Sunday, April 28, 2024

Conspiracy, Real Conspiracies Today: Lies, Lies, Lies!

Communism and Islam are not conspiracy theories. They are patent conspiracies: real, formidable, and most effective, political and ideological conspiracies avowedly dedicated to eliminating and further preventing the Christian ordering of society (the sweet yoke of Jesus Christ in the Catholic faith of all ages). They are anti-Christ worldwide conspiracies, whore daughters of that great and terrible whore of Babylon: International Jewry.

Jewry (every manner of heresy/blasphemy), Usury (every manner of avarice) and Faggotry (every manner of lust/unchastity) are the three pronged trident of the spear against Christ today, and throughout Christian history. Communism and Islam (and Protestantism to a lesser degree, though just as real) are false ideologies spawned and promoted to debilitate, destroy and prevent Catholicism, the true religion founded by Jesus Christ.

Cuba, erstwhile Catholic and prosperous Cuba, is one of the many living testaments to the success of that anti-Christ worldwide conspiracy. That conspiracy is alive and well in Western Europe and America, and on the world-wide-web! Politically, in Western society, it takes the form of anti-teleology, which is called Liberalism/Secular-Humanism which puts man and this world at the center of reality, supplanting Christ/the living God.

Jesus said to them: Fear not. Go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, there they shall see me. Who when they were departed, behold some of the guards came into the city, and told the chief priests all things that had been done. And they being assembled together with the ancients, taking counsel, gave a great sum of money to the soldiers, Saying: Say you, His disciples came by night, and stole him away when we were asleep. And if the governor shall hear this, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they taking the money, did as they were taught: and this word was spread abroad among the Jews even unto this day. And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing him they adored: but some doubted. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. (Matthew 28:10-20)

Furthermore, the contagion of anti-Christ conspiracy is present even in the Church. The Church will always have Her Judas', those who claim to be within Her, allying against her, from within, which is the greatest conspiracy of all, the conspiracy of the sychophant Jew pretending to follow Christ but betraying Him for personal gain.

Then went one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, to the chief priests, and said to them: What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you? But they appointed him thirty pieces of silver. And from thenceforth he sought opportunity to betray him. (Matthew 26: 14-16)

Conspirators are real, just as real as conspiracies, even within the Church herself.

A final note. I will also say that the stubborn promotion of the chaotic Novus Ordo liturgy and suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass, coupled with the deliberate instability of Bishop Ordinaries of dioceses and Priest Pastors of parishes are evidence of conspiratorial infiltration in the Catholic Church; the disorientation of our Sacred Worship and the constant disrupting of our local communities by the regular random removal and shifting of our beloved leaders under Christ. Bishops and Pastors need to be stable, left in their places to do their God-given job, for the good of the Church, and for their own good!

Total Freedom of Traditional Liturgy, International Campaign

Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Total Freedom of Traditional Liturgy, International Campaign

Lay Movement Launches International Campaign for ‘Total Freedom of the Traditional Liturgy’

CAMPAGNE INTERNATIONALE POUR LA LIBERTÉ ENTIÈRE DE LA LITURGIE TRADITIONNELLE

Lutetiae parisiorum, die XXI mensis aprilis, dominica III post Pascha

International Campaign for the Total Freedom of the Traditional Liturgy

Being a Catholic in 2024 is no easy endeavour. The West is undergoing a massive de-Christianization, so much so that Catholicism appears to be vanishing from the public sphere. Elsewhere, the number of Christians being persecuted for their faith is on the rise. What’s more, the Church has been struck by an internal crisis that manifests itself in a decline in religious practice, a downswing in priestly and religious vocations, a decrease in sacramental practice, and even a growing dissension between priests, bishops and cardinals which, until very recently, was utterly unthinkable. Yet, among all the things that can contribute to the internal revival of the Church and to the renewal of her missionary zeal, there is, above all, the worthy and reverent celebration of her liturgy, which can be greatly fostered thanks to the example and the presence of the traditional Roman liturgy.

