An Argentine correspondent informs us that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered on October 28th at the Church of St. Boniface, the German-speaking parish of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the beatification of Blessed Charles, Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary. The mass was organized by Viscountess Huges Stier de Saint Jean (née Princess Isabelle Auersperg-Breunner), whose mother was a descendant of the Emperor Franz Joseph through his daughter Valerie. The Mass was offered in Spanish and German, with the prayers of intention read in those languages as well as Hungarian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Croatian, and Italian.

Category: Charles of Austria

BY NOW THE denizens of this little corner of the web are surely aware of Krummau, the splendid castle and town that towers above the banks of the Moldau river in Bohemia. I was never particularly interested in Bohemia until Fr. Emerson came up to St Andrews and gave a talk on the Hapsburgs. Unfortunately, this was before they began to record the talks (and offer them online) as it was an excellent brief lecture that I’d love to revisit. Now Bohemia is one of my passions, in addition to an increasingly large burden of passions (Scotland, New York, Argentina, the Netherlands, South Africa, France, Hungary, Transylvania, Canada, Scandinavia, … ). The architecture is superb and varied, and of course the Duke of Krummau is none other than a certain Prague pol. The complex is no longer in the Schwarzenberg family, but is instead now the State Castle of Český Krumlov.

The Chapel of Saint George in the Castle once contained the skull and bones of Pope St. Callixtus I. The remains were obtained by the Emperor Charles IV, who gave them to the Rosenberg family who built the castle, from whom they (and the castle itself) passed to the Schwarzenbergs, only to be lost after 1614. Nonetheless, the skull of an unknown North African martyr came here in 1663, and tradition donated to the unknown saint the name of Callixtus also.

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I can’t remember who it was that, watching the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain, said never in his right mind did he expect that within just a decade Washington would be the chief propagator of worldwide revolution and the Kremlin would be a relatively conservative power, guarding jealously its local sphere of influence. What could add more of a dash of the absurd (and yet, eminently sensible) than the Russian government, facing the worst crisis of population decline of any major power, promoting larger families with a poster campaign quoting the conservative American philosopher George Santayana.

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A journey to the shining city of Saint Botolph, and return

THE PERIOD OF MY removal to South Africa sometimes inclines me to think that time stood still during my absence from the northern hemisphere. It is as if the mental chronicle of my brain simply ceased, and took up writing in a different book, and then went back to the end of the old page upon my return. But time indeed did pass, and many were the old friends and acquaintances with whom we had not combined in some time. Communication was no better than intermittent while exiled in southerly climes, but, freshly returned, the tom-toms were beat and the smoke signals sent to the usual suspicious characters of note. A convocation of cohorts and old confederates was then proposed, to take place in Boston — caput and urbs maxima of God’s own province of New England.

My first stop was actually New Haven, and traversing the border into Connecticut I crossed myself in accordance with ancient custom, invoking the guardian angel of that jurisdiction in the usual pleas for safe travel, easy passage, and the avoidance of traffic cops & parking fines. In New Haven, I attended the meeting of a learned society (composed of both postgraduates & undergraduates) devoted to polite discourse, under the sacred patronage of the Saints Augustine of Hippo and of Canterbury, and the secular patronage of the Anglo-Irish divine Bishop Berkeley. Speaking of the divine, the society’s meeting was preceded by Mass, offered by one of the Dominicans who unofficially tend to the flock of Yale students (the official Roman chaplaincy there having a poor reputation) in an improvised chapel at the club’s quarters.

Mass was followed by port, smoking, and some cheese & finger foods for the hungry souls. I mentioned to a friend that the Choco-Leibniz cookies on offer were my favourite, the official state biscuit of the house of Cusack. “Of course they are,” the wag responded. “Choco-Leibniz are the best of all possible biscuits!” (Some jokes are so bad that the resulting chortles are both inevitable and involuntary.)

Then, the subject at hand. This meeting was convened to discuss the recently announced Apostolic Constitution establishing “personal ordinariates” to ease the reception of Anglican Christians into full visible communion with the Pope. The assembled members were by no means only Catholics, but with a significant portion of Episcopalians, and the odd Calvinist for good measure. A brief paper by an entrenched Anglican was read, and the members responded and discussed the matter with courtesy and depth as the fire crackled in the background. Which groups are likely to take advantage of the coming ordinariates? Which are least likely? Was this chiefly a pastoral move? What do the Orthodox think? What will the reaction be outside North America? All these questions and many, many more were raised and, so far as possible, answered.

