What Ever Happened to the Liberty Promised in 1789?

June 29, 2026

Pierre Gaxotte

Pierre Gaxotte

In his classic work on the French Revolution, Pierre Gaxotte shows the abysmal difference that exists between the respect shows by the Ancien Regime for the legitimate liberties of the individual and the family and the strong inclination of the modern State to meddle in the intimate lives of its citizens, a tendency which appeared with the advent of liberalism.

Before the nineteenth century, men lived freely in the intimacy of their homes and family circles; a man was investigated only if he was seriously suspected of committing a crime, professing a heresy, or fomenting a conspiracy. A citizen of the liberal State, however, is always treated as a suspect, even before doing something dangerous.

French Revolution

He is measured, weighed, and cataloged by the agents of the State. File cards are kept on him by the most different agencies, as personal data on him and his family are filed, compared, and cross-examined. The State wants to know what his ideas and habits are, how much he earns and where he invests his money, whether he has a car or owns real estate, and so on.

Having written his book a few decades ago, Pierre Gaxotte could not cover the most sophisticated devices for investigating people’s private lives. Such devices now permit not only the State but just about any person or organization to record what people discuss with their friends and relatives; whether it be on the telephone, in their offices, or in their bedrooms.

A microphone masquerading as a smoke detector.

A microphone masquerading as a smoke detector.

Gaxotte referred only to the liberal State. But out of liberalism came its offspring, the totalitarian State. Whether it be of the fascist or communist variety, totalitarianism always has the goal of implanting socialism. Since socialism is contrary to human nature, it makes its habitat only in an atmosphere of police oppression, in which the needs of the individual and the family are sacrificed in behalf of the interests of the Party.

In countries where totalitarian regimes were not installed, the consequences of the French Revolution led to the implantation, to a greater or lesser degree, of societies having a totalitarian tendency, a set of conditions either imposed by a Messianic party or determined by the idolatry of technology.

Storming of the Bastile

Storming of the Bastile

When technology replaces morality and society “emancipates” itself from the maternal tutelage of the Church, there is a withering of legitimate individual and family freedoms. Whether it is imposed by the State of by technology, totalitarian society is the stepmother of the “emancipated” man of the twentieth century.

Mental Pollution

Idolatry of technology has made life unbearable for men. In the 50’s and 60’s, TFP leaders wrote a number of articles characterizing what people are presently calling environmental pollution. Now it has become a fad to talk against smoke, noise of motors, devastation of forests, and congested traffic.

A 1952 Ad of the False Face of Communism in the Saturday Evening Post Magazine.

A 1952 Ad of the False Face of Communism in the Saturday Evening Post Magazine.

In Lenin and Stalin’s time, international Communism promoted the development of super workmen to function more or less as robots serving the dictatorship of the proletariat. Now Communism preaches against the environmental pollution caused by the industry when this helps to explain the economic decadence of the socialist countries or to weaken the economic and military strength of the West.

Environmental pollution is obviously an evil, but we must keep a sharp eye on those who are fighting against it. Above all, it is necessary to struggle against another, much more pernicious pollution, one that the leftist intelligentsia hardly mentions if at all. We refer to the mental and moral pollution created by a mass media that wants to form people’s thoughts and habits and to break down their families by aggressive provocations to immorality, as well as that produced by the continuous barrage of advertising and propaganda and by the modern art that is deforming people’s mentalities.

A 2005 Banner at the 18th Congress of Communist Party of India (Marxist). Photo by Soman.

A 2005 Banner at the 18th Congress of Communist Party of India (Marxist). Photo by Soman.

In the midst of this noisy traffic assaulting the mind, who can find the calm to think about the pell-mell of events with discernment? Isn’t it true that contemporary man feels dazed under the daily load of disconcerting and illogical reports on international affairs?

The "Insectothopter", an micro unmanned aerial vehicle developed by the CIA for espionage purposes in the 1970s.

The “Insectothopter”, an micro unmanned aerial vehicle developed by the CIA for espionage purposes in the 1970s.

Consider just one of the thousand frauds imposed on people every day: for many years now, the media have painted any anti-communist government as dictatorial and corrupt. Why is so little said about the crimes of communist governments such as those of Russia, China, Cuba, Yugoslavia, and so on? Why is there such an outcry for free elections in every part of the non-communist world but no uproar demanding free elections in the communist countries?

The Technological “All Seeing Eye”

Separated from morality, technology makes life intolerable for man even in what was formerly his most intimate privacy. Today, recorders and listening devices have become so developed that no one can be certain that his conversation is not being monitored.

A 2013 photo by Dator66 taken in Kungsgatanm, Stockholm showing a warning sign on the left about the presence of surveillance cameras which are suspended above the streets. There are four cameras; one of each side of the street.

It has always been relatively easy to intercept telephone communications. But now the science of bugging telephones has reached the point where conversations on a multiple wire cable can be picked by electronic means and recorded without any physical contact with the wire. Private conversations can be monitored from a distance even through walls of solidly constructed houses. Pages of a confidential report being typed by a secretary can easily be photographed from another building over 100 yards away. Our technology in this field is so advanced that the Soviet Chamber of Commerce invited several American companies to Russia to exhibit their most modern anti-crime technology, such as machines that identify people by their voices, lie detectors, etc. No doubt the KGB will find many uses for these machines…

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So then, the unlimited liberty that was promised as a pretext for overthrowing the Ancien Regime and “emancipating” society from the tutelage of the Church has proven to be a baseless chimera. Never has the human race has a tyranny so oppressive and detailed as that imposed in the name of liberty by the French Revolution.

 

(Crusade for a Christian Civilization #3, 1980, Page 23 & 24)

 

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Local Elites

June 29, 2026

In its first sense, an elite* is a group of fine persons who stand out as individuals from the mass of people constituting a community. Isolated individuals unrelated among themselves, do not constitute an elite. Rather, we speak of an elite only when its constituents interrelate with sufficient vitality and diligence so as to create a common primary psychological and intellectual milieu.

Fred Chase Koch, 1900-1967, was an American chemical engineer, who founded the oil refinery firm Koch Industries.

An elite, therefore, is not a mere juxtaposition of preeminent persons. It is formed when such persons develop a relationship among themselves in which there is a mutual exchange of values. This relationship gradually constitutes a particular culture synthesizing the intellectual and moral values of all its members.

This distillation is done especially through informal conversation. The persons who constitute an elite need not necessarily be drawn together by a concrete theme, but rather by an admixture of subjects introduced spontaneously through the art of good conversation. The result is a natural conviviality wherein each personality contributes to the development of an elite culture.

At the time of her husband and brother’s death, Sarita Kenedy East and her sister-in-law owned a 400,000-acre ranch in La Parra, Texas. In 1952 she received the Ecclesia et Pontifice medal and membership in the Ladies of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem from Pope Pius XII for her service to the Church.

This type of conversation broadens horizons in an unfettered atmosphere in which unexpected and unforeseen topics both appear and disappear. Such free mingling of ideas and impressions gives life to the conversation and constitutes the charm and cultural importance of this type of discussion, which is a cherished pastime among elites.

Take, for example, a great diplomat, a renowned financial expert, an eminent writer, a distinguished doctor, and a prominent lawyer. Let us say these men gather once a month to converse for half an hour. This would be a group of eminent persons, but it would not constitute an elite.

This group would constitute a true elite only if its members conversed more frequently and for longer periods of time—and without a fixed schedule. They might discuss various issues, exchanging ideas and values, which would ultimately create a specific atmosphere that gives rise to an elite culture.

Dr. Richard Bayley, 1745-1801, a New York City physician and chief health officer and the father of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Photo taken from the National Library History of Medicine Collection.

This exchange of ideas and values would be more complete and successful if the spouses of these men were to make up an informal social circle in which a similar process could take place. Spontaneity would provide authenticity for this type of relationship, which should be born freely from the natural interplay of human affairs.

From this perspective, one can better understand the innate creativity of an elite. Only when it generates a way of thinking and a culture common to its constituents does it deserve to be called a true elite.

Milton S. Hershey, 1857– 1945, an American confectioner, philanthropist, and founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company.

This, then, is a first way to conceive of an elite: a group of people who constitute the best within their locality. They excel in their respective activities, which are also the most important activities, and they generate an elite culture through their informal social interrelations.

A second, more restricted concept is that of an elite composed exclusively of those persons of exceptional importance who transcend the scope of the city’s elect. They are an elite in another sense of the word. Small in number, they do not properly represent the cultural elite of the city, but rather transcend it.
____

* We use the word elite throughout this work in its social sense as defined by Webster’s Third New International Dictionary: “The choice part or segment: Flower, Cream, Aristocracy; as, a segment or group regarded as socially superior…a minority group or stratum that exerts influence, authority, or decisive power.”

 

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), American Appendix, pp. 183-184.

Nobility.org Editorial Comment: —

Everyone today is railing against elites. One would think that we are on the eve of the French Revolution, with Jacobins running amok with cutlasses and axes to chop off heads.
That liberals in media, academia, and politics would speak like this is neither surprising or new.
That conservatives do this–and they do this loudly–is simply flabbergasting. True, they are often rightly upset with bad and corrupt elites, but since they just attack “elites” and never distinguish between bad and good elites, one is left with the rancid taste of a populist, egalitarian diatribe against ALL elites. (Disclaimer: Nobility.org does talk about bad elites, not just good ones, calling the first “toads,” pseudo-elites or antithetical elites).
Not making these vital distinctions strengthens the hand of liberals, egalitarians, communists and anarchists.
As this post explains, elites are found at very local levels. The “stand out.” They are providing leadership in small towns, cities, and counties. We have other elites that provide leadership at the state and national levels. Many of these elites are not just working hard, but they are sacrificing themselves to promote the common good and the nation’s best interests. They should be recognized, supported, applauded and FOLLOWED in the good they do. And, yes, they need to be defended in the public square against the radical egalitarians who hate them because of their superiority and would like to see them gone from our midst. In the name of equality, these radical egalitarians would eradicate every form of natural leadership we have left here in America. Would that not be the end of our nation?
So let us boldly start making these clarifying distinctions in our speech and writing and explain to our friends why it is so important that they do this as well.

 

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Southern aristocracy dazzled ante-bellum Washington

June 29, 2026

Harriet Lane, White House hostess and niece of U.S. President James Buchanan

With the installation of the aging Buchanan as President and the coming of young Lord Napier as British minister, society in Washington had taken on a brilliant luster. The lovely, cultivated Lady Napier was perhaps the most popular foreign hostess the capital had known, while the President’s niece, Harriet Lane, was as competent as any White House mistress since Dolly Madison. Miss Lane’s years in European capitals had given her poise and sophistication….

Under the auspices of the wealthy, aristocratic Napiers, Southern women were uncommonly busy at entertaining. It was almost as if they were having a last fling before the deluge. What Nicolay and Hay speak of as “the blandishments of Southern hospitality” lifted the capital—in Virginia Clay’s estimation—“to the very apex of its social glory.”

Commenting on contemporary American society, the Marquess of Lothian wrote:

“It is only in that part of the Union [the South] that you can find anything approaching to the country gentleman of England. It is only there that you can find families which, holding the same lands generation after generation for a long period of years, have acquired the self-respect, the habits of command, and the elevation of character which arise in a society which has been for some time in the possession of power, and the refinement which generally follows upon the possession of hereditary wealth…. The blood of the old cavaliers of England, coursing in the veins of the Virginians and Carolinians, was as much reproduced in them as that of their opponents, the Puritans, was reproduced in New England….

“Still more powerful was the influence of the Southern ladies…. They bore the bell in grace and refinement, and besides, had about them that air of superiority which may possibly make its possessors detested, but which, when it has anything to rest upon, seldom fails to make itself acknowledged…. Over fashion the South bore almost unquestioned empire.”

Hudson Strode, Jefferson Davis: American patriot, 1808-1861 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1955), pp. 316-317.

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 187

Nobility.org Editorial comment: —

Aristocracy, lordly bearing, habit of command.
The ante-bellum South developed an agrarian and aristrocratic social model, while Northern society became increasingly  industrialized, finance-oriented and egalitarian.
The Civil War was not just a clash over slavery or states’ rights, but the clash of two worldviews, two concepts of how men should structure themselves in society.

