Ask Fr. Robert Barron: To be deep in history is to cease to be protestant? or secular?

The First Thanksgiving

The following comes from the Freedomkeys website and presents a real look at the first Thanksgiving:

Did you know that the first [Plymouth Colony Pilgrim's] Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative?

William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" precept. 

The results were disastrous. Communism didn't work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had suffered serious losses. Starvation was imminent.

Bradford realized that the communal system encouraged and rewarded waste and laziness and inefficiency, and destroyed individual initiative. Desperate, he abolished it. He distributed private plots of land among the surviving Pilgrims, encouraging them to plant early and farm as individuals, not collectively.

The results: a bountiful early harvest that saved the colonies. After the harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated with a day of Thanksgiving -- on August 9th.  

Psalm 111

Praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who have pleasure in them. Full of honor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures for ever. He has caused his wonderful works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful. He provides food for those who fear him; he is ever mindful of his covenant. He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the heritage of the nations. The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy, they are established for ever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant for ever. Holy and terrible is his name! The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who practice it. His praise endures for ever!

Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne

Today we remember Sixteen Carmelites caught up in the French Revolution and martyred for their faith. The story of their heroic deaths is well worth reading about! The following comes from the Catholic Online site:

When the revolution started in 1789, a group of twenty-one discalced Carmelites lived in a monastery in Compiegne France, founded in 1641. The monastery was ordered closed in 1790 by the Revolutionary gov­ernment, and the nuns were disbanded. Sixteen of the nuns were accused of living in a religious community in 1794. They were arrested on June 22 and imprisoned in a Visitation convent in Compiegne There they openly resumed their religious life. On July 12, 1794, the Carmelites were taken to Paris and five days later were sentenced to death. They went to the guillotine singing the Salve Regina. They were beatified in 1906 by Pope St. Pius X. The Carmelites were: Marie Claude Brard; Madeleine Brideau, the subprior; Maire Croissy, grandniece of Colbert Marie Dufour; Marie Hanisset; Marie Meunier, a novice; Rose de Neufville Annette Pebras; Anne Piedcourt: Madeleine Lidoine, the prioress; Angelique Roussel; Catherine Soiron and Therese Soiron, both extern sisters, natives of Compiegne and blood sisters: Anne Mary Thouret; Marie Trezelle; and Eliza beth Verolot. The martyrdom of the nuns was immortalized by the composer Francois Poulenc in his famous opera Dialogues des Carmelites.

The Terror, you may recall, was a fanatical anti-christian fury that was fueled by the blood of thousands of priests and religious; that smashed the priceless stained-glass windows of ancient churches; that dug up and desecrated the bodies of saints; that erected a platform over the sacred high altar at Notre Dame de Paris and there enthroned a prostitute to mock God; and then even eradicated the 7 day Biblical week and replaced it with a 10 day version that had no reference to God.

The nuns of Compiègen, knowing of this reign of sacrilege, were faced with the decision to scatter and hide, or to face the Terror. Famously, they chose the latter and did so with the explicit intention of vanquishing it and its principle architect, Robespierre.

It soon came; they were arrested on trumped up charges of counter-revolutionary activity and led by wagon to the Place du Trone where the guillotine waited to consume them as it had thousands before. It is said that the evil aura of the place and the stench from the rotting blood was so horrible that it was difficult even to prod the horses into the square. But the 16 Carmelite nuns entered the site with perfect serenity, chanting hymns to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The usually raucous crowd, inebriated with the killing, fell silent that day at the spectacle of such women. They were called to the scaffold one by one. And each nun in turn knelt before Mother Superior and said, "Permission to die, Mother?" To which Mother Superior responded by holding out a small statue of our Lady for the nun to kiss one last time, and was sent off with the words, "Go, my daughter".