Despite all the attempts that have been made to suppress it, especially during the present pontificate, it lives on, continuing to spread and to sanctify the Christian people who are blessed to be able to benefit from it. It bears abundant fruits of piety, as well as an increase of vocations and of conversions. It attracts young people and is the fount of many flourishing works, especially in schools, and is accompanied by a solid catechesis. No one can deny that it is a vector for the preservation and transmission of the faith and religious practice in the midst of a waning of religious belief and a dwindling number of believers. This Mass, due to its venerable antiquity, can boast of having sanctified countless souls over the centuries. Among other vital forces still active in the Church, this form of liturgical life stands out because of the stability given to it by an uninterrupted lex orandi.

Certainly, some places of worship have been granted, or rather tolerated, where this liturgy can be celebrated, but too often what has been given by one hand is taken back by the other, without, however, ever managing to make it vanish.

Since the massive decline during the period immediately following the Second Vatican Council, every attempt has been made on numerous occasions to revive religious practice, to increase the number of priestly and religious vocations, and to preserve the faith of the Christian people. Everything, except letting the people experience the traditional liturgy, by giving the Tridentine liturgy a fair chance. Today, however, common sense urgently demands that all the vital forces in the Church be allowed to live and prosper, and in particular the one which enjoys a right dating back to over a millennium.

Let there be no mistake: the present appeal is not a petition to obtain a new tolerance as in 1984 and 1988, nor even a restoration of the status granted in 2007 by the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which, recognizing in principle a right, has in fact been reduced to a regime of meagerly granted permissions.

As lay people, it is not for us to pass judgment on the Second Vatican Council, its continuity or discontinuity with the previous teaching of the Church, the merits, or not, of the reforms that resulted from it, and so on. On the other hand, it is necessary to defend and transmit the means that Providence has employed to enable a growing number of Catholics to preserve the faith, to grow in it, or to discover it. The traditional liturgy plays an essential role in this process, thanks to its transcendence, its beauty, its timelessness and its doctrinal certainty.

For this reason, we simply ask, for the sake of the true freedom of the children of God in the Church, that the full freedom of the traditional liturgy, with the free use of all its liturgical books, be granted, so that, without hindrance, in the Latin rite, all the faithful may benefit from it and all clerics may celebrate it.

Jean-Pierre Maugendre, Managing Director of Renaissance Catholique, Paris, France

April 22, 2024

This appeal is not a petition to be signed, but a message to be disseminated, possibly to be taken up again in any form that may seem appropriate, and to be brought and explained to the cardinals, bishops and prelates of the universal Church.

Si Renaissance catholique a l’initiative de cette campagne, c’est uniquement pour se faire l’interprète d’un large désir en ce sens qui se manifeste dans l’ensemble du monde catholique. Cette campagne n’est pas la sienne, mais celle de tous ceux qui y participeront, la relayeront, l’amplifieront, chacun à leur manière.

Renaissance Catholique is a Paris-based movement of lay people working to reestablish the social reign of Christ.
__

Plinthos note. The constant and routine changing of bishops and pastors from the care of their flocks (including routine term limits and retirement) seems to be equally harmful for the stability and continuity of the faith. In addition to disorienting both the faithful and the clergy, those ubiquitous and unnecessary routine shiftings of the leadership of the Church promote a worldly careerism in the hierarchy.

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

"My End Goal: Cultural Renewal of the West" --George Farmer


Here is a recent interview of George Farmer, Catholic convert and husband of newly converted Candace Owens.

Catholic Herald: Having grown up as an Evangelical, how did you become a Catholic?

George Farmer: There is a long answer to this and a short answer. The short answer is, to quote Newman, “To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.” In my education, I was steeped in history, and as I matured in my theological life, Catholicism became increasingly apparent to me.

The longer answer is that I grew up in a deeply theological home. My parents, to this day, are rigorous observers of low church Evangelicalism, and growing up, their faith was inculcated into us. In this kind of upbringing, there are lots of things that are very easy to understand, but by the age of 12 or 13, I was starting to have more questions than there were answers being provided.