 

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The Inequality of Rights and Power Proceeds from the Very Author of Nature

June 29, 2026

The Inequality of Rights and Power

Proceeds from the Very Author of Nature

 

From Leo XIII’s encyclical Quod Apostolici muneris, of December 28, 1878:

Marble statue of Pope Leo XIII in 1891 in the Collegiate Church of the birthplace of Pope Pecci

For, indeed, although the socialists, stealing the very Gospel itself with a view to deceive more easily the unwary, have been accustomed to distort it so as to suit their own purposes, nevertheless so great is the difference between their depraved teachings and the most pure doctrine of Christ that none greater could exist: “for what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14). Their habit, as we have intimated, is always to maintain that nature has made all men equal, and that, therefore, neither honor nor respect is due to majesty, nor obedience to laws, unless, perhaps, to those sanctioned by their own good pleasure. But, on the contrary, in accordance with the teachings of the Gospel, the equality of men consist in this: that all, having inherited the same nature, are called to the same most high dignity of the sons of God, and that, as one and the same end is set before all, each one is to be judged by the same law and will receive punishment or reward according to his deserts. The inequality of rights and of power proceeds from the very Author of nature, “from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named.” (Eph. 3:15). (Catholic World, Vol. 27 [March 1879], p. 853.)

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Documents V, p. 477.

 

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Requirements for Leadership

June 29, 2026

1) Intellectual requisites of a leader

A profound and stable consensus must exist between his subordinates and him regarding his objectives and methods. His subordinates must also have earnest confidence in his capacity to employ these methods correctly and achieve these goals, all in view of attaining the common good.

The exercise of authority requires certain qualities. In the first place, the leader must have a clear and firm notion of the objective and the common good of the group he directs. Then he needs a lucid knowledge of the means and procedures to attain this good.

These intellectual qualities, however, do not suffice.

The leader must also be able to communicate his knowledge and, as much as possible, persuade those who differ. However broad his powers, however drastic the penalties imposed on those who disobey, however honorable and generous the rewards conferred on those who do obey, these factors are not enough for the leader to make himself obeyed.

A profound and stable consensus must exist between his subordinates and him regarding his objectives and methods. His subordinates must also have earnest confidence in his capacity to employ these methods correctly and achieve these goals, all in view of attaining the common good.

2) Requisites of the Will and the Sensibility

Moreover, it is insufficient for the leader merely to persuade through flawless logical argumentation. Other attributes are also necessary. These lie in the realm of the will and the sensibility.

Above all, the leader must be gifted with a penetrating psychological sense. This quality requires the simultaneous exercise of the intelligence, will, and sensibility. A very intelligent but weak-willed and unperceptive person ordinarily lacks the psychological sense needed to fathom even elementary aspects of his own mentality. How much less can he fathom that of others, such as his spouse, children, students, and employees. For a leader lacking psychological sense it is difficult not only to persuade the minds of subordinates but also to unite their wills for a common action.

Above all, the leader must be gifted with a penetrating psychological sense. This quality requires the simultaneous exercise of the intelligence, will, and sensibility.

Not even this psychological sense, however, suffices. The leader must also be endowed with a sensibility rich enough to suffuse whatever he says with the flavor of reality, honesty, authenticity, and a touch of interest and inspiration that prompts those who should obey him to follow joyfully.

In brief, these are the qualities without which someone who presides over a private social group will lack the conditions to fulfill his mission in ordinary circumstances.

3) The Leader in Exceptional Circumstances, Whether Favorable or Adverse

However, exceptional circumstances, whether favorable or adverse, occasionally alter the normal order in any private group.

Unable to rise to the occasion, the average leader risks losing the excellent opportunities that he either fathoms incompletely or misses altogether. In this way, he lets them slip by, taking either partial advantage of them or no advantage at all.

When confronted with exceptional occasions, whether favorable or unfavorable, a good leader is stimulated by them and grows in his qualities in proportion to the exceptional nature of the circumstances, thereby proving himself superior to them.

Should he prove incapable of discerning danger when it appears on the horizon, evaluating the threat it poses, and devising means to eliminate it as quickly as possible, he risks seriously harming the group under his direction and even causing its ruin.

When confronted with exceptional occasions, whether favorable or unfavorable, a good leader is stimulated by them and grows in his qualities in proportion to the exceptional nature of the circumstances, thereby proving himself superior to them.

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), pp. 86-87.

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The Spiritual Dimension in Everyday Life

June 29, 2026

Tortoise shell with inlaid mother-of-pearl and engraved brass ink stand by English designer George Bullock, circa 1815.

This same union of material and spiritual dimensions is not limited to highly specialized projects like cathedrals; it can also be seen in products found in everyday life. The spiritual dimension introduced added value, culture, and warmth to the most common things. About such production, Lewis Mumford writes, “No article, even of vulgar daily use, was regarded as finished, unless it bore some unmistakable stamp, by its painting or modeling or shaping, of the human spirit.”*

Minton Pâte-sur-pâte cabinet plates.

Minton Pâte-sur-pâte cabinet plate. Pâte-sur-pâte method of porcelain decoration in which a relief design is created on an unfired, unglazed body by applying successive layers of white slip (liquid clay) with a brush. Hand painting was extremely time-consuming, sometimes taking months to complete. The technique was first employed by the Chinese in the 18th century. It was introduced in Europe in about 1850 at Sevres, where it was perfected by Marc-Louis Solon, who later worked for Minton. The technique was also used in the United States, at the Rookwood factory in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Historian Carlo Cipolla notes how simple products became veritable works of art because “the beauty and perfection of many products of European pre-industrial craftsmanship give the inescapable impression that the craftsman of the time found in his work a satisfaction and a sense of dignity which are, alas, foreign to the alienating assembly lines of the modern industrial complex.”**

 

* Lewis Mumford, Technics and Human Developmen, Vol. 1 of The Myth of the Machine (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1967), 253. We might also note that, for example, antique collecting purists consider 1830 as the latest date that defines the antique since pieces after that date were increasingly mass-produced by machines and thus without that warm human stamp.

** Carlo M. Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), 91.

 

 

John Horvat, Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here, and Where We Need to Go (York, Penn.: York Press, 2013), 291-2.

 

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A Society Without Elites is a Socialist Society

June 29, 2026

by Luiz Sérgio Solimeo
A-Society-Without-Elites-Is-A-Socialist-Society
We are witnessing a surge of popular outrage and even revulsion against an onslaught of ideologically liberal changes affecting the lives of millions of Americans. This outrage is fueled, among other things, by the following:

• decisions of activist judges favoring homosexualist or private property-denying socialist agendas and showing complete disregard for public opinion;

• junk science academics whose unwarranted and twisted findings are celebrated in the liberal media and establishment and are subsequently used to justify society-changing legislation and regulation;

• out-of-touch, liberal politicians using legislation or the raw power of government to intervene more and more inappropriately in the lives of Americans, creating in the process a leviathan Socialist State;

• ideologically-motivated media run amok, showering notoriety on leftist and opportunistic intellectuals, politicians, and entertainment celebrities willing to trumpet the “politically correct” line on a spectrum of controverted issues.

Do Not Confuse “Liberal Establishment” with True Elites
Undoubtedly, the individuals targeted by this furor can somehow be considered as elites. However, they do not represent true elites. Rather, they represent the latter’s corruption. They act contrary to the mission of all true elites which is based on service to the common good and the positive influencing of others, so as to foster goodness and virtue.

There is therefore a danger of conflating the “liberal establishment” with true elites and, while attacking the evils of liberalism, to play inadvertently the game of the left by favoring social egalitarianism. In sum, if we do not make the necessary distinction, we will “throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Thus, it is imperative to have a clear notion of what a true elite is so as not to confuse it with distortions or caricatures. Since society cannot live without a ruling class, the destruction of natural elites will cause them to be replaced with a new class of bureaucrats forming a nomenklatura, as happened in socialist countries.

Elites, Excellence and Altruism
The French word élite was incorporated into the English language in 1823 but has its remote origins in the Latin term eligere, “to choose.” It is employed to designate individuals or groups who stand out in a special way in a certain social setting or activity. Thus, elite is used to designate “a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence;” and thus we speak of “the elite of the entertainment world” or “members of the ruling elite;” and “the intellectual elites of the country.”1

The philosophical Encyclopedie de L’Agora defines elite as “the best of the best.” Littré2 cites fleur [flower] as the first synonym of elite. “The elite of an army is the flower of the army. In the words of Tocqueville, an intellectual elite

drpliniofromchaple.jpg

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira.

is distinguished by a disinterested love of truth; and in the sphere of action, an elite is distinguished by courage, as Plutarch teaches us in his Lives of Illustrious Men.”3

Distinguishing Between True and Decadent Elites
According to Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, “countries which have an elite that is conscious of its responsibility are countries that rise in the firmament of history and brilliantly accomplish their mission. On the contrary, however, nations whose elites are unaware of their responsibility and mission are nations that inevitably fail and plunge into the great catastrophes of history.”

The reason for this, the illustrious Brazilian thinker explains, is that if the “elite has the privileges it has” it must not live to enjoy these privileges but rather “to serve society entirely,” which supposes “that the elite be disposed to make the necessary sacrifices to accomplish its mission.” And, he continues, “The main responsibility or mission of an elite individual—whatever may be the area of his excellence—is to dedicate himself to the common good. This donation of self to the common good consists in having a clear concept of what the elite must do.”

And that is why “if the elite renounces its responsibility to be the social class that sets the tone in society—a moralizing and Christian tone rather than a de-Christianizing and paganizing one—it ceases to be a true elite.”4

Combat Socialism, Not True Elites
Given the confused state of notions in many minds today, we need to insist that a nation cannot exist, or at least it cannot develop normally, without true elites; because a nation progresses only with the impulse of the best, the most skilled, and the most virtuous.

Americas-Founding-Fathers-Elite-of-their-Times

Outrage against the liberal establishment has sparked increased talk about America’s Founding Fathers. Yet few remember to note how they were members of the social, cultural, and political elite of their time.

Because of socialism’s egalitarian essence, it loathes the natural elites that rise thanks to the development and use of talents, free enterprise and the hereditary perpetuation of family values and merits.

What outraged Americans ought to do when corrupted elites favor socialism is not to condemn all elites indiscriminately but to combat the former. In other words, they should target the specific elites that allowed themselves to become corrupted. Without this special care to distinguish between false and true elites, one ends up by inadvertently playing into the hands of the enemy we are trying to defeat: socialism.

Outrage against the liberal establishment has sparked increased talk about America’s Founding Fathers. However, few remember to note, much less ponder on how they were members of the social, cultural, and political elite of their time.

We live in dangerous times that require great clarity of vision and strength in action. Let us eschew all muddled, anti-elitist thinking and rhetoric and remain faithful to America’s principled and battle-seasoned anti-communist and anti-socialist past. Should we do this, the troubles we are going through may well become America’s “finest hour.”

Footnotes

1. Merriam-Webster.com, s.v. “Elite,” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elite; cf. Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. “Elite,” http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=elite&searchmode=none. [back]
2. Émile Maximilien Paul Littré (1801–1881) was a French lexicographer and philosopher, best known for his Dictionnaire de la langue française, commonly called “The Littré.” [back]
3. S.v. “Elite,” in Encyclopedie de L’Agora, at http://agora.qc.ca/mot.nsf/Dossiers/Elite [our translation]. [back]
4. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, “O importante papel das elites a serviço da sociedade,” [The Important Role of Elites at the Service of Society] May 6, 1968 speech in Buenos Aires, http://www.pliniocorreadeoliveira.info/DIS_680506_importanciadaselites.htm; Cf. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, http://www.tfp.org/nobility/. [back]

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Monarchical Tendencies at the Time of Independence and the Constitution

June 29, 2026

At the beginning of the revolutionary process that effected the independence of the thirteen colonies, the majority of the colonists sought neither separation from England nor a change in the form of government. Almost until the end of the process that led to armed revolt, Americans merely claimed rights and liberties considered common to all Englishmen, intending to remain faithful to the British Crown.