That was on July 17, 1794. That very week the tide turned against Robespierre and on the tenth day he lost his own head at the very same guillotine and the Terror sputtered to an end, defeated ultimately. I firmly believe, not by a Christian army, but by 16 holy women who understood perfectly the logic of the Cross of Jesus Christ. My friends, the history of the Church is replete with tales of this kind of self-sacrificial love. They are not all as glorious as that of the Carmelite Nuns of Compiègne, but they all participate in the same vision of one degree or another.

For more information on these holy women please check out New Advent!

Cluny: the most famous medieval abbey

Hermitage of Gaztelugatxe, Spain

Margaret Haughery of New Orleans

The following comes from the Old NOLA Journal:

Where Camp and Prytania Streets meet in New Orleans is a small park called"Margaret Place." On it is a statue of a middle aged woman seated in a chair with a small child nearby. The plaque on the statue has only one word: "Margaret."
When the statue was built, after the death of the woman in the chair, everyone in New Orleans knew who she was. I wonder how many people, sad to say, remember who she was today?

We often forget our history, and this is a tragedy. One of the reasons for this blog is to help us remember the important but often over-looked stories of Old New Orleans.

Margaret Haughery (pronounced as HAW -a- ree) is someone we should remember for all time. In her day she was called the "Bread Woman of New Orleans" because she gave freely to the poor and hungry from her own bakery. In addition to feeding the poor, she helped fund and build many orphanages throughout the city.

When she died in 1882 thousands, including prominent politicians, businessmen, and members of the clergy, attended her funeral. Her obituary was printed on the front page of the Picayune newspaper, the main paper in the city. The citizens of the city, who adored her, raised the funds to build a statue to her. (See the photo I took above pre-Katrina). It is believed by many historians to be the very first -- or certainly among the very first-- public statues ever built to honor a woman in the USA. But many people today do not even know the statue exists.

Margaret Gaffney Haughery was born into poverty possibly in County Cavan, Ireland in 1813. (Note: Most older sources say that Cavan was the place of Margaret's birth. Some sources claim, however, that she was  born elsewhere in Ireland, such as in Tully, Carrigallen, County Leitrim. See the "comments" at the end of this story for more information and discussion on this.) 

When she was five years old, her parents left Ireland --which was a land plagued by destitution, political turmoil, and oppression under British rule -- and came to America. But within a few years, Margaret was left an orphan as both her parents died of disease. She was cared for by a neighbor and later married at 21. Her husband, Charles Haughery, was not a well man. To escape the cold climate up north, the couple moved to New Orleans in 1835. Here, however, they -- like other New Orleanians -- suffered from rampant epidemics of yellow fever and cholera. Soon her husband died as did her newborn child. So, within a period of a few years, she had lost every single person in her life that she loved.

Despite these tragedies, or because of them, Margaret was determined to do something in her life to help the condition of widows and orphans -- something she understood very well. However, now she was destitute, totally uneducated and illiterate, and totally alone in essentially a foreign country.

She found work in the laundry of the St. Charles Hotel, a very fine establishment in the French Quarter which no longer exists. Then she worked for a dairy, selling fresh milk in the Vieux Carre' (French Quarter). She became acquainted with the Sisters of Charity and worked with them, specifically with a nun named Sr. Regis Barrett. It was at this point that her business experience combined with her philanthropic goals. She and the nun would work together for many years helping neglected orphans and widows in the city. Although a Catholic, Margaret made certain that all her charity work was opened to people of all religions and backgrounds.

Eventually, Margaret worked for a bakery and became the owner of businesses. She helped open the St. Teresa's Orphan Asylum on Camp Street. One of her businesses called "Margaret's Steam and Mechanical Bakery" became very popular, and she advertised her products by her first name. (Hence as in the plaque on her statue years later, everybody knew her by her first name). The bakery sold "Margaret's Bread," and she became the "Bread Woman of New Orleans." Eventually, she owned a popular store in the city called the Klotz Cracker Factory.