The formal discussion was concluded with the invocation of the two Augustines and a toast to Bishop Berkeley. A number of members remained by the fire while others dispersed for other events. The weekend beheld the 75th Anniversary of the Yale Political Union, and so the constituent parties of the YPU were all having events for their members and alumni. (From what I can understand of the YPU’s right-leaning parties, the Conservative Party is for Republicans, the Tory Party is for decadent Anglophiles, and the Party of the Right is for conservatives.)

Following the procurement of beer and the ordering of pizza, the consumption of both, and the extinguishing of the fire, it was time to retreat for the evening to the splendid old Victorian house where a number of folks live. It’s one of those old, solidly American homes, with a swinging chair on the porch, splendid wood detailing inside, and pocket doors between the receiving rooms. Dotted around an old dining room table, more news and rumours were exchanged between the inhabitants and guests as the remnants of a bottle of Macallan was polished off. The Choco-Leibniz joke was repeated for those who were not in attendance before. A South Carolinian’s reaction to the health-food movement was recalled: “They won’t buy an egg if it ain’t free-range but they put on all manner of uh-koo-tra-mints so as not to conceive!” One of our friends, an Englishman, treated us to a rendition of “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing” on the banjo, and we were informed that a group of Yale Divinity students were officially reprimanded for having a watermelon-eating competition. (Watermelons often feature in stereotypical caricatures of American Blacks, and thus are apparently forbidden by the Monotony Monitors). We went on in such manner until the wee hours, when the assembled finally adjourned to bed.

Then the morning: breakfast — pumpkin pancakes from S.O.’s wife before she popped off to riding practice — before A.L. and I combined to continue the journey onwards to the City of Saint Botolph, Boston. The city’s name comes from the Lincolnshire town of Boston, itself a contraction of “Saint Botolph’s Town”. Many of the Puritans hailed from the East Midlands, and it was John Cotton, the controversial Vicar of Saint Botolph’s Church in Boston, who encouraged many separatist radicals to emigrate to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England. The New-World town of Boston was founded in 1630, and named in honor of the place associated with Cotton, who himself emigrated three years later. The Church of Saint Botolph is the most prominent landmark of old Boston, founded in 1309 and famous for its late-fifteenth-century English Perpendicular lantern tower. As coincidences go, the design of Harkness Tower at Yale University in New Haven is inspired by that of Saint Botolph’s in old Boston. New Haven’s name also harks back to the River Haven which flows just some thirty-odd feet from the great tower of Saint Botolph.

A New Yorker is always of two minds about Boston. We consider it a somewhat uppity member of our northern periphery and despise the attitude of some of its lowlier inhabitants (the sporting fans of red hosiery), but the old Knickerbocker can’t help but envy the skill and ability with which the Bostonians have preserved so much that has been utterly destroyed in New York. Boston, despite its politics, might just be the most conservative town in the American Republic. During our stay in Boston, we never left the immediate vicinity of Beacon Hill and Back Bay, except for one foray into Chinatown for dinner. The architecture is splendid, traditional, and vernacular, and the streets are uncrowded compared to the vast hordes that swarm around Manhattan.

Our home for the time being was a handsome apartment in Beacon Hill, well-decorated and amply supplied with books and booze. A.L. and I parked the car in the garage under Boston Common, and were met by our close friend I.M.C., who is the lynchpin uniting this social circle. I.M.C. hails from north of Boston, towards Gloucester, but had arranged for his friend T.L.G. to host us in his flat overlooking the Public Garden. Upon arriving we were offered generous cups of tea, ginger snaps, and sliced mango and conversed for quite some time before we decided upon a light Saturday afternoon jaunt around Back Bay and Beacon Hill.

T.L.G. explained the creation of Back Bay from landfill as the four of us swaggered down Commonwealth Avenue, be-tweeded on this autumn day. We popped into the Boston Public Library just before closing, and gazed out onto Copley Square that was once the epicenter of the city. The square is or was, at various times, home to the Public Library, Old South Church (Cong.), Trinity Church (Episc.), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Copley Plaza Hotel. Sadly, it is now disfigured by the looming bulk of the John Hancock Tower, a modern skyscraper by I. M. Pei that is the tallest building in New England. It was so shoddily constructed that entire panes of glass began to fall off after it was completed, eventually forcing the owners to replace ever single pane of glass within just a few years. We swung by the Church of the Advent where our host is a parishioner and whose Lady Chapel and rood cross were designed by Ralph Adams Cram. Just after we exited the Church, we were introduced to the Rector, who was just coming home from the wine shop.