For this reason, the majority of the inhabitants did not perceive the issue as one involving a dramatic change from a monarchic colony to an independent republic. In their view, independence was not equivalent to establishing a republican government. “The Americans were not dedicated to overthrowing the King’s authority at the outset,” confirms Maier.(1)

The U.S. Constitution is signed on September 17, 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Painting by Henry Hintermeister

Nevertheless, the radicalization of the confrontation in its final phases, as well as the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the constitutions of the various states, made it quite clear that the conflict had assumed larger objectives; the revolt had transcended guaranteeing liberties that all English subjects should enjoy and had acquired an ideological nature: It had become a republican revolution, “sustained by a powerful, even millennial, creed by which Americans saw themselves no longer merely contending for the protection of particular liberties but on the verge of ushering in a new era of freedom and bliss.”(2)

The concept of a republican form of government was unclear to the American people. Not even those who desired to implant it could formulate the concept in a viable way. “The very word [republic] inspired confusion,” notes Maier, “such that John Adams, perhaps the country’s most learned student of politics, complained that he ‘never understood’ what a republican government was and believed ‘no other man ever did or ever will.’”(3)

Indeed, even after the exodus of politically active Loyalists, monarchist manifestations in many sectors of the population revealed the existence of strong monarchist tendencies, latent or patent, which the republican revolutionaries were obliged to repress energetically, contradicting their own liberal principles.

Infantry of the Continental Army

Not only were these tendencies not extinguished with independence, they remained dynamic throughout the first and crucial period of national life. They showed themselves to be particularly strong in the armed forces of the new nation, the Continental Army. Washington himself commented, notes Myers, “that he had been pressed to assume a crown on more than one occasion.”(4)

During the administration of Washington and Adams, the presidency was permeated with an aura of pomp and ceremony reminiscent of the European royalty. Revolutionary sensibilities particularly bristled when the head of state was transported in an elegant carriage pulled by six white horses with uniformed postillions and footmen. Even more offensive to the ears of Democratic-Republicans was the proposal presented in the Senate to give the president the title of “His Highness, the President of the United States of America.”

“Government was inevitably imbued with the tone of society,” explains Merrill Peterson. “Adams, with many others, thought that some of the pomp and majesty of Old World courts was needed to impress the people with the dignity and authority of the new government. The flavor of a court, albeit a republican one, was everywhere.”(5)

Washington before Yorktown, by Rembrandt Peale

Striking evidence of the pervasiveness of these aristocratic sentiments and monarchical tendencies can be found in the private correspondence of Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican leader who strongly opposed this attitude. Returning to the American capital in 1790 to assume the position of secretary of state in Washington’s administration, Jefferson described the prevailing monarchist sentiment in the federal government of the time:

“I found a state of things, in the general society of the place, which I could not have supposed possible. Being a stranger there, I was feasted from table to table…. The revolution I had left, and that we had just gone through in the recent change of our government, being the common topics of conversation, I was astonished to find the general prevalence of monarchical sentiments, insomuch that in maintaining those of republicanism I had always the whole company on my hands, never scarcely finding among them a single coadvocate in that argument…. The furthest that any one would go, in support of the republican features of our new government, would be to say, ‘the present Constitution is well as a beginning, and may be allowed a fair trial; but it is, in fact, only a stepping-stone to something better.’”(6)

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson which hangs in the Thomas Jefferson State Reception Room on the 8th floor of the main U.S. Department of State building in Washington, D.C. It was painted by Charles Willson Peale while Jefferson was Secretary of State.

The existence of these monarchist propensities was recognized by Washington himself. Regarding a letter of Washington to Madison on March 31, 1787, Myers observes:

“Having said that monarchy was contrary to the American psyche, Washington then went on to make an astounding observation. ‘I am also clear, that even admitting the utility; nay the necessity of the [monarchic] form, yet that period is not yet arrived for adopting the change without shaking the Peace of this country to its foundation.’ That is, Washington’s objections were to the timing, not the idea of monarchy. The time for monarchy had simply ‘not yet arrived.’”(7)

 

(1) Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Great Britain, 1765-1776 (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 161.

(2) Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), p. 44.

(3) Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, p. 287.

(4) Minor Myers, Jr., Liberty without Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati (Charlottesville, N.C.: The University Press of Virginia, 1983), p. 84.

(5) Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and The New Nation: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 405, 406.

(6) Quoted in Arthur Meier Schlesinger, New Viewpoints in American History (New York: Macmillan, 1922), p. 82.

(7) Myers, Liberty Without Anarchy, p. 85.

 

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Appendix I, pp. 274-277.

 

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The aristocratic character of hereditary associations

June 29, 2026

The traditional elites in the United States, to preserve their aristocratic character in a world where non-aristocratic habits increasingly prevailed, formed exclusive associations in the intimacy of which they could leisurely display their high bearing and traditional customs. Writing in 1960, social historian Cleveland Amory explained:

“In our own day the Aristocrat can best be found, in sizable numbers, if not in Society at least in a Society—in particular, in the Aristocrat’s all but patented patriotic Societies like the Cincinnati, Colonial Dames, Colonial Wars, D.A.R., etc. For, while these are, as we have seen, not necessarily today’s ‘Society,’ they are assuredly, indeed even genealogically, yesterday’s—which makes them, of course, today’s Aristocracy.”(1)

Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the US. The Harrisons were among the First Families of Virginia.

These associations vary in origins, purposes, and admission requirements. Some perpetuate the memory of ancestors who distinguished themselves in battle. Others remember ancestors who were founders or settlers in colonial times or in the nineteenth-century period of territorial expansion, or who occupied prominent positions in colonial or republican government. Membership in these groups generally requires proof of one’s descent from such personages and a vote of acceptance by a committee or even all the association’s members.

Other organizations unite descendants of the European nobility who settled in America, while yet others cultivate elevated manners, organizing social events that reflect an urbane taste and style.

Since not a few of these associations, whatever their nature, include patriotic activities among their objectives, they are viewed by many people merely as patriotic societies. Yet there is more to them than patriotism. There is exclusiveness based on descent—which would seem to contradict the democratic inclusiveness that supposedly characterizes modern republican institutions. Herein lies a paradox pointed out by Wallace Davies in his work on the origins of American hereditary associations:

Major General Anthony Wayne (1745–1796), American general

“But even an upsurge of patriotic feeling and an absorption in the American past fail to explain the hereditary form of these societies. Indeed, a renewed interest in republican institutions and the ideals of democracy…would seem offhand inconsistent with such imitation of Old World aristocracy and position based upon pedigree.”(2)

As we saw in Chapter I, the founders of the United States proscribed an official nobility with titles and political rights. Even though they were themselves aristocrats, they generally sanctioned an aristocratic culture only in the private sphere. One can surmise that, to overcome this constraint, the founders of the oldest hereditary associations aimed to obtain for these an official recognition, which would have made of them something similar to the European nobility. They went as far as the laws and culture of the United States would allow. This ultimate intent reflects in the aristocratic nature of the associations they founded.

Larz Anderson House. The Washington, DC residence of Ambassador and Mrs. Larz Anderson from 1905 until 1937, the house now serves as the national headquarters of the Society of the Cincinnati, the nation’s oldest patriotic and hereditary association.

Simple membership in an hereditary association does not make a person aristocratic, especially since not all of these associations possess characteristics that could be said to render one aristocratic ipso facto. What is of interest here are the psychological motivations—not always explicit—that gave rise to many of these associations and that are generally analogous to those observed in a titled aristocracy.

We must also highlight the cultural relevance of these associations. Their salutary, although often little recognized, contribution to the cultural life of the United States continues in our day. Following the example of their predecessors who served the res publica, members promote the common good of society by means of diverse works such as endowing museums and libraries, restoring historic monuments, and supporting scholarly works on the history of the country, regions and illustrious families. In this way they preserve and foster the cultural inheritance and traditions of the United States.

(1) Cleveland Amory, Who Killed Society? (New York: Harper & Bros., 1960), p. 67.

(2) Wallace Evan Davies, Patriotism on Parade (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955), p. 47.

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Appendix I, pp. 318-319.

__________________________________

Also of interest:

Alexis de Tocqueville’s unilateral vision of America

Inherited social status tends to form an aristocracy

The United States: An Aristocratic Nation Within a Democratic State

 

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Marie Antoinette was a Good Samaritan

June 25, 2026

Marie Antoinette’s heart was ever compassionate. One day as she was riding through the forest of Fontainebleau in her carriage she came across an old man who had been wounded by a buck. His family was with him but had no means to take him home. The queen of France immediately descended from her carriage and invited the old man and his family to take a seat inside. She took all of them to her hunting lodge and there made sure they received appropriate care.

Madame Campan, Mémoires sur la vie de Marie-Antoinette (Paris: Nelson Éditeurs, 1823), p. 44. (Nobility.org translation.)

 

Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 95


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June 25 – Servant of God Maria Clotilde of Savoy

June 25, 2026

by Antonio Borrelli

A young Maria Clotilde of Savoy.

Maria Clotilde of Savoy is one of the most striking examples of how to achieve union with Christ while remaining in the world in environments which by their nature lead instead to distraction, pride of power, luxury and a worldly lifestyle, things once usually abundant in the royal and imperial courts of Europe.

She was born in Turin on 2 March 1843, the eldest of eight children of King Vittorio Emanuele II and Queen Maria Adelaide of Austria. From her parents and grandparents, Carlo Alberto and Maria Teresa, rulers of Piedmont and Sardinia, she received an excellent religious education and was attracted to Jesus from an early age. In order to increase her love of Christ, she read and assimilated the writings of Bourdalone, Father Croiset, and Massillon.

As her mother died prematurely, she took an interest in helping her orphaned siblings. On 11 June 1853, in the castle of Stupinigi she received her first Holy Communion; and on that day, memorable for all children, Maria Clotilde wrote her plans for the future, including one of absolute simplicity: “Jesus, from now on I want to act only to please Thee.”

Princess Ludovica Teresa Maria Clotilde of Savoy (March 2, 1843 – June 25, 1911)

Since that day the Eucharist became the great love of her life; she will never do without it, just as from an early she learned to venerate the Blessed Mother and to pray the Rosary every day.

She acquired a good religious and literary culture, learned the most important European languages, was a discreet painter, and loved music and equestrian sports. Despite family bereavements, her life passed quietly until 1857, when Maria Clotilde was 15. Her father, King Vittorio Emanuele II, received from Prince Jerome Bonaparte, cousin of Emperor Napoleon III of France, a request to marry her.

At that point, the request turned into political imposition by the Italian Prime Minister, Camillo Benso di Cavour, who was negotiating in Plombières in 1858 an intervention by the French on the side of Piedmont against Austria.

Photograph of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy.

Her father, Vittorio Emanuele, opposed his 15-year old daughter’s marriage to a prince in his forties and a famous libertine, but was soon forced to yield for “reasons of state”. Clotilde accepted to wed as a sacrificial victim, and on 30 January 1859, she married Jerome Bonaparte in the cathedral of Turin.

On 3 February, the couple made a solemn entrance to Paris, welcomed by the entire court and by Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie.

However, her difficulties began quite soon, as her Christian principles clashed with those of her husband, profoundly influenced by the writings of Voltaire. He would spend whole days without seeing her, and Maria Clotilde was forced to write in order to communicate with him.

Photograph of Princess Ludovica Teresa Maria Clotilde and her husband Prince Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte.

In 1861, in order to please him, she accompanied him to the U.S. and in 1863 to Egypt and the Holy Land, where she was able to pray at length and with great emotion on the holy sites of Jesus, especially on Calvary, as she was a great devotee of the Crucifix.

While avoiding hurting the feelings of her husband Jerome, a rationalist and an enemy of religion, she managed to have a chapel in the palace with the celebration of daily Mass.

The marriage produced three children, Vittorio Napoleon (1862), Louis Napoleon (1864) and Maria Letizia (1866); they became her greatest joy and she raised them in the light of Christ.

Prince Napoléon Bonaparte with his two sons.

While in the pomp of the imperial court in Paris, Maria Clotilde kept a spirit of compassion and detachment, dedicating herself to the poor and the sick in hospitals, whom she visited every day.

Even in parties in which she was forced to participate she dressed with simplicity and was very reserved; her style, gentleness and religiosity imposed themselves at court to the point that Ernest Renan, an infidel and enemy of Christ, said: “Clotilde is a saint of the race of St. Louis of France.” Emperor Napoleon III, whom she affectionately called ‘Dad’, esteemed her deeply and deemed her “a most affectionate daughter.”

On 2 September 1870, as the Prussians defeated the French army at Sedan, the Napoleonic dynasty was dethroned and misadventures began also for Clotilde’s family; but she faced them with a strong and courageous heart.