Some of the orphanages she built were St. Elizabeth Orphan Asylum on Napoleon Ave., the Louise Home on Clio Street for girls, St. Vincent Infant Asylum (at Race and Magazine Streets) , and an asylum and church on Erato Street that became St. Teresa of Avila Church. She donated to the Protestant Episcopal Home as well and gave to Jewish charities in New Orleans. In her will she gave to the Seventh Street Protestant Orphan Asylum, the German Protestant Orphan Asylum, the German Orphan Catholic Asylum, the Widows and Orphans of Jews Asylum, and to the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, and many others.

In her will she left everything to charities, without distinction of religion, for widows, orphans, and the elderly.

I first learned of Margaret Haughery -- as I learned about all the Irish things in this city -- from my mother and my sister. The story of Margaret is truly remarkable, and it is no accident that I chose it as the first historical story on this blog. It is a GREAT story of Old New Orleans.

A look at the 9/11 Memorial

90-year-old man recounts a remarkable experience he had in WWII

The story behind the mosaic in St. Peter's Square

St. Peter's Square was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1657. He along with his successors designed the imposing columns, the two beautiful fountains and the 162 saint statues that surround the square. But among so much beauty, there was clearly something missing. In the heart of Christianity there was no image of the Virgin Mary. A college student first brought this to the attention of Pope John Paul II in 1980. It was during an audience in Easter that the young man spoke to the Pope about this. Architect Javier Cotelo was there and remembers it well. Javier Cotelo Architect "Holy Father, the square is incomplete: I looked and there are many saints ... All the saints are there, but I haven't found an image of the Virgin presiding over the square. "Bene, bene” said the Pope, “well then we must complete the square.” Back then, that young student was in Rome to take part in a conference called UNIV, which is organized by members of Opus Dei. He told his story to Monsignor Alvaro del Portillo, the successor of Josemaria Escrivá. When Portillo heard that John Paul II wanted an image of the Virgin in the square, he asked Cotelo to find the best spot for newest addition. Javier Cotelo Architect "It was hard because the square was full of statues and of saints, and it didn't make sense to add another. It had to be an important location, unique, yet not overwhelming.” After many visits to St. Peter's square and countless hours of work, the answer came on May 17, 1980. The best option was to design a mosaic in one of the buildings next to the plaza. Javier Cotelo Architect "The site is located between St. Peter's Square and the Cortile di San Damaso. There was a window there, which was probably not necessary because there are five or six already on the building and also a few more facing San Damaso." These are the sketches that were handed to the Pope on two occasions. First in July 1980 and then in January 1981. Six months later, he was told the Vatican mosaic workshop was preparing the image for that exact location. The mosaic was installed on December 7, 1981. A day after, John Paul II blessed it from his window. Three days later he thanked all those involved, including Alvaro del Portillo. Javier Cotelo Architect "The Pope invited Monsignor Alvaro del Portillo for breakfast two days later. It was quite common for the Pope to invite people over for breakfast. That's when the Pope told him how grateful he was for adding the image of the Virgin. He also gave him the piece of cardboard that was used to make the mosaic.” That piece of cardboard is still in good condition. The image of the "Mater Ecclesia" is inspired by the oldest image of Mary found inside St. Peter's Basilica. In December 2011, it will be 30 years since the image was placed. It's the one piece that made the square complete. Therefore, in a way, it's the last stone added to St. Peter's Square.

A Visit to The Vatican Library

Inside the Vatican

Medieval Castles: a Window to Heaven

Here is Peter

Remembering Pearl Harbor

Thank a veteran today for our freedom.

Church services and a Catholic Mass for imprisoned priests at the Dachau concentration camp

Church services at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany after its liberation towards the end of World War II. A Catholic Mass for imprisoned priests. A chaplain holds services for camp inmates. Individuals at the services.

Mont Saint Michel

Archbishop Hannan Writes Memoir, Tells American History

The following comes from the Zenit site:

Not many people can claim to have witnessed the major events of the last 100 years; even fewer can say that they were intimately involved in these occurrences. The former archbishop of New Orleans, however, reveals in a recently published memoir his personal involvement in some of the most significant moments of the past century.