One of my big questions was around the pre-Reformation Church and the apparent rejection of its theology and practice since the Apostolic period. It didn’t make sense to me that we were saying that the Church, which had spread throughout vast parts of the world, was not evangelical, didactic, polemical, active and all these things we would want it to be until 1517.

The question of how we view this part of Church history became increasingly important, alongside many others, such as the role of Church hierarchy and who spoke authoritatively on moral matters. The big issues in my family’s Evangelical Church were homosexual marriage and whether we could have female pastors. If there was no central body that could teach effectively and authoritatively on these matters, how could we answer these difficult questions?

I ended up getting to a place where Protestantism was not making sense. At St Paul’s, I would have quite animated discussions with the school Chaplain, who, as an Anglo-Catholic, often represented the Catholic position. Up until this point, I had imbued a lot of criticism of the Church without giving it a proper hearing, but I started to find that some of what this priest was saying made a lot more sense than what I was saying.

I started to read a lot, particularly Ratzinger, and then at Oxford started studying the pastric period and the mediaeval Church. After this it didn’t take me long to be convinced of Catholicism, so I went into instruction and became a Catholic through the university chaplaincy.

CH: Did your faith life flourish at Oxford being surrounded by the very active Catholic life there?

GF: Somewhat. There was a conversion of the head and the conversion of the heart. My conversion of the head happened at Oxford. I knew that philosophically, intellectually and theologically, Catholicism was correct. At the same time, often theologians can have quite a dry faith life. The reason being is that you spend most of your time immersed in theology and when you come up for air, the last thing you want to do is to go to church or pray. My spiritual life was, in many ways, very dry, and I felt I was done with the theology thing.

In many ways, this followed me into the world of work. When I left Oxford, I went straight into the working world, and my spiritual and theological life really took a back seat. I was working hard in the city, first in investment banking and then in the hedge fund industry with my dad. My spiritual life did not really pick up again for quite a few years and basically until I met Candace. I did not pray a lot at this time, but one of my prayers was “Lord, show me the path before my feet”. I felt called to do something else with my life. I did not feel that I was necessarily serving God’s purposes by being a partner at a hedge fund.

CH: So did you feel friction between being in the financial industry and your faith life?

GF: When I was in the finance industry, I did not have an active faith life. Those were the years when I was very much leading my own selfish life. I was my own god. If I could live them again, I would live them very differently. But in some ways, I needed the “prodigal son years” to be where I am now.

When I reverted back to the Faith, God came first. And what I have found is that when you think you are putting yourself first and God second, you would expect this to be your biggest career enhancer as it is all about you. Without wishing to put forward any kind of prosperity gospel, since I put God first and have refocused my life on His ways, I have had infinitely more success. Both from a family perspective, with having children and a very happy marriage, but also financially, with being able to make money and define that through cultural success. My father often says that “being a Christian is an unfair advantage”. We have the sacraments, we have the rosary, we have God.

For me, it was a shift in perspective. But I did also switch careers when I rediscovered my faith life. I started off in financial services, and when I met Candace, I dropped all of that behind and moved to America and then moved into tech and media, which is what I am doing now.

CH: In terms of Church life, what do you think are the big differences between the US and the UK?

GF: The thing that stands out about the Church in the US is the courage that Christians have to be bold about their faith. Of course, there is a lot of nominalism. There are people who have been poorly catechized and do not hold to the faith but still call themselves Catholics, and we see that with Biden and Pelosi. However, in the Church that is living, Catholics are very courageous.

You will be driving and you will see a bumper sticker saying “pray the rosary”, and if you were to speak to that person, it would very quickly become apparent that these people are steeped in the Church. Parts of the US Church are extremely hopeful. At our home church, we have had three funerals in the past three years, but perhaps over a hundred baptisms.

The UK Church is quite courageous in some ways. Historically, the UK has not been a friendly place to be a Catholic, and by being a Catholic, you are doing something different. For this reason, Catholics in Britain have a strong awareness of their faith. But what you do find, and much of this is due to the British temperament, is that people here just do not talk about God. In the States, that is not the case.