And their daughter, Maria Letizia Bonaparte, Duchess of Aosta.

In August 1870, even her father, Vittorio Emanuele II advised her to return to Turin, but she declined responding that the good of her husband, children, and France, would not allow it.

However, as the Prussians invaded Paris, on 5 September she had to depart and became the last person to leave the city. She did so with the dignity of a queen and not as a fugitive, and sought refuge in the castle of Prangins on Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

There her inner spirituality manifested itself even more and, still in her thirties, she offered herself to God as a victim: “From now on, my life will be a complete immolation of body, heart, feelings and everything for Thy love, o Jesus … I will be happy to be Thy victim, o my Jesus, if Thou be so pleased.”

Her husband, Jerome Bonaparte, left her alone in Prangins and returned to Paris, with an eye to recover his throne and have fun; he ignored his family.

Maria Clotilde suffered greatly because of that, a situation exacerbated by the lack of attending Mass and receiving Communion. Only on Sundays could she travel to Nyon, a neighboring city, to attend Mass. There she met Dominican Father Hyacinth Cormier (1832-1916), today a Blessed, who became her new spiritual director. That meeting gave rise to her joining the Dominican Third Order under the name ‘Sister Catherine of the Sacred Heart’, while remaining in the world and devoted to her family.

After much prayer and taking counsel with Father Cormier, she finally decided to separate amicably from her husband, with whom she remained on good terms, so much so that in 1891 she went to Rome, where he was dying, to comfort him and have the consolation of seeing him die as a Christian.
In 1878, she left Switzerland and returned to the castle of her ancestors in Moncalieri, Italy, where she spent the rest of her life.

She lived as a nun in the world, with daily Mass and Communion, saying the whole Rosary to Our Lady, and showing extreme love and charity for children, the poor, the sick, mothers of families, and helping priests, always present at every charitable initiative.
While still living, she was already called “the saint of Moncalieri.” She backed and supported nascent works of many great saints from Turin at the time such as Don Bosco, Don Murialdo, Don Cottolengo, canons Luigi and Giovanni Boccardo, etc. She personally gave catechism classes at her home in Moncalieri, preparing children for the First Communion.

A faithful daughter of the Church, she wrote the King her father a strong note of protest when she learned that laws suppressing religious orders, approved in Piedmont in 1854, would be applied to the whole new Kingdom of Italy. Without fearing the widespread Freemasonry, she wrote, “The last day will come for all, and then things will be seen clearly. Dad, do not prepare painful and terrible remorse for yourself.”

She became a true mystic who lived off Jesus in silence and recollection while making Him known to all. When her brother, King Umberto I, was assassinated in Monza on 29 July 1900, the Crown Prince, Vittorio Emanuele III asked Aunt Clotilde for prayers and help.

She died in Moncalieri, aged 68, on 25 June 1911, and after a solemn funeral at Turin’s “Great Mother of God” Church she was buried in the Basilica of Superga.

A model for both the powerful and humble, the cause for her beatification was introduced on 10 July 1942.

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Two Feminine Ideals

June 25, 2026

By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Princess Ludovica Teresa Maria Clotilde of Savoy (March 2, 1843 – June 25, 1911)

On the right, (above) we have the Servant of God Maria Clotilde of Savoy (1843-1911), outstanding for her birth, her grand personal distinction, as well as for her virtue. She will probably be elevated to the honors of the altars, since the cause of her beatification is already under way.

By the nobility of her bearing, she represents a typical Christian lady of the nineteenth century wholly turned to a life of sacrifice particularly at home, applying herself with great dedication as a mother and wife according to the spirit of the Church.

Though she is very feminine, her whole makeup mirrors an outstanding firmness that does not exclude a great kindness. In a word, she can be considered as an authentic expression of the true feminine ideal.

Romanian communist, Ana Pauker is the archetype of a woman formed according to the norms of communism. Gross, masculine, showing neither the modesty nor dedication that a woman’s place in society requires, she is a blatant tom girl without feelings, befitting the brutal and mechanical era ushered in by modern neo-paganism.

Click here to see a closeup of Ana Pauker as she appeared on the cover of TIME magazine Sept. 20 1948.

Ambience Customs & Civilization, No. 21 – September 1952

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The “toads”

June 25, 2026

In addressing the question of elites in the United States, we should distinguish between authentic and inauthentic elites. Inauthentic or artificial elites do not have a natural affinity with the best traditions and the deepest yearnings of the American people; indeed, at times, they oppose them.

As indicated in the sociological studies previously cited, traditional elites continue to exercise influence over American society, especially at the grassroots level.

Armand Hammer

However, the directive posts in government, politics, finance, industry, the media, and important foundations and cultural organizations are frequently occupied by persons who belong, not to authentic elites, but to a genre of counter-elites, whose principles, ideas, and lifestyles often conflict with the general way of thinking and acting of the majority of the population.

These inauthentic elites, far from representing the nation, constitute an almost foreign body grafted onto it. Yet they appear more frequently and brilliantly before the public eye than do the traditional elites, as they receive excessive and sympathetic media attention. For this reason, countless Americans regard the pseudo-elites as the only elite. From this misconception, an unjust antipathy toward elites arises.

Elizabeth Rosemond “Liz” Taylor

To symbolize the moral and psychological profile of the human type of these inauthentic elites, the word toad and its plural toads for the collective body have become common coin in the TFPs.* Generally speaking, the toad is a son of the Industrial Revolution, the offspring of an industrial economy that has accorded him a fortune out of proportion to the patrimonies of his countrymen. Such fortunes can be in industry, finance, or even arts and athletics, as is the case with certain film, television and sports figures. There is such a lack of equilibrium between the toads and other economic levels of the population that the former seem to live in a stratosphere, isolated from the rest of society, leading lives economically and socially disproportionate to their origins and cultural level.

____

* The appellation was first used by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira when, writing in the daily newspaper Folha de São Paulo on June 25, 1969, he applied the term to the members of the pseudo-elite with a liberal or socialist mentality.

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), American Appendix, pp. 186-187.

Nobility.org Editorial comment: —

Hardly a day goes by without someone railing against “elites.” Seldom if ever is a distinction made between good elites and bad ones. They are all reviled. The result is that the average American knows more about good and bad cholestorol than he does about “good elites,” and “bad elites.”
Reflection brings clarity, for as we are reminded by St. Thomas Aquinas, “to think is to distinguish.”
In Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, distinctions are drawn between good and bad elites, the characteristics of each group are defined, and the epithet “toads” given to the inauthentic liberal and socialist elites. It is an easy one to remember.

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June 25 – Simon de Montfort

June 25, 2026

Simon de Montfort

A statue of Simon de Montfort on the Haymarket Memorial Clock Tower in Leicester, England.

An Earl of Leicester, date of birth unknown, died at Toulouse, 25 June, 1218. Simon (IV) de Montfort was descended from the lords of Montfort l’Amaury in Normandy, being the second son of Simon (III), and Amicia, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, third Earl of Leicester. Having succeeded his father as Baron de Montfort in 1181, in 1190 he married Alice de Montmorency, the daughter of Bouchard (III) de Montmorency. In 1199 while taking part in a tournament at Ecry-sur-Aisne in the province of Champagne he heard Fulk de Neuilly preaching the crusade, and in company with Count Thibaud de Champagne and many other nobles and knights he took the cross. Unfortunately, the crusade got out of control, and the French knights, instead of co-operating with the pope, decided on a campaign in Egypt, and on their arrival at Venice entered on a contract for transport across the Mediterranean. Being unable to fulfill the terms of the contract, they compounded by assisting the Venetians to capture Zara in Dalmatia. In vain the pope urged them to set out for the Holy Land. They preferred to march on Constantinople, though Simon de Montfort offered energetic opposition to this proposal. Notwithstanding his efforts, the expedition was undertaken and the pope’s plans were defeated.

In 1204 or 1205 Simon succeeded to the Earldom of Leicester and large estates in England, for on the death of the fourth Earl of Leicester in that year, his honour of Leicester devolved on his sister Alicia, Simon’s mother; and as her husband, Simon (III), and her eldest son were already dead, the earldom devolved on Simon himself. But though he was recognized by King John as Earl of Leicester, he was never formally invested with the earldom, and in February, 1207, the king seized all his English estates on pretext of a debt due from him. Shortly afterwards they were restored, only to be confiscated again before the end of the year. Simon, content with the Norman estates he had inherited from the de Montforts and the de Beaumonts, remained in France, where in 1208 he was made captain-general of the French forces in the Crusade against the Albigensians. At first he declined this honor, but the pope’s legate, Arnold, Abbot of Cîteaux, ordered him in the pope’s name to accept it, and he obeyed.

Simon thus received control over the territory conquered from Raymond (VI) of Toulouse and by his military skill, fierce courage, and ruthlessness he swept the country. His success won for him the admiration of the English barons, and in 1210 King John received information that they were plotting to elect Simon King of England in his stead. Simon, however, concentrated his fierce energies on his task in Toulouse, and in 1213 he defeated Peter of Aragon at the battle of Muret. The Albigensians were now crushed, but Simon carried on the campaign as a war of conquest, being appointed by the Council of Montpellier lord over all the newly-acquired territory, as Count of Toulouse and Duke of Narbonne (1215). The pope confirmed this appointment, understanding that it would effectually complete the suppression of the heresy. It is ever to be deplored that Simon stained his many great qualities by treachery, harshness, and bad faith. His severity became cruelty, and he delivered over many towns to fire and pillage, thus involving many innocent people in the common ruin. This is the more to be regretted, as his intrepid zeal for the Catholic faith, the severe virtue of his private life, and his courage and skill in warfare marked him out as a great man.

Meanwhile the pope had been making efforts to secure for him the restitution of his English estates. The surrender of his lands by John was one of the conditions for reconciliation laid down by the pope in 1213; but it was not till July, 1215, that John reluctantly yielded the honor of Leicester into the hands of Simon’s nephew, Ralph, Earl of Chester, “for the benefit of the said Simon”. Simon’s interest in England was shown by his efforts to dissuade Louis of France from invading England in July, 1216, in which matter he was seconded, though fruitlessly, by the legate Gualo. Having at this time raised more troops in Paris, Simon returned to the south of France, where he occupied himself in waging war at Nîmes, until in 1217 a rebellion broke out in Provence, where Count Raymond’s son re-entered Toulouse. Simon hastened to besiege the city, but was hampered by lack of troops. On 25 June, 1218, while he was at Mass he learned that the besieged had made a sortie. Refusing to leave the church before Mass was over, he arrived late at the scene of action only to be wounded mortally. He expired, commending his soul to God, and was buried in the Monastery of Haute-Bruyère. He left three sons, of whom Almeric the eldest ultimately inherited his French estates; the youngest was Simon de Montfort, who succeeded him as Earl of Leicester, and who was to play so great a part in English history.

Battle of Muret

CANET, Simon de Montfort et la croisade contre les Albigeois (Lille, 1891); DOUAIS, Soumission de la Vicomté de Carcassonne par Simon de Montfort (Paris, 1884); L’HERMITE, Vie de Simon, Comte de Montfort (s. l. a.); MOLINIER, Catalogue des actes de Simon el d’Amauri de Montfort in Biblioth. de l’école des Chartes (1873), XXXIV (Paris, 1874); NORGATE in Dict. Nat. Biog., s, v. Simon (V) de Montfort.

EDWIN BURTON 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Nobility.org Editorial comment: —

Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, was the great friend of St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican order and preacher against the errors of the Albigensians and Cathars. While St. Dominic prayed and preached against the heretics, Simon de Montfort led the Crusade against them.
Some of his victories, like the battle of Muret, seem miraculous (1,600 Crusaders against an army of 32,000 under the King of Aragon and the Count of Toulouse), and the Crusader general attributed these improbable victories to the prayers of the man of God.
The battle of Muret effectively crushed the Albigensian uprising and to commemorate this victory Simon de Montfort had a chapel built in the church of Saint-Jacques, within the town of Muret, dedicating it to Our Lady of the Rosary.

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June 26 – Chartreuse is not only a drink

June 25, 2026

St. Anthelm of Belley

St Anthelm of Belley

(1107 – 1178) Prior of the Carthusian Grand Chartreuse and bishop of Belley.