Archbishop Philip Hannan, who was the archbishop of New Orleans from 1965-1988, recounts the intimate, and not always pretty, details of his life in his autobiography titled "The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots," published in June by Our Sunday Visitor. From growing up in his close-knit Irish immigrant family, to serving in the front lines during World War II; from being the personal counsel to President John F. Kennedy, as well as his eulogist, and finally to ministering victims of Hurricane Katrina, the archbishop has led, and is still leading, a very full life.

As co-authors, Nancy Collins and Peter Finney worked diligently with Archbishop Hannan to write his life story. Collins, a highly respected journalist who has written for Forbes Magazine, Vanity Fair and Architectural Digest, among other top publications, is also the archbishop's cousin. Collins later recruited Finney, Executive Editor of the Clarion Herald, the newspaper of the New Orleans Archdiocese.

"About three years ago, [Archbishop Hannan] called me up and said, 'I'm writing my memoirs.' And I said 'Not a minute too soon!' He started laughing," Collins told ZENIT.

She grew up knowing the archbishop as "Father Phil," and had heard stories of her father's cousin and best boyhood friend. She says that assisting the archbishop in writing his memoirs was a "great sentimental journey" and one that she did partly as a tribute to her late father. She said that her father would have loved the fact that she was able to spend so much time with his dear cousin. "I learned a lot about myself, as well as the family. I think this book has a lot of grittiness that other religious books don't have because it also had to reflect his personality; he is smart and funny, but he's got a real drive to him," she said. "I wanted that to be reflected … his humanness, his humanity."

The book is both a gripping historical account of many of the major events in the United States in the last hundred years as well as a story rich in the archbishop's personal memories. Collins was amazed at the information that the archbishop has amassed over his years of service and ministry. "You're walking American history, that's what you are," she told him while working on the book. "He saved everything … pieces of paper, letters, all that was very valuable," she said.

Jackie's grief

Some of the most personal and poignant items he saved, and has now shared with the readers, are personal letters from former first-lady Jacqueline Kennedy, written after the death of her husband. "He thought long and hard about the letters," she recalled in a phone interview. "He finally decided to publish them because he really believed all these years that the letters were concrete proof that President and Mrs. Kennedy really had a love relationship; and that it was a real commitment." Collins shares that it broke the archbishop's heart when he would hear stories of infidelity within the marriage. "He just wanted to leave those letters as a testament to her real love for her husband."

Archbishop Hannan first met John Kennedy when he was a Congressman. The two soon became very close friends, though their relationship was not a public one. While openly Catholic, Kennedy did not want his constituents to think his religious beliefs would affect his governing decisions, and the archbishop respected that. He did, however, provide guidance to the president when asked to do so.

"He and Kennedy met and, of course, they had an enormous amount in common: They were both war heroes, they were both part of the greatest generation. And I think they both wanted change: Kennedy wanted to bring politics into the 20th century and I think the archbishop, then bishop, wanted to bring the Church along in the same respect."

The book also recounts the young priest's experiences on the battles fields of Europe, ministering to both American as well as enemy soldiers. "What always struck me was the fact that, as a priest, he went to the front lines without any weapons," said Collins. She described her cousin as a maverick; a member of the "Greatest Generation."

"He was the kind of American guy who, when he saw the job, he got it done." From enlisting in the 82nd Airborne, to fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, to treating people in concentration camps when the army was ordered to stay out, the archbishop had a strong faith that carried him through. "I think he exemplified that American ideal of service, honor and God," says Collins.
In later years, the archbishop also served as a U.S. representative to the Second Vatican Council.