Returning to the apartment, it was time for drinks. The gin flowed like wine, and it wasn’t long before we were joined by J.T., A.R., and M.D. All manner of things under Heaven were discussed, from the latest exploits of mutual friends, to matters of state, and of course church affairs (this is a half-papist, half-’piskie crowd). Said discussions continued around a table for seven at the Taiwan Café in Boston’s Chinatown. (Good to support Nationalist China, but it did require crossing Boston in the rain). Our dinner of pork, dumplings aplenty, soup, and tea finished, we progressed to a certain private club for more drinks. M.D. treated us to his side-splitting imitation of Katharine Jefferts Schori and Peter Akinola having an argument before the evening finally came to it’s conclusion.

Sunday morning, breakfast of tea, sausages, and proper porridge. Despite all the previous evening’s drinks, not so much as a hint of a hangover. Stood on the balcony overlooking Charles Street in the unseasonable warmth and began to appreciate Boston’s existence. I.M.C. cordially invited us to visit his home town of Beverly, a good New England town north of Boston and on the sea. Lunch, evening Mass, dinner, more good conversation throughout. But an early morning’s rise on Monday, to make it back south home to New York, ending a fine and invigorating peregrination through at least part of New England.

by ‘REDSHANK’


With the prolonged fine weather, all kinds of exotic creatures have appeared in our part of the countryside for the first time in living memory. Hummingbird hawkmoths are plentiful. I have seen not one but a dozen at a time hovering over the snapdragons in our flower garden.

Not only hummingbird moths but hummingbirds have appeared. Calling at the Three Tuns, I found the regulars in an uproar as a whole bevy of these beautiful little creatures hovered over their pint pots, causing the less wide-awake to drop them on the floor.

At last Old Ted, the landlord, fairly lost his temper. “Get away, you pesky little varmints!” he shouted, lunging at the glittering little beauties, then chasing them across the room until he tripped over an antique horsecollar he keeps for grinning through and fell heavily to the ground, cursing all tropical interlopers.

There was a big laugh at this, and Old Jim, who always keeps a stuffed magpie on his person to avoid bad luck if he should meet a single magpie, annoyed the landlord even more by producing it and waving it in his face.

Meanwhile, the hummingbirds were hovering over the shove-halfpenny board, putting Old Frank and Old Amos off their game. Rustic oaths bombinated about the smoky room, growing ever more archaic and outlandish as I tried to make hurried notes in phonetic script.

Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon (left) and Christian de Lisle (right).

All Edinburgh is currently swamped with rumours that Christian de Lisle (who among other things is Keeper of the Faith of the Diagnostic Society) is actually a member of the House of Bonaparte. His carefully constructed English identity is believed to be merely part of the latest intrigue in the long-standing Bonapartist plot to seize England for France.

Previously: Lookalikes

I‘m sure I’m not the only one whose information-gathering habits have changed for the worse since Le Figaro started charging for access to their online digital version. I much prefer flipping through digital “e-paper” versions to trying to sort through a newspaper’s actual website. When you flip through a laid-out newspaper, you get an overall picture of news and information as the editors have sought to present it to you. On websites, it’s all too easy to ignore all but that which you click on. I was about to complain that Le Figaro‘s change means I will no longer be able to stumble upon interesting articles on Romanian restitution cases and a bold Hungarian countess, but in truth those were from the days when I tended to pick up the actual printed edition rather than flip through it online.

by ‘REDSHANK’

THE badgers were out again last night. Not content with taking three pockets from the billiard table. Old Brock had made off with all the billiard balls as well, as I discovered when proposing a game with a fellow nature diarist this morning. What can your average badger want with billiard balls? Will this sagacious beast barter them for more useful objects with owl or weasel?

Musing on this, we wandered out across the garden in the golden September sunshine, and into the village giving a “good morning” now to Old Jim the Poacher, sweating in his heavy multi-pocketed poacher’s greatcoat, now to Old Miss Briggs, the former dame school economics teacher, now to a foursome of commercial travellers setting off for a solo whist session in Bragg’s Wood.