He was born near Chambéry in 1107. He would later receive an ecclesiastical benefice in the area of Belley. When he was thirty years old, he resigned from this position to become a Carthusian monk at Portes. Only two years after joining the order, he was made the prior of the Grande Chartreuse, the motherhouse of his order, which had recently incurred substantial damage.

He was an effective administrator there. While under his direction, the community increased in numbers and fervency. He restored and improved the buildings, including constructing a defensive wall and an aqueduct. The rules of the order were standardized, and changed to allow women the opportunity to enter the order in their own houses. He also brought the other houses of the order into closer alignment with the motherhouse. The monks under his direction included Hugh of Lincoln, who expressed great fondness for Anthelm.

St. Anthelm of Belley

Anthelm continued in his office almost constantly for twenty-four years, barring a period of a few years when he was a hermit. After that period, in 1152, Anthelm returned to the Grand Chartreuse, and helped defend the sitting Pope Alexander III against the antipope Victor IV. Alexander III appointed Anthelm bishop of Belley in 1163. In that position, he is said to have been fearless and uncompromising, working to reform the clergy and regulate the affairs of the diocese. One example of his fearlessness occurred in 1175, when Anthelm excommunicated Count Humbert of Maurienne for having taken one priest captive and murdering another priest who had tried to free him. Humbert appealed his excommunication to Pope Alexander III, who reversed Humbert’s excommunication. Anthelm, who believed that Humbert was not penitent for his misconduct, withdrew from his diocese in protest.

Pope Alexander then commissioned Anthelm to travel to England to try to reconcile Henry II of England and Thomas Becket. Anthelm’s health was such that he was unable to take the journey. Anthelm returned to Belley to help care for the poor and the lepers of the area.

Anthelm died at Belley in 1178. On his deathbed, he received Humbert, and recognized that at that time Humbert truly had repented of his earlier acts.

Nobility.org Editorial comment: —

While called to practice all virtues–as every Christian–fortitude nevertheless stands out as a salient virtue of the nobility. It is fortitude that leads a noble to unhesitantly risk his life for principle, a worthy cause, for God and country.
In his exercise of the office of bishop, St. Anthelm practiced this fortitude when confronting the erring Count Humbert of Maurienne.
His example is especially needed today, when our bishops are divided between those willing to confront political leaders who advocate laws or carry out actions that gravely violate the natural moral law, and those who are silent about the misdeeds of these leaders and opt for compromise and surrender.

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June 27- In the East he was always honoured as one of the greatest of the Doctors

June 25, 2026

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Doctor of the Church. St. Cyril has his feast in the Western Church on the 28th of January; in the Greek Menaea it is found on the 9th of June, and (together with St. Athanasius) on the 18th of January.

St. Cyril of AlexandriaHe seems to have been of an Alexandrian family and was the son of the brother of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria; if he is the Cyril addressed by Isidore of Pelusium in Ep. xxv of Bk. I, he was for a time a monk. He accompanied Theophilus to Constantinople when that bishop held the “Synod of the Oak” in 402 and deposed St. John Chrysostom. Theophilus died 15 Oct., 412, and on the 18th Cyril was consecrated his uncle’s successor, but only after a riot between his supporters and those of his rival Timotheus. Socrates complains bitterly that one of his first acts was to plunder and shut the churches of the Novatians. He also drove out of Alexandria the Jews, who had formed a flourishing community there since Alexander the Great. But they had caused tumults and had massacred the Christians, to defend whom Cyril himself assembled a mob. This may have been the only possible defence, since the Prefect of Egypt, Orestes, who was very angry at the expulsion of the Jews was also jealous of the power of Cyril, which certainly rivaled his own. Five hundred monks came down from Nitria to defend the patriarch. In a disturbance which arose, Orestes was wounded in the head by a stone thrown by a monk named Ammonius. The prefect had Ammonius tortured to death, and the young and fiery patriarch honoured his remains for a time as those of a martyr. The Alexandians were always riotous as we learn from Socrates (VII, vii) and from St. Cyril himself (Hom. for Easter, 419). In one of these riots, in 422, the prefect Callistus was killed, and in another was committed the murder of a female philosopher Hypatia, a highly-respected teacher of neo-Platoism, of advanced age and (it is said) many virtues. She was a friend of Orestes, and many believed that she prevented a reconciliation between the prefect and patriarch. A mob led by a lector, named Peter, dragged her to a church and tore her flesh with potsherds til she died. This brought great disgrace, says Socrates, on the Church of Alexandria and on its bishop; but a lector at Alexandria was not a cleric (Scr., V, xxii), and Socrates does not suggest that Cyril himself was to blame. Damascius, indeed, accuses him, but he is a late authority and a hater of Christians.

Statue of St. Cyril of Alexandria in Braga, Portugal. Photo by Joseolgon

Statue of St. Cyril of Alexandria in Braga, Portugal. Photo by Joseolgon

Theophilus, the persecutor of Chrysostom, had not the privilege of communion with Rome from that saint’s death, in 406, until his own. For some years Cyril also refused to insert the name of St. Chrysostom in the diptychs of his Church, in spite of the requests of Chrysostom’s supplanter, Atticus. Later he seems to have yielded to the representations of his spiritual father, Isisdore of Pelusium (Isid., Ep. I, 370). Yet even after the Council of Ephesus that saint still found something to rebuke in him on this matter (Ep. I, 310). But at last Cyril seems to have long since been trusted by Rome.

It was in the winter of 427-28 that the Antiochene Nestorius became Patriarch of Constantinople. His heretical teaching soon became known to Cyril. Against him Cyril taught the use of the term Theotokus in his Paschal letter for 429 and in a letter to the monks of Egypt. A correspondence with Nestorius followed, in a more moderate tone than might have been expected. Nestorius sent his sermons to Pope Celestine, but he received no reply, for the latter wrote to St. Cyril for further information. Rome had taken the side of St. John Chrysostom against Theophilus, but had neither censured the orthodoxy of the latter, nor consented to the patriarchal powers exercised by the bishops of Constantinople. To St. Celestine Cyril was not only the first prelate of the East, he was also the inheritor of the traditions of Athanasius and Peter. The pope’s confidence was not misplaced. Cyril had learnt prudence. Peter had attempted unsuccessfully to appoint a Bishop of Constantinople; Theophilus had deposed another. Cyril, though in this case Alexandria was in the right, does not act in his own name, but denounces Nestorius to St. Celestine, since ancient custom, he says, persuaded him to bring the matter before the pope. He relates all that had occurred, and begs Celestine to decree what he sees fit (typosai to dokoun—a phrase which Dr. Bright chooses to weaken into “formulate his opinion”), and communicate it also to the Bishops of Macedonia and of the East (i.e. the Antiochene Patriarchate).

Council of Ephesus in 431, when Mary was proclaimed “Mother of God” by St. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria. The Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove in the upper portion of the window.

The pope’s reply was of astonishing severity. He had already commissioned Cassian to write his well known treatise on the Incarnation. He now summoned a council (such Roman councils had somewhat the office of the modern Roman Congregations), and dispatched a letter to Alexandria with enclosures to Constantinople, Philippi, Jerusalem, and Antioch. Cyril is to take to himself the authority of the Roman See and to admonish Nestorius that unless he recants within ten days from the receipt of this ultimatum, he is separated from “our body” (the popes of the day had the habit of speaking of the other churches as the members, of which they are the head; the body is, of course the Catholic Church). If Nestorius does not submit, Cyril is to “provide for” the Church of Constantinople. Such a sentence of excommunication and deposition is not to be confounded with the mere withdrawal of actual communion by the popes from Cyril himself at an earlier date, from Theophilus, or, in Antioch, from Flavian or Meletius. It was the decree Cyril has asked for. As Cyril had twice written to Nestorius, his citation in the name of the pope is to be counted as a third warning, after which no grace is to be given.

St. Cyril of AlexandriaSt. Cyril summoned a council of his suffragans, and composed a letter which were appended twelve propositions for Nestorius to anathematize. The epistle was not conciliatory, and Nestorius may well have been taken aback. The twelve propositions did not emanate from Rome, and were not equally clear; one or two of them were later among the authorities invoked by the Monophysite heretics in their own favour. Cyril was the head of the rival theological school to that of Antioch, where Nestorius had studied, and was the hereditary rival of the Constantinopolitan would-be patriarch. Cyril wrote also to John, Patriarch of Antioch, informing him of the facts, and insinuating that if John should support his old friend Nestorius, he would find himself isolated over against Rome, Macedonia, and Egypt. John took the hint and urged Nestorius to yield. Meanwhile, in Constantinople itself large numbers of the people held aloof from Nestorius, and the Emperor Theodosius II had been persuaded to summon a general council to meet at Ephesus. The imperial letters were dispatched 19 November, whereas the bishops sent by Cyril arrived at Constantinople only on 7 December. Nestorius, somewhat naturally, refused to accept the message sent by his rival, and on the 13th and 14th of December preached publicly against Cyril as a calumniator, and as having used bribes (which was probably as true as it was usual); but he declared himself willing to use the word Theotokos. These sermons he sent to John of Antioch, who preferred them to the anathematizations of Cyril. Nestorius, however, issued twelve propositions with appended anathemas. If Cyril’s propositions might be might be taken to deny the two natures in Christ, those of Nestorius hardly veiled his belief in two distinct persons. Theodoret urged John yet further, and wrote a treatise against Cyril, to which the latter replied with some warmth. He also wrote an “Answer” in five books to the sermons of Nestorius.

As the fifteenth-century idea of an oecumenical council superior to the pope had yet to be invented, and there was but one precedent for such an assembly, we need not be surprised that St. Celestine welcomed the initiative of the emperor, and hoped for peace through the assembly. (See EPHESUS, COUNCIL OF.) Nestorius found the churches of Ephesus closed to him, when he arrived with the imperial commissioner, Count Candidian, and his own friend, Count Irenaeus. Cyril came with fifty of his bishops. Palestine, Crete, Asia Minor, and Greece added their quotient. But John of Antioch and his suffragans were delayed. Cyril may have believed, rightly or wrongly, that John did not wish to be present at the trial of his friend Nestorius, or that he wished to gain time for him, and he opened the council without John, on 22 June, in spite of the request of sixty-eight bishops for a delay. This was an initial error, which had disastrous results.

Cyril_of_AlexandriaThe legates from Rome had not arrived, so that Cyril had no answer to the letter he had written to Celestine asking “whether the holy synod should receive a man who condemned what it preached, or, because the time of delay had elapsed, whether the sentence was still in force”. Cyril might have presumed that the pope, in agreeing to send legates to the council, intended Nestorius to have a complete trial, but it was more convenient to assume that the Roman ultimatum had not been suspended, and that the council was bound by it. He therefore took the place of president, not only as the highest of rank, but also as still holding the place of Celestine, though he cannot have received any fresh commission from the pope. Nestorius was summoned, in order that he might explain his neglect of Cyril’s former monition in the name of the pope. He refused to receive the four bishops whom the council sent to him. Consequently nothing remained but formal procedure. For the council was bound by the canons to depose Nestorius for contumacy, as he would not appear, and by the letter of Celestine to condemn him for heresy, as he had not recanted. The correspondence between Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople was read, some testimonies where read from earlier writers show the errors of Nestorius. The second letter of Cyril to Nestorius was approved by all the bishops. The reply of Nestorius was condemned. No discussion took place. The letter of Cyril and the ten anathemaizations raised no comment. All was concluded at one sitting. The council declared that it was “of necessity impelled” by the canons and by the letter of Celestine to declare Nestorius deposed and excommunicated. The papal legates, who had been detained by bad weather, arrived on the 10th of July, and they solemnly confirmed the sentence by the authority of St. Peter, for the refusal of Nestorius to appear had made useless the permission which they brought from the pope to grant him forgiveness if he should repent. But meanwhile John of Antioch and his party had arrived on the 26th and 27th of June. They formed themselves into a rival council of fourty-three bishops, and deposed Memnon, Bishop of Ephesus, and St. Cyril, accusing the latter of Apollinarianism and even of Eunomianism. Both parties now appealed to the emperor, who took the amazing decision of sending a count to treat Nestorius, Cyril, and Memnon as being all three lawfully deposed. They were kept in close custody; but eventually the emperor took the orthodox view, though he dissolved the council; Cyril was allowed to return to his diocese, and Nestorius went into retirement at Antioch. Later he was banished to the Great Oasis of Egypt.