Peter Finney worked with the archbishop on this portion of the book, as well as the New Orleans chapters. He shares that the archbishop, as the editor of the Catholic Standard in Washington, D.C., was asked to help make arrangements for the English-speaking reporters who covered the Second Vatican Council. He, as well as a few other bishops worked to select the bishops or experts who could speak with authority on certain topics. "These experts did a wonderful job of explaining a lot of nuanced information," Finney told ZENIT. "The archbishop did a great service to the Church by showing that the Vatican was not some mighty institution that operated behind closed doors. "

The archbishop, having been a veteran of World War II and witnessed, firsthand, the horrors of Communism and Fascism, was able to present his unique vantage point to the council. "Bishop Hannan also made a very important intervention during Vatican II in which he got the Church fathers to adopt the stance that the mere possession of nuclear weapons was not immoral. He knew there was a morality to nuclear deterrence. His intervention was approved and he always felt that was a big achievement."

Not "normal"

As archbishop of New Orleans, he was able to minister to a wide variety of people and host the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, during his 1987 visit to the city. "He and New Orleans were a wonderful fit," said Collins. "New Orleans has a big personality, has a lot of wickedness and a lot of fun, and it's not the normal city. And I don't believe Father Phil has ever been the normal priest. He had a big personality, too, that worked very well with the city."

This drive and spirit of service was prominent once again when, during Hurricane Katrina, the archbishop took shelter in the Focus World Wide Television studio, which he owned and managed.

The structure, which was built with the strength of a bunker, provided the archbishop a safe place to wait out the hurricane. "During the height of the storm, he barely heard a sound form outside," said Finney. Living off of peanut better, crackers and bottled water, and armed with only a golf club, the archbishop was determined to protect his broadcast equipment from looters. He remained in the studio for four days.

After the storm let up, he convinced the local sheriffs to allow him access to the bridge that led to the Northshore, 23 miles away. "He went to St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's office and immediately began giving inspiring talks and blessings to the first responders who had been going on fumes for days," Finney recalled. "His presence made grown men cry." Finney explained that New Orleans has been through tough times before and that it is the spirit of both cooperation and faithfulness within the city that keeps its people going. "The archbishop is a symbol of that courage and perseverance."

At age 97, Archbishop Philip Hannan is still going strong. Though he has suffered two strokes during the course of writing this book, he is still active and undertaking new projects all the time, said Collins.

"He's remarkable. He's up everyday, he walks, he has projects," she said. "He's really enjoying this book. It is now in its second printing and everybody in New Orleans is thrilled he's selling a lot of books and he's getting a lot of attention. He's just really happy how the book turned out."
Since first deciding to write his memoirs almost 10 years ago, Collins is delighted to see her cousin's story in print. "It's really been fun. It's a wonderful story to tell. I was just so thrilled we got the book out while he was still alive, so he could really enjoy it."

As for his latest projects, he goes out on Sundays and does book signings, shaking hands and meeting people. He's enjoying meeting new people, sharing his experiences and blessing those around him with his wit, charm and wisdom. "Clearly, God is not done with Father Phil yet," Collins noted. "He has other things to do."

The Solidarity Difference by George Weigel

The following comes from the  Denver Catholic Register site:

Thirty years ago, on Aug. 31, 1980, an electrician named Lech Walesa signed the Gdansk Accords, ending a two-week-old strike at that Hanseatic city’s Lenin Shipyards. Walesa signed with a giant souvenir pen featuring a portrait of Pope John Paul II. The choice of pen was not, as Marxists might have said, an accident. Neither was the distinctive revolution that unfolded in the wake of the Gdansk Accords, which were forged over two weeks of high drama on Poland’s Baltic coast.

The Accords were the pivot between John Paul’s Polish pilgrimage of June 1979 and the rise of the “Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarity” in September 1980.  Fourteen months before the strike, John Paul II had ignited a revolution of conscience that had inspired countless numbers of people to “live in the truth,” to live “as if” they were free—as the period’s mottoes had it. “Living in the truth” gave a special texture to the Gdansk Accords, which in turn led to the unique social and political phenomenon that was Solidarity.

