman, was in town recently and I was very pleased enough to take him out for a bite at Café Lalo, one of Manhattan’s finest eateries (as well as the locale where I inadvertently stood up Brearley girl Buffy Breed on accounts of my not knowing what day of the week it was). Michael, though a liberal, is a Unionist through-and-through, and has a very sharp, sardonic wit that I hope will soon grace the pages of the Mitre. I think the first time I went to Lalo’s was with Jessy Lewis, Jessie Smyth, and Peter Scott (and was the other Peter there as well?). Jessy is now at Brown, which I’m informed she is enjoying much more than her premier year at Barnard; I just spoke to young lady Smyth (Univ. of Penn.) a week or so ago; and last I heard of Peter Scott he was on the May Ball committee at King’s College Cambridge. Not bad, not bad at all.

Particularly enjoyed the recent Kens Club correspondence.

Got to chat with Nicholas Vincent on his birthday (Aug 1) whilst he was minding Japanese children in Oxford with the indefatigable D. P. Atheist Mr. Vincent threatened to don shorts to evensong at Christ Church Cathedral, but Mr. Prior threatened a walloping and Nicholas was brought into line. (I know! Shorts at evensong! What will they think of next?)

Lastly, and mournfully…

Our prayers go out to Lindsay Mucka, whose father died only a few days ago. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

Relics of Saint Elizabeth Romanoff have been greeted enthusiastically by Muscovite crowds, according to Russia’s state-run ITAR-TASS news agency.

To discover the beautiful witness to Christ of Saint Elizabeth, read more about her at the Orthodox Christian Information Center and on the site of Fr. Demetrios Serfes. A statue of the holy Grand Duchess now graces the front of Westminster Abbey.

Behold, the only photo ever smuggled out of a Kensington Club dinner. Alright, I’ll admit it’s not a terribly interesting photo, but it’s the only one, so you’ll pardon that. I’m actually somewhat surprised I wasn’t fined a bottle of port or two for this, but I felt as a historian there ought to be some proof that the Kensington Club actually exists.

Here Ed Jackson turns to Rob Cockburn who explained some point about something. On the peripheral left is Michael Phillips, and on the dexter, Michael Gaster’s right arm (if my knowledge of the seating that evening is correct, which is doubtful).

Kens Club dinners are good fun, usually lasting from about seven-thirty until midnight, and they would be longer if only the Golf Hotel would oblige to keep its dining room open.

A hearty congratulations to the Brother and Sister Servants of the Holy Whapping who day and night maintain their sacred vigil at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping. The Shrine has reached its approximate first anniversary, and has dispensed much jolliness from its verdant e-pages.

It is to them, that I dedicate the above image of the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, with his group of Catholic practical jokers “i Sinistri” – the Sinister Ones. Pier Giorgio, more than any other saint or holy person, deserves to be patron of the Shrine of the Holy Whapping for his unrelenting commitment to first holiness and second humour. If you don’t know about Pier Giorgio, then read the biography written by his sister.

And you can never have too much of the Emperor Charles and Empress Zita!

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