Passing the lopsided thatched cottage of Old Seth Gummer the Waspkeeper, last of his kind, we knew by the unusually loud buzzing from his garden croft that he was busy with the ancient custom of “telling the wasps”, so different from that equally ancient custom “telling the bees”. A grizzled figure dressed in waspkeeper’s sacking, with a perforated tin pail over his head, he was telling his vespine charges about all the happenings in the neighbourhood this summer that he thought would interest them.

Sure enough, their eager buzzing grew frenzied as he described, in lurid detail, adulterous affairs, divorces, rapes, lesbian elopements, cases of drug addiction, paedophilia, muggings and other assaults, and, most exciting of all, the formation of a retro-techno-sado-rap group in the village.

Pausing only to say a hurried “good morning” to Old Seth, who was fumbling vaguely with his antique Edison Bell recording apparatus, we walked on, accompanied by a few enterprising wasps, pondering on the strange mixture of old and new, of immemorial tradition and brash modernity in our part of the countryside.

During Fra’ Andrew Bertie’s reign as Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ, the “of Malta” at the end of “the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta” was not a mere historical anachronism. The Prince & Grand Master had a house in Malta where he attended to his cultivation of oranges (the old Grand Master’s Palace in Valetta is now the Presidential Palace of the Maltese Republic). “A friend of Malta,” a recent statement from the Maltese knights of the Order states of Fra’ Andrew Bertie, “his love for Malta and the Maltese peoples’ affection for him originated the inspiration to this wonderful project, to erect a befitting marble lapidary in his memory.” This summer Fra’ Matthew Festing, successor to Fra’ Andrew as head of the Order of Malta, travelled to the Mediterranean island to unveil the Bertie Monument at Casa Lanfreducci, the Order’s Maltese seat. (more…)

Ek probeer om Sweeds te leer, om my skamele kennis van wêreldtale te verhoog. I’ve also taught the English word ‘purgatory’ to a Finnish friend of mine, who happily reports back that she recently saw the word used on an episode of “South Park” and was glad to already be aware of it. In the meantime, I stumbled upon these photographs of Oscar II (by the Grace of God, King of Sweden, the Goths, and the Wends, erstwhile King of Norway) opening the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament. You would think reading Kristin Lavransdatter and watching “Max Manus” would get me into a Norwegian frame of mind (and they do!) but all of Scandinavia is of interest to me. (more…)

A surprisingly handsome newspaper, especially considering it is owned by (and, indeed, was founded by) Rupert Murdoch. Reminds me of The Scotsman in its broadsheet days.

A musical about Saint Francis of Assisi for people who don’t like musicals about Saint Francis of Assisi

For those who are interested, “Troubadour”, a new musical about Saint Francis of Assisi, is being produced in a limited run here in New York. The show’s lyrics are by the local Catholic playwright John Martin (often seen at St. Agnes on Sundays), with music by Bert Draesel.

The show runs until November 2nd at the Theater at the Church of the Epiphany, 1394 York Avenue (at E. 74th Street):

Fridays at 8:00pm, Saturdays at 8:00pm, Sundays at 3:00pm, and Mondays at 8:00pm.

For tickets, visit www.smarttix.com or call 212.868.4444. Tickets are $18 for adults and $15 for children.

For more information call 212.737.2720 ext. 56, or see here.

“He looked up from Scottish Field and all the colour, all the warmth of the world of those pages seemed to drain away.” So writes Alexander McCall Smith in The World According to Bertie, in which the eponymous minor’s enforced visits to the child psychiatrist at the command of his overbearing mother are made at least somewhat bearable by the freedom to flip through the pages of the magazine. Scottish Field is an institution, a staple of doctors’ waiting rooms and bed-and-breakfast sideboards, as well as acting as a Caledonian companion to Country Life and The Field (both of which are produced south of the Tweed, a world away). Your humble & obedient scribe even once graced the high-and-mighty social pages of Scottish Field, beside Lt. Col. Bogle and His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews & Edinburgh.