Meanwhile Pope Celestine was dead. His successor, St. Sixtus III, confirmed the council and attempted to get John of Antioch to anathematize Nestorius. For some time the strongest opponent of Cyril was Theodoret, but eventually he approved a letter of Cyril to Acacius of Berhoea. John sent Paul, Bishop of Emesa, as his plenipotentiary to Alexandria, and he patched up reconciliation with Cyril. Though Theodoret still refused to denounce the defence of Nestorius, John did so, and Cyril declared his joy in a letter to John. Isidore of Pelusium was now afraid that the impulsive Cyril might have yielded too much (Ep. i, 334). The great patriarch composed many further treatises, dogmatic letters, and sermons. He died on the 9th or the 27th of June, 444, after an episcopate of nearly thirty-two years.

St. Cyril as a theologian

The principal fame of St. Cyril rests upon his defence of Catholic doctrine against Nestorius. That heretic was undoubtedly confused and uncertain. He wished, against Apollinarius, to teach that Christ was a perfect man, and he took the denial of a human personality in Our Lord to imply an Apollinarian incompleteness in His Human Nature. The union of the human and the Divine natures was therefore to Nestorius an unspeakably close junction, but not a union in one hypostasis. St. Cyril taught the personal, or hypostatic, union in the plainest terms; and when his writings are surveyed as a whole, it becomes certain that he always held the true view, that the one Christ has two perfect and distinct natures, Divine and human. But he would not admit two physeis in Christ, because he took physis to imply not merely a nature but a subsistent (i.e. personal) nature. His opponents misrepresented him as teaching that the Divine person suffered, in His human nature; and he was constantly accused of Apollinarianism. On the other hand, after his death Monophysitism was founded upon a misinterpretation of his teaching. Especially unfortunate was the formula “one nature incarnate of God the Word” (mia physis tou Theou Logou sesarkomene), which he took from a treatise on the Incarnation which he believed to be by his great predecessor St. Athanasius. By this phrase he intended simply to emphasize against Nestorius the unity of Christ’s Person; but the words in fact expressed equally the single Nature taught by Eutyches and by his own successor Diascurus. He brings out admirably the necessity of the full doctrine of the humanity to God, to explain the scheme of the redemption of man. He argues that the flesh of Christ is truly the flesh of God, in that it is life-giving in the Holy Eucharist. In the richness and depth of his philosophical and devotional treatment of the Incarnation we recognize the disciple of Athanasius. But the precision of his language, and perhaps of his thought also, is very far behind that which St. Leo developed a few years after Cyril’s death.

Cyril was a man of great courage and force of character. We can often discern that his natural vehemence was repressed and schooled, and he listened with humility to the severe admonitions of his master and advisor, St. Isidore. As a theologian, he is one of the great writers and thinkers of early times. Yet the troubles that arose out of the Council of Ephesus were due to his impulsive action; more patience and diplomacy might possibly even have prevented the vast Nestorian sect from arising at all. In spite of his own firm grasp of the truth, the whole of his patriarch fell away, a few years after his time, into a heresy based on his writings, and could never be regained by the Catholic Faith. But he has always been greatly venerated in the Church. His letters, especially the second letter to Nestorius, were not only approved by the Council of Ephesus, but by many subsequent councils, and have frequently been appealed to as tests of orthodoxy. In the East he was always honoured as one of the greatest of the Doctors. His Mass and Office as a Doctor of the Church were approved by Leo XIII in 1883.

His writings

The exegetical works of St Cyril are very numerous. The seventeen books “On Adoration in Spirit and in Truth” are an exposition of the typical and spiritual nature of the Old Law. The Glaphyra or “brilliant”, Commentaries on Pentateuch are of the same nature. Long explanations of Isaias and of the minor Prophets give a mystical interpretation after the Alexandrian manner. Only fragments are extant of other works on the Old Testament, as well as of expositions of Matthew, Luke, and some of the Epistles, but of that of St. Luke much is preserved in a Syriac version. Of St. Cyril’s sermons and letters the most interesting are those which concern the Nestorian controversy. Of a great apologetic work in the twenty books against Julian the Apostate ten books remain. Among his theological treatises we have two large works and one small one on the Holy Trinity, and a number of treatises and tracts belonging to the Nestorian controversy.

Sts. Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria, Leontiy of Rostov

Sts. Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria, Leontiy of Rostov

The first collected edition of St. Cyril’s works was by J. Aubert, 7 vols., Paris, 1638; several earlier editions of some portions in Latin only are enumerated by Fabricius. Cardinal Mai added more material in the second and third volumes of his “Bibliotheca nova Patrum”, II-III, 1852; this is incorporated, together with much matter from the Catenae published by Ghislerius (1633), Corderius, Possinus, and Cranor (1838), in Migne’s reprint of Aubert’s edition (P.G. LXVIII-LXVII, Paris, 1864). Better editions of single works include P. E. Pusey, “Cyrilli Alex. Epistolae tres oecumenicae, libri V c. Nestorium, XII capitum explanatio, XII capitum defensio utraquem schohia de Incarnatione Unigeniti” (Oxford, 1875); “De recta fide ad principissasm de recta fide ad Augustas, quad unus Christus dialogusm apologeticus ad Imp.” (Oxford, 1877); “Cyrilli Alex. in XII Prophetas” (Oxford, 1868, 2 vols.); “In divi Joannis Evangelium” (Oxford, 1872, 3 vols., including the fragments on the Epistles). “Three Epistles, with revised text and English translation” (Oxford, 1872); translations in the Oxford “Library of the Fathers”; “Commentary on St. John”, I (1874), II (1885); Five tomes against Nestorius” (1881); R. Payne Smith, “S. Cyrilli Alex. Comm. in Lucae evang. quae supersant Syriace c MSS. apud Mus. Brit.” (Oxford, 1858); the same translated into English (Oxford, 1859, 2 vols.); W. Wright, “Fragments of the Homilies of Cyril of Alex. on St. Luke, edited from a Nitrian MS.” (London, 1874); J. H. Bernard, “On Some Fragments of an Uncial MS. of St. Cyril of Alex. Written on Papyrus” (Trans. of R. Irish Acad., XXIX, 18, Dublin, 1892); “Cyrilli Alex. librorum c. Julianum fragmenta syriaca:, ed. E. Nestle etc. in “Scriptorum grecorum, qui Christianam impugnaverunt religionem”, fasc. III (Leipzig, 1880). Fragments of the “Liber Thesaurorum” in Pitra, “Analecta sacra et class.”, I (Paris, 1888).

The best biography of St. Cyril is, perhaps, still that by TILLEMONT in Mémoires pour servir, etc., XIV. See also KOPALLIK, Cyrillus von Alexandrien (Mainz, 1881), an apology for St. Cyril’s teaching and character. A moderate view is taken by BRIGHT in Waymarks of Church History (London, 1894) and The Age of the Fathers (London, 1903), II, but he is recognized as prejudiced wherever the papacy is in question. EHRHARD, Die Cyril v. Alex. zugeschriebene Schrift, peri tes tou K. enanthropeseos, ein Werdes Theodoret (Tubingen, 1888); LOOFS, Nestoriana (Halle, 1905); WEIGL, Die Heilslehre des Cyril v. Alex. (Mainz, 1905). Of review articles may be mentioned: LARGENT Etudes d’hist. eccl.: S. Cyrille d’Al. et le conc. d’Ephese (Paris, 1892); SCHAFER, Die Christologie des Cyril v. Al. in Theolog. Quartalschrift (Tubingen, 1895), 421; MAHE, Les anathematismes de S. Cyrille in Rev. d’hist eccl. (Oct., 1906); BETHUNE-BAKER, Nestorius and his Teaching (Cambridge, 1908); MAHE, L’Eucharistie d’ apres S. Cyrille d’ Al. in Rev. d’ Hist. Eccl. (Oct., 1907); L. J. SICKING defends Cyril in the affair of Hypatia in Der Katholik, CXXIX (1907), 31 and 121; CONYBEARE, The Armenian Version of Revelation and Cyril of Alexandria’s scholia on the Incarnation edited from the oldest MSS. and Englished (London, 1907).

John Chapman (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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June 28 – St. Irenaeus

June 25, 2026

St. Irenaeus

Bishop of Lyons, and Father of the Church.

Saint IrenaeusInformation as to his life is scarce, and in some measure inexact. He was born in Proconsular Asia, or at least in some province bordering thereon, in the first half of the second century; the exact date is controverted, between the years 115 and 125, according to some, or, according to others, between 130 and 142. It is certain that, while still very young, Irenaeus had seen and heard the holy Bishop Polycarp (d. 155) at Smyrna. During the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, Irenaeus was a priest of the Church of Lyons. The clergy of that city, many of whom were suffering imprisonment for the Faith, sent him (177 or 178) to Rome with a letter to Pope Eleutherius concerning Montanism, and on that occasion bore emphatic testimony to his merits. Returning to Gaul, Irenaeus succeeded the martyr Saint Pothinus as Bishop of Lyons. During the religious peace which followed the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, the new bishop divided his activities between the duties of a pastor and of a missionary (as to which we have but brief data, late and not very certain) and his writings, almost all of which were directed against Gnosticism, the heresy then spreading in Gaul and elsewhere. In 190 or 191 he interceded with Pope Victor to lift the sentence of excommunication laid by that pontiff upon the Christian communities of Asia Minor which persevered in the practice of the Quartodecimans in regard to the celebration of Easter. Nothing is known of the date of his death, which must have occurred at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. In spite of some isolated and later testimony to that effect, it is not very probable that he ended his career with martyrdom. His feast is celebrated on 28 June in the Latin Church, and on 23 August in the Greek.

Irenaeus wrote in Greek many works which have secured for him an exceptional place in Christian literature, because in controverted religious questions of capital importance they exhibit the testimony of a contemporary of the heroic age of the Church, of one who had heard St. Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, and who, in a manner, belonged to the Apostolic Age. None of these writings have come down to us in the original text, though a great many fragments of them are extant as citations in later writers (Hippolytus, Eusebius, etc.). Two of these works, however, have reached us in their entirety in a Latin version:

  • A treatise in five books, commonly entitled Adversus haereses, and devoted, according to its true title, to the “Detection and Overthrow of the False Knowledge” (see GNOSTICISM, sub-title Refutation of Gnosticism). Of this work we possess a very ancient Latin translation, the scrupulous fidelity of which is beyond doubt. It is the chief work of Irenaeus and truly of the highest importance; it contains a profound exposition not only of Gnosticism under its different forms, but also of the principal heresies which had sprung up in the various Christian communities, and thus constitutes an invaluable source of information on the most ancient ecclesiastical literature from its beginnings to the end of the second century. In refuting the heterodox systems Irenaeus often opposes to them the true doctrine of the Church, and in this way furnishes positive and very early evidence of high importance. Suffice it to mention the passages, so often and so fully commented upon by theologians and polemical writers, concerning the origin of the Gospel according to St. John, the Holy Eucharist, and the primacy of the Roman Church.
  • Of a second work, written after the “Adversus Haereses”, an ancient literal translation in the Armenian language. This is the “Proof of the Apostolic Preaching.” The author’s aim here is not to confute heretics, but to confirm the faithful by expounding the Christian doctrine to them, and notably by demonstrating the truth of the Gospel by means of the Old Testament prophecies. Although it contains fundamentally, so to speak, nothing that has not already been expounded in the “Adversus Haereses”, it is a document of the highest interest, and a magnificent testimony of the deep and lively faith of Irenaeus.

Saint IrenaeusOf his other works only scattered fragments exist; many, indeed, are known only through the mention made of them by later writers, not even fragments of the works themselves having come down to us. These are

  • a treatise against the Greeks entitled “On the Subject of Knowledge” (mentioned by Eusebius);
  • a writing addressed to the Roman priest Florinus “On the Monarchy, or How God is not the Cause of Evil” (fragment in Eusebius);
  • a work “On the Ogdoad”, probably against the Ogdoad of Valentinus the Gnostic, written for the same priest Florinus, who had gone over to the sect of the Valentinians (fragment in Eusebius);
  • a treatise on schism, addressed to Blastus (mentioned by Eusebius);
  • a letter to Pope Victor against the Roman priest Florinus (fragment preserved in Syriac);
  • another letter to the same on the Paschal controversies (extracts in Eusebius);
  • other letters to various correspondents on the same subject (mentioned by Eusebius, a fragment preserved in Syriac);
  • a book of divers discourses, probably a collection of homilies (mentioned by Eusebius); and
  • other minor works for which we have less clear or less certain attestations.