There had been labor unrest in Poland in 1953, 1956, 1968, 1970, and 1976. In each instance, the Polish communist regime pacified the workers (in whose name these Marxists putatively ruled) by a combination of divide-and-conquer tactics, economics bribes (usually involving food prices), and brutality. 1980 was different, and the difference that made 1980 different was the John Paul II difference—a moral difference.

I try to capture that difference in “The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy,” which Doubleday will publish on Sept. 14:

“[This] moral difference showed itself almost immediately as the Gdansk shipyard strike broke out on Aug. 14, 1980.  It was an occupation strike, in which the workers took over the entire shipyard complex, thus creating an oasis of free space in the totalitarian system. Rigorous discipline was maintained, aided by an absolute ban on alcohol in the yards. Religious seriousness was manifest, publicly evident in open-air Masses and confessions. Perhaps most crucially from the point of view of what followed, the workers, having been tutored by John Paul II in the larger meaning of their dignity as men and women, refused to settle for the economic concessions the regime quickly offered.

“Thus on the night of Aug. 16-17, the Inter-Factory Strike Committee [MKS] was established to publish a broader set of demands, including the establishment of independent, self-governing trade unions…The famous ’21 Points’ agreed upon by the MKS presidium…emphasized economic change while including a full menu of basic human rights, specifically mentioning, among others, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and an end to discrimination against religious believers ‘of all faiths’ in terms of access to the media. The goals of dissent had been enlarged and deepened; as one worker-poet would put it a few months later, ‘The times are past/when they closed our mouths/with sausage.’”

Solidarity’s tumultuous path over the next nine years paved the way for the Revolution of 1989, the (largely nonviolent) collapse of European communism, and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. There were endless arguments as Walesa and the Solidarity leadership wrestled with the inevitable turbulence of a new trade union that was also a mass social movement and a de facto political opposition—in a society where the communist party and the state apparatus it controlled tried to occupy every available inch of social space. That the Catholic Church in Poland had tenaciously maintained its independence for 35 years in this suffocating social and political environment helped make Solidarity possible; the Church’s independence also helped provide a protected space in which the movement could continue after Solidarity-the-trade-union was dissolved, under the martial law imposed on Poland on Dec. 13, 1981.

During its epic period, Solidarity was a unique blend of moral and intellectual conviction, economic good sense, political shrewdness, and personal courage, all of which were shaped by the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and the personal witness of John Paul II. Its example should inspire free people, and those who aspire to freedom, everywhere.  

Castles and Ruins in Spain

The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots

This book is excellent and I highly recommend it! It is a great slice of American, New Orleans and Church history of the past century. God bless the Archbishop. I have great memories of serving mass for him at my parish as a young altar boy! The following comes from Focus.com:

Whether parachuting behind enemy lines, jumping into a Secret Service car for an impromptu White House meeting with JFK, or navigating the swirling flood waters of a hurricane, Archbishop Phillip Hannan only knows one way to do things - with total commitment and at full speed ahead!

Grab a front row seat on Archbishop Hannan's incredibly humble, Forrest Gump-like journey, which connects him with critically important people, places and events spanning the 20th century.

An embodiment of the "Greatest Generation," Archbishop Hannan's wit, generosity and work ethic built his reputation. Always willing to do what was right, the Archbishop never asked anyone to do anything he wasn't willing to do himself - whether it was speaking out against fascism, standing up for his faith, helping others in need or negotiating the pitfalls of politics.

You will enjoy this collection of inspiring stories and insights that emerge from one-of-a-kind experiences. The behind-the-scenes details, pressures, and emotions provide a new level of understanding of, and a perspective on, the impact one man can have on history.

From his early days as one of eight children born into an Irish Catholic family in Washington, D.C., through his studies in Rome immediately prior to WWII, through his homily at the funeral of JFK and pastoral ministering to Jackie, through his shepherding of the diocese of New Orleans as Bishop, and so much more, The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots is truly a page-turner.