Scottish Field recently underwent a bit of a redesign, which included a typographical change to its old-fashioned nameplate (often called a banner or, erroneously, the masthead). (more…)

WHEN I WROTE about the Danish film “Flammen et Citronen” in July, I mentioned that it’s not very often that a big-budget period film comes out of Scandinavia, but that recently there’ve been not just one, but two. Readers may have been wondering about the other film which remained unmentioned. I caught the single showing of “Max Manus” during Norwegian Film Week (actually a fortnight) at Scandinavia House on Park Avenue here in New York. This was undoubtedly one of the best films I’ve seen all year, vying with “The Baader-Meinhof Complex” for the top position.

The film begins with newspaper headlines showing the increasingly precipitous situation in Europe from the beginning of the Great Depression onwards. Germany’s economy is ruined and inflation is rampant, Hitler rises to power, Hitler and Stalin invade and divide Poland, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany, and finally Stalin invades Finland. The eponymous hero of our film, Max Manus, is Norwegian but volunteers to fight for Finland when it is invaded by its Nazi-aligned totalitarian neighbour the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939-1940. (more…)

This year’s summer issue of The Walrus featured a cover from the cartoonist Joost Swarte, which occasioned a post about the Dutch ligne-clairist on the magazine’s blog. Mijnheer Swarte actually invented the term ligne-claire (or klare lijn) to describe the Tintin-esque school of bandes-dessinees, and has collaborated with the noted Peter van Dongen on the latter’s Rampokan series depicting the late years of the Dutch East Indies before it became Indonesia. Swarte’s work has also featured in The New Yorker, our “local” weekly which partly inspired the Canadian Walrus. Jumping from the printed page to brick and mortars, the new Musée Hergé in Louvain-le-Neuve was actually designed by Swarte. His previous architectural work includes a theatre building in his home town of Haarlem in North Holland. (more…)

THE HOLY FATHER, Pope Benedict XVI, recently travelled to the Czech Republic in a journey he described as “both a pilgrimage and a mission.” The ancient land of Bohemia was once at the very center of Christian civilization. It was from here that the brother saints Cyril and Methodius launched their mission to convert the Slavic world. From Prague, the realms of the Přemyslid and then Luxembourg dynasties were ruled, followed by the most illustrious house of Hapsburg. Oh to have been in Prague under the reign of the Emperor Rudolf II! With his mysterious court of astrologers and magicians and his cabinet of curiosities. With Arcimboldo, Spranger, Heintz, and Hans von Aachen putting paint to canvas, Giambologna and de Vries sculpting, while Kepler and Tycho Brahe searched the night skies. Centuries later, long after the nucleus of Hapsburg power had moved to Vienna, it was to Prague that the Emperor Ferdinand came following his abdication and remained until his death in 1875.

But of course there is the other Prague — the city of heresy, rebellion, and warfare. (more…)

Willem Jacobus Eijk, Primate of the Netherlands

THE ANCIENT FORM of the Roman rite has returned to weekly use in Utrecht, the primatial see of the Netherlands. Under the guidance of Wim Eijk, Archbishop of Utrecht, the Church of St. Willibrord has introduced a weekly Tridentine liturgy each Sunday at 5:30 pm, to complement the 10:30 am Mass in Latin in the Ordinary Form. (Previously the old rite was offered only once monthly). The Extraordinary Form will be offered by Fr. A. Komorowski & Fr. M. Kromann Knudsen, both of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP, or Priesterbroederschap Sint Petrus in Dutch). St. Willibrord’s is a brilliant example of the nineteenth-century revival of gothic architecture, and the concurrent revival of Dutch Catholicism. Yet the parish was also emblematic of the Dutch church’s implosion in the 1960s & 70s. This beautiful, polychromatic monument to God was deconsecrated in 1967, and the diocese planned on demolishing the building. It was later sold, however, and occupied by an Assumptionist priest who continued saying the older form of mass. Joseph Luns, sometime NATO secretary-general and Dutch foreign minister, was a supporter of the apostolate at St. Willibrord’s.

The recently installed archbishop was keen to regularize the former parish’s situation, and erected it as a non-territorial parish under the auspices of the Vereniging voor Latijnse Liturgie (Association for Latin Liturgy) which promotes Latin in both the ordinary & extraordinary forms of the liturgy. The parish newsletter now proclaims that, at St. Willibrord’s, “all masses are once again celebrated ‘ad orientem'”, and both Sunday masses are accompanied by Gregorian chant. The church also revived, starting in 2002, the Procession of the Relics of St. Willibrord, which is held during the annual festival that opens the cultural season in Utrecht, in order to expose the tradition to a wider audience. (more…)

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