The four fragments which Pfaff published in 1715, ostensibly from a Turin manuscript, have been proven by Funk to be apocryphal, and Harnack has established the fact that Pfaff himself fabricated them.

A. Poncelet (Catholic Encyclopedia)

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June 28 – He fought to preserve the Pope’s independence

June 25, 2026

Pope Saint Paul I

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Pope Saint Paul I reigned from 757 to 767

Date of birth unknown; died at Rome, 28 June, 767. He was a brother of Pope Stephen II. They had been educated for the priesthood at the Lateran palace.

Stephen entrusted his brother, who approved of the pope’s course in respect to King Pepin, with many important ecclesiastical affairs, among others with the restoration to the Roman States of the cities which had been seized by the Lombard Kings Aistulf and Desiderius; these cities Desiderius promised to give up.

In 751, the Lombards took Ravenna and began to pressure Rome. In response, Pope Stephen II turned to the de facto Frankish king, Pepin ‘le Bref’ (the Short) for assistance. In return for a pontifical recognition of his crown, Pepin crossed the Alps, defeated Aistulf, and forced the Lombardic king to relinquish those territories he had extracted from the papacy.

While Paul was with his dying brother at the Lateran, a party of the Romans gathered in the house of Archdeacon Theophylact in order to secure the latter’s succession to the papal see. However, immediately after the burial of Stephen (died 26 April, 757), Paul was elected by a large majority, and received episcopal consecration on the twenty-ninth of May.

Paul continued his predecessor’s policy towards the Frankish king, Pepin, and thereby continued the papal supremacy over Rome and the districts of central Italy in opposition to the efforts of the Lombards and the Eastern Empire. Pepin sent a letter to the Roman people, exhorting them to remain steadfast to St. Peter. In the reply sent by the senate and the people of Rome to the Frankish king, the latter was urged to complete the enlargement of the Roman province which he had wrested from the barbarians, and to persevere in the work he had begun.

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Paul continued his predecessor’s policy towards the Frankish king, Pepin, and thereby continued the papal supremacy over Rome and the districts of central Italy in opposition to the efforts of the Lombards and the Eastern Empire.

In 758 a daughter was born to Pepin, and the king sent the pope the cloth used at the baptism as a present, renewing in this way the papal sponsorship. Paul returned thanks and informed Pepin of the hostile action of Desiderius, who had failed to deliver the cities of Imola, Osimo, Ancona, and Bologna to Rome, and had also devastated the Pentapolis on his expedition against the rebellious Dukes of Spoleto and Benevento. The two duchies were conquered and annexed by Desiderius (758). At Benevento Desiderius had a conference with the Greek ambassador Georgios, and agreed on a mutual alliance of Byzantines and Lombards in central Italy. On his way home Desiderius came to Rome, and when the pope demanded the return of the aforesaid cities, he refused to comply. He promised to give back Imola, but on condition that the pope should persuade Pepin to send back the Lombard hostages whom the Frankish king had carried off, some time before, at the time of his second victory over the Lombard King Aistulf. If Paul would not do this, Desiderius threatened to go to war with him.

The pope was in great straits. He found it difficult even to get the Frankish king informed of his position. He gave two letters to Bishop George of Ostia and the Roman priest Stephen, his ambassadors to Pepin, who made the journey with the Frankish messenger Ruodpertus. In the one letter that was to secure the envoys a safe passage through Lombard territory, he agreed to the demands of Desiderius and begged Pepin to accede to the wishes of the Lombards by making a treaty of peace and returning the hostages. At the same time the envoys were to give the Frankish king a second secret letter, in which the pope communicated to him the latest occurrences, informed him of the agreement of Desiderius with the Byzantines for the conquest of Ravenna, and implored Pepin to come to the aid of the pope, to punish the Lombard king, and to force him to yield the towns retained by him. Towards the close of 759 another envoy was sent to Pepin. Early in 760 two Frankish envoys, Bishop Remidius of Rouen, brother to Pepin, and Duke Antschar, came to Desiderius, who promised to return its patrimony to the Roman Church in April, and also to yield the towns demanded by the pope. But he again refused to carry out his promises, dallied, and even forced his way into Roman territory.

Once more Paul implored the Frankish king’s help. The position of affairs was made even more threatening by Byzantine action. Georgios had gone from southern Italy to the court of Pepin and had here won over a papal envoy, Marinus. With all his efforts Georgios could not move Pepin. In 760 a report spread through Italy that a large Byzantine fleet was under sail for Rome and the Frankish kingdom. Later it was reported that the Byzantines intended to send an army to Rome and Ravenna. The Archbishop Sergius of Ravenna received a letter from the Byzantine emperor, in which the latter sought to obtain the voluntary submission of the inhabitants of Ravenna. The same attempt was also made in Venice. Sergius sent the letter of the emperor to the pope, and the pope notified Pepin.

In case of a war with the Eastern Empire it was important to make sure of the support of the Lombards, consequently Pepin desired to come to an agreement with Desiderius. Thereupon the Lombard king showed more complaisance in the question of the Roman patrimony included in the Lombard territory, and when he visited Rome in 765, the boundary disputes between him and the pope were arranged. The Frankish king now directed Desiderius to aid the pope in recovering the Roman patrimony in the regions in southern Italy under Byzantine rule, and to support the ecclesiastical rights of the pope against the bishops of these districts. Paul’s opposition to the schemes of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus had no real political basis. The pope’s aim was to defend ecclesiastical orthodoxy regarding the doctrine of the Trinity and the veneration of images against the Eastern emperor. Paul repeatedly dispatched legates and letters in regard to the veneration of images to the emperor at Byzantium. Constantine sent envoys to western Europe who in coming to King Pepin did not disguise their intention to negotiate with him concerning dogmatic questions, also about the submission of the Exarchate of Ravenna to Byzantine suzerainty. Papal legates also came to Pepin in regard to these matters. On their return the legates were able to reassure the pope as to the views of the Frankish ruler, who kept two of the papal envoys, Bishop George and the priest Peter, near him.

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Ninth century depiction of Byzantine iconoclasm. The pope’s aim was to defend ecclesiastical orthodoxy regarding the doctrine of the Trinity and the veneration of images against the Eastern emperor.

In 767 a Frankish synod was held at Gentilly, near Paris, at which the Church doctrines concerning the Trinity and the veneration of images were maintained. Paul showed great activity and zeal in encouraging religious life at Rome. He turned his paternal home into a monastery, and near it built the church of San Silvestro in Capite. The founding of this church led to his holding a synod at Rome in 761. To this church and other churches of Rome, Paul transferred the bones of numerous martyrs from the decayed sanctuaries in the catacombs devastated by the Lombards in 756. He transferred the relics of St. Petronilla (q. v.) from the catacomb of St. Domitilla to a chapel in St. Peter’s erected by his predecessor for this purpose. The legend of St. Petronilla caused her at that era to be regarded as a daughter of St. Peter, and as such she became the special Roman patroness of the Frankish rulers. Paul also built an oratory of the Blessed Virgin in St. Peter’s, and a church in honour of the Apostles on the Via Sacra beyond the Roman Forum.

He died near the church of San Paolo fuori le mura, where he had gone during the heat of summer. He was buried in this church, but after three months his body was transferred to St. Peter’s. The “Liber Pontificalis” also praises the Christian charity and benevolence of the pope which he united with firmness. Paul is venerated as a saint. His feast is celebrated on the twenty-eighth of June.

Liber Pontificalis, ed. DUCHESNE, I, 463-467; Liber Carolinus, ed. Mon. Germ. Hist.: Epist., III, 507 sqq.; KEHR in Nachrichten der Gesellschaft der Wiss. zu Göttingen (1896), 103 sqq.; JAFFÉ, Regesta Rom. Pont., I, 277 sqq.; LANGEN, Geschichte der römischen Kirche, II (Bonn, 1885), 668 sqq.; HEFELE, Konziliengeschichte, 2nd ed., III, 431 sqq., 602; SCHNÜRER, Die Entstehung des Kirchenstaates (Cologne, 1894); DUCHESSE, Les premiers temps de l’Etat pontifical (2nd ed., Paris, 1904); DE ROSSI, Insigni scoperte nel cimitero de Domitilla in Bull. di archeol. crist., ser. II, an. VI (1875), 5 sqq., 45 sqq.; IDEM, Sepolcro di S. Petronilla nella basilica in via Ardeatina e sua traslazione al Vaticano, ibid., Ser. III, an. III (1878), 125 sqq.; an. IV (1879), 5 sqq., 139 sqq.; MARUCCHI, Basiliques et églises de Rome (2nd ed., Rome, 1909); MANN, Lives of the Popes (London, 1902).

J. P. KIRSCH. (from 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia)

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June 22 – St. John Fisher

June 22, 2026

St. John Fisher

St. John FisherCardinal, Bishop of Rochester, and martyr; born at Beverley, Yorkshire, England, 1459 (?1469); died 22 June, 1535. John was the eldest son of Robert Fisher, merchant of Beverley, and Agnes his wife. His early education was probably received in the school attached to the collegiate church in his native town, whence in 1484 he removed to Michaelhouse, Cambridge. He took the degree of B.A. in 1487, proceeded M.A. in 1491, in which year he was elected a fellow of his college, and was made Vicar of Northallerton, Yorkshire. In 1494 he resigned…

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June 22 – St. Thomas More

June 22, 2026

St. Thomas More

Saint, knight, Lord Chancellor of England, author and martyr, born in London, 7 February, 1477-78; executed at Tower Hill, 6 July, 1535.

Judge More - Sir Thomas More's fatherHe was the sole surviving son of Sir John More, barrister and later judge, by his first wife Agnes, daughter of Thomas Graunger. While still a child Thomas was sent to St. Anthony’s School in Threadneedle Street, kept by…

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June 22 – Saint Alban, proto-martyr of Britain

June 22, 2026

St. Alban First martyr of Britain, suffered c. 304. The commonly received account of the martyrdom of St. Alban meets us as early as the pages of Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History” (Bk. I, chs. vii and xviii). According to this, St. Alban was a pagan living at Verulamium (now the town of St. Albans in Hertfordshire), […]

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June 23 – After her death, her sister, niece, and great-niece, all royal princesses and two of them widowed queens, followed her as abbesses of Ely.

June 22, 2026

St. Etheldreda Queen of Northumbria; born (probably) about 630; died at Ely, 23 June, 679. While still very young she was given in marriage by her father, Anna, King of East Anglia, to a certain Tonbert, a subordinate prince, from whom she received as morning gift a tract of land locally known as the Isle […]

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What is Feudalism?

June 22, 2026

Feudalism This term is derived from the Old Aryan pe’ku, hence Sanskrit pacu, “cattle”; so also Lat. pecus (cf. pecunia); Old High German fehu, fihu, “cattle”, “property”, “money”; Old Frisian fia; Old Saxon fehu; Old English feoh, fioh, feo, fee. It is an indefinable word for it represents the progressive development of European organization during […]

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June 24 – He denounced the king’s adultery

June 22, 2026

St. John the Baptist The principal sources of information concerning the life and ministry of St. John the Baptist are the canonical Gospels. Of these St. Luke is the most complete, giving as he does the wonderful circumstances accompanying the birth of the Precursor and items on his ministry and death. St. Matthew’s Gospel stands […]

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Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

June 22, 2026

At age 16, George Washington copied out these 110 rules for morals and good manners and the manuscript is preserved at the Library of Congress. While some believe they were authored by Washington himself, it appears that they were originally written by French Jesuits in 1595. They made their first appearance in English in 1640, […]

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The Ten Commandments of Chivalry

June 22, 2026

I.              Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches and shalt observe all its directions. II.           Thou shalt defend the Church. III.         Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them. IV.        Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born. V.           Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy. VI.        […]

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June 18 – To make peace, she surrendered her son’s rights to the throne

June 18, 2026

Blessed Theresa of Portugal (born at Coimbra, October 4, 1178 – died at Lorvão, June 18, 1250) Queen of Léon as the first wife of King Alfonso IX of León. She was the oldest daughter of Sancho I of Portugal and Dulce of Aragon. Theresa was the mother to three of Alfonso’s children—two daughters and […]

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June 19 – St. François-Isidore Gagelin

June 18, 2026

Saint François-Isidore Gagelin (10 May 1799 – 17 October 1833) was a French missionary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society in Vietnam. He became the first French martyr of the 19th century in Vietnam. He was born in Montperreux, Doubs. He left for Vietnam in 1821. In 1826, when Emperor Minh Mạng ordered all missionaries […]

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June 19 – His father the Duke was a murderer

June 18, 2026

St. Romuald Born at Ravenna, probably about 950; died at Val-di-Castro, 19 June, 1027. St. Peter Damian, his first biographer, and almost all the Camaldolese writers assert that St. Romuald’s age at his death was one hundred and twenty, and that therefore he was born about 907. This is disputed by most modern writers. Such […]

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June 19 – Execution of second group of those who believed in the religious exemption, but only at first

June 18, 2026

Carthusian Martyrs – the Second Group After little more than a month after the first group, it was the turn of three leading monks of the London house: Doms Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and Sebastian Newdigate, who were to die at Tyburn, London on the 19 June. Newdigate was a personal friend of Henry VIII, […]

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June 19 – Love Accepts No Limitations

June 18, 2026

St. Juliana Falconieri Born in 1270; died 12 June, 1341. Juliana belonged to the noble Florentine family of Falconieri. Her uncle, St. Alexis Falconieri, was one of the seven founders of the Servite Order. Through his influence she also consecrated herself from her earliest youth to the religious life and the practices of Christian perfection. […]

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June 20 – St. Florentina

June 18, 2026

St. Florentina Virgin; born towards the middle of the sixth century; died about 612. The family of St. Florentina furnishes us with a rare example of lives genuinely religious, and actively engaged in furthering the best interests of Christianity. Sister of three Spanish bishops in the time of the Visigothic dominion (Leander, Isidore, and Fulgentius), […]

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June 20 – The Jeanne d’Arc of the Blessed Sacrament

June 18, 2026

Marie-Marthe-Baptistine Tamisier (Called by her intimates EMILIA) Initiator of international Eucharistic congresses, born at Tours, 1 Nov., 1834; died there 20 June, 1910. From her childhood her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was extraordinary; she called a day without Holy Communion a veritable Good Friday. In 1847 she became a pupil of the Religious of […]

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June 20 – The Pope Who Was the Son of Another Pope, Also a Saint

June 18, 2026

Pope St. Silverius (Reigned 536-37). Dates of birth and death unknown. He was the son of Pope [St.] Hormisdas who had been married before becoming one of the higher clergy. Silverius entered the service of the Church and was subdeacon at Rome when Pope Agapetus died at Constantinople, 22 April, 536. The Empress Theodora, who […]

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June 21 – He Was More Angel than Man

June 18, 2026

St. Aloysius Gonzaga Aloysius Gonzaga was son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, prince of the holy empire, and marquis of Castiglione, removed in the third degree of kindred from the duke of Mantua. His mother was Martha Tana Santena, daughter of Tanus Santena, lord of Cherry, in Piedmont. She was lady of honor to Isabel, the wife […]

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June 15 – Battle of Lyndanisse during the Northern Crusades

June 15, 2026

The Battle of Lyndanisse was a battle which helped King Valdemar II of Denmark establish the territory of Danish Estonia during the Northern Crusades. Valdemar II defeated the Estonians at Lyndanisse (Estonian: Lindanise), during the Northern Crusades, by orders from the Pope. The Battle Valdemar II, along with Archbishop Anders Sunesen of Lund, Bishop Theoderik […]

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June 15 – St. Bernard dogs carry his name

June 15, 2026

St. Bernard of Menthon Born in 923, probably in the castle Menthon near Annecy, in Savoy; died at Novara, 1008. He was descended from a rich, noble family and received a thorough education. He refused to enter an honorable marriage proposed by his father and decided to devote himself to the service of the Church. […]

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June 15 – King John of England signs Magna Carta

June 15, 2026

Magna Carta The charter of liberties granted by King John of England in 1215 and confirmed with modifications by Henry III in 1216, 1217, and 1225. The Magna Carta has long been considered by the English-speaking peoples as the earliest of the great constitutional documents which give the history of England so unique a character; […]

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June 16 – The Saint for Father’s Day: Dissolute men often threatened him with pistol or dagger.

June 15, 2026

Saint John Francis Regis Born 31 January, 1597, in the village of Fontcouverte (department of Aude); died at la Louvesc, 30 Dec., 1640. His father Jean, a rich merchant, had been recently ennobled in recognition of the prominent part he had taken in the Wars of the League; his mother, Marguerite de Cugunhan, belonged by […]

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June 16 – St. Benno

June 15, 2026

Bishop of Meissen, b., as is given in biographies written after his lifetime, about 1010; d., probably, June 16, 1106. He is said to have been the son of a Count Frederick von Woldenberg (Bultenburg) and to have been educated by his relative St. Bernward of Hildesheim. But these statements and the date of his […]

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Nobility is a Gift from God

June 15, 2026

From the allocution of Pius IX to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility on June 17, 1871: One day a Cardinal, a Roman prince, presented his nephew to one of my Predecessors, who on that occasion made a very true statement: that thrones should be upheld principally through the nobility and clergy. For there is no […]

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June 16 – Pope Innocent III

June 15, 2026

(Lotario de’ Conti) One of the greatest popes of the Middle Ages, son of Count Trasimund of Segni and nephew of Clement III, born 1160 or 1161 at Anagni, and died 16 June, 1216, at Perugia. He received his early education at Rome, studied theology at Paris, jurisprudence at Bologna, and became a learned theologian […]

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June 17 – Sobieski

June 15, 2026

John III Sobieski (Polish: Jan III Sobieski, Lithuanian: Jonas Sobieskis; 17 August 1629 – 17 June 1696) Born at Olesko in 1629; died at Wilanow, 1696; son of James, Castellan of Cracow and descended by his mother from the heroic Zolkiewski, who died in battle at Cecora. His elder brother Mark was his companion in […]

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June 17, 1793: Pius VI condemns the revolutionary concepts of liberty and equality

June 15, 2026

Pius VI repeatedly condemned the false concept of liberty and equality. In the Secret Consistory of June 17, 1793, quoting the words of the encyclicalInscrutabilie Divinae Sapientiae of December 25, 1775, he declared: “‘The most perfidious philosophers go farther. They dissolve all those bonds by which human beings are joined to one another and to their […]

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Ukrainian President visits King Charles III, invites him to Ukraine

June 11, 2026

h/t: bbc.com Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met King Charles III at Windsor Castle on Monday… After their private meeting, Zelensky thanked the UK for its “ironclad” support and revealed he planned to invite the King for a state visit to Ukraine in the future. It comes after the leaders of Ukraine, the UK, France and […]

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June 11 – Blessed Ignatius Maloyan

June 11, 2026

Ignatius Maloyan (Shoukrallah), son of Melkon and Faridé, was born in 1869, in Mardin, Turkey. His parish priest, noticed in him signs of a priestly vocation, so he sent him to the convent of Bzommar-Lebanon; he was fourteen years old. After finishing his superior studies in 1896, the day dedicated to the Sacred Heart of […]

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June 11 – St. Godeberta

June 11, 2026

St. Godeberta Born about the year 640, at Boves, a few leagues from Amiens, in France; died about the beginning of the eighth century, at Noyon (Oise), the ancient Noviomagus. She was very carefully educated, her parents being of noble rank and attached to the court of King Clovis II. When the question of her […]

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June 12 – Saint Guido of Acqui

June 11, 2026

Saint Guido of Acqui (also Wido) (c. 1004 – 12 June 1070) was Bishop of Acqui (now Acqui Terme) in north-west Italy from 1034 until his death. He was born around 1004 to a noble family of the area of Acqui, the Counts of Acquesana, in Melazzo where the family’s wealth was concentrated. He completed […]

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June 12 – A certain nobleman had a concubine

June 11, 2026

St. John of Sahagun Hermit, born 1419, at Sahagun (or San Fagondez) in the Kingdom of Leon, in Spain; died 11 June, 1479, at Salamanca; feast 12 June. In art he is represented holding a chalice and host surrounded by rays of light. John, the oldest of seven children, was born of pious and respected […]

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June 12 – He Crowned Charlemagne

June 11, 2026

Pope St. Leo III Date of birth unknown; died 816. He was elected on the very day his predecessor was buried (26 Dec., 795), and consecrated on the following day. It is quite possible that this haste may have been due to a desire on the part of the Romans to anticipate any interference of […]

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June 13 – He Lived Only 36 Years, But the Whole World Knows Him

June 11, 2026

St. Anthony of Padua Franciscan Thaumaturgist, born at Lisbon, 1195; died at Vercelli, 13 June, 1231. He received in baptism the name of Ferdinand. Later writers of the fifteenth century asserted that his father was Martin Bouillon, descendant of the renowned Godfrey de Bouillon, commander of the First Crusade, and his mother, Theresa Taveira, descendant […]

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June 13 – Who Is the Real Saint Anthony?

June 11, 2026

There is a tendency nowadays to depict saints as people who bypass the realities of life and somehow attain sanctity with little effort. Here we have two pictures of Saint Anthony of Padua. The first is a fresco in the basilica dedicated to the saint in Padua, Italy, and it is the oldest known depiction […]

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June 14 – The entire population was slaughtered, except those who embraced Islam

June 11, 2026

Croia A titular see of Albania. Croia (pronounced Kruya, Albanian, “Spring”) stands on the site of Eriboea, a town mentioned by Ptolemy (III, xiii, 13, 41). Georgius Acropolites (lxix) mentions it as a fortress in 1251. A decree of the Venetian senate gave it in 1343 to Marco Barbarigo and his wife. In 1395 it […]

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True Glory Can Only Be Born of Pain

June 11, 2026

by Plinio Correa de Oliveira From every side of the parade grounds, with habitual and quite natural enthusiasm, a huge crowd watches a trooping of the Queen’s Royal Grenadiers in their ceremonial uniforms. New military tactics forced uniforms like these into obsolescence long ago. Nevertheless, these black trousers, red coats with white belts, gloves, and […]

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When the Foundation Is Unstable

June 8, 2026

by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira The word “social” has never been used as much as it is today. It has also never been so much abused. This phenomenon is typical of epochs in crises: that is, to use and abuse words that express grand and august concepts by distorting them and even glorifying them […]

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June 8 – The Noble Countess Who Dedicated Her Life to Bringing Dissolute Women to Repentance

June 8, 2026

Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart (died in Porto, Portugal, June 8, 1899), born Maria Droste zu Vischering, was a noble of Germany and Roman Catholic nun best known for influencing Pope Leo XIII’s consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Leo XIII called this consecration “the greatest act of my […]

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June 8 – Accused of theft and sexual misconduct

June 8, 2026

St. William of York (WILLIAM FITZHERBERT, also called WILLIAM OF THWAYT). Archbishop of York. Tradition represents him as nephew of King Stephen, whose sister Emma was believed to have married Herbert of Winchester, treasurer to Henry I. William became a priest, and about 1130 he was canon and treasurer of York. In 1142 he was […]

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Nurse and foundress – June 9

June 8, 2026

Frances Margaret Taylor (MOTHER M. MAGDALEN TAYLOR) Superior General, and foundress of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, born 20 Jan., 1832; died in London, 9 June, 1900. Her father was a Protestant clergyman, the vicar of a Lincolnshire parish where her early years were spent in works of charity among the poor. […]

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Pope Gregory XVI – June 9

June 8, 2026

Pope Gregory XVI (Mauro, or Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari), b. at Belluno, then in the Venetian territory, 8 September, 1765; d. at Rome, 9 June, 1846. His father, Giovanni Battista, and his mother, Giulia Cesa-Pagani, were both of the minor nobility of the district and the families of both had in former times been prominent in […]

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French opponent to Jansenism and Gallicanism – June 9

June 8, 2026

Louis Gaston de Ségur Prelate and French apologist, born 15 April, 1820, in Paris; died 9 June, 1881, in the same city. He was descended on his paternal side form the Marquis of Ségur — Marshal of France and Minister of Louis XVI, who occupied this position during the participation of France in the war […]

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