Americans love to talk about God, and this has influenced me. When I come to Britain, I freely talk about faith, which probably makes people feel toe-curlingly awkward. But I think, what are we here for if not to serve Him? And this then feeds through to politics, culture and media. I do not believe we can save Western civilization unless we come back to God, and that is at the heart of everything I believe and do.

I used to be very political, but now I see a nation’s spiritual life as significantly more important. In the West, if you look at the degradation of Western civilisation and Western culture, it is because we have lost faith.

CH: What do you think about Pope Benedict’s prediction of a smaller but more faithful Church?

GF: He was right, and this prediction is of a Church closer to the Church of the apostolic period. When we talk about the apostolic Church, we must remember what the apostolic Church was. It was a persecuted Church which was very small and very nimble and rebellious.

It was rebellious in the sense it was rebelling against the dominant culture, which was paganism. What are we living in now? We are living in a secular pagan society. We don’t have Zeus and Jupiter being worshipped at the temple, but we do have neo-secular materialism. The new gods are Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift. The new missal is TikTok.

CH: Many would say that we have made significant cultural advances in the past century, would you agree?

GF: People think we are getting smarter today, but we are not. We are getting technologically more advanced, and we have made significant breakthroughs in scientific discovery, but philosophically we are going backward. We would not have an Aquinas or an Augustine in this age, and it is just incredible that we think we are getting smarter because philosophically we are not. We have been on a downward trend for hundreds of years.

If you look at Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, if you look at the great Enlightenment period, it sent us straight back into a world where the human being was at the centre. The result of this has been the untold suffering and deaths of hundreds of millions in the 20th century in the greatest genocides across the world. Whether it be in communist China or communist Russia, or fascist Germany. Wherever it may be, this is all a result of the alleged age of enlightenment which has caused untold misery.

If you think we have reached this great age of transcendence of human history, well, what is the fruit of that? The fruit of that is suicide rates among teenagers skyrocketing, more young girls being diagnosed with depression than anything else, the collapse of social structures, the collapse of institutions, the collapse of family, raging global conflicts.

This is a pretty bad place to be, and what do we need at the heart of it? We need the Church, we need God, and, yes, Pope Benedict was absolutely right that it will be a smaller Church because you have to uphold certain doctrinal viewpoints which are radically against the mainstream narrative.

CH: Going back to your own spiritual journey, and the role your wife has had in that, can you explain how you met and became the husband of Candace Owens?

GF: She was giving a speech in London, and I was in the audience. I do not want to call it a whirlwind romance because there was nothing romantic about it. In a very short space of time, I got to know her, and we were engaged within a few weeks. I knew from the moment I met her; and I believe God was at work there. I felt Him say, “I am putting this before you, and this is a moment of active free will for you. What would you like to do?”

The two [potential] routes were that I could carry on living in London and doing what I knew, or I could take a leap of faith into a world that I knew nothing of, move to America, marry a girl that I barely knew, and take the plunge. Here we are five years later, three kids, and living in Nashville.

CH: What are some of the challenges to being in such a high-profile relationship?

GF: We have different brands. She is very outward-facing, and pretty much everything she says becomes a news story, whereas I am exclusively interested in faith. Sometimes I find myself getting dragged into political whirlwinds which, honestly, I believe to be distracting from my end goal, which is cultural renewal of the West. I went through my libertarian phase, my conservative phase, and now politics is of tertiary importance. Christianity does not sit within any one political ideology; the Church sits above all of them.

Another challenge is to speak truth and fight for truth without exposing yourself and your family to danger. Candace has been through tumultuous years because of speaking the truth. Whether it be publicly saying that black people are not obliged to vote for the Democrats or her comment that “no nation has the right to commit a genocide” in response to Congressman Brian Mast’s remarks about “there is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian”; it is dangerous. We have full-time security as there is a physical danger to her life, but there is also a career danger and a spiritual danger. The devil attacks frequently at a personal level, a career level, and in many different ways. You are constantly on alert.

Also, you sacrifice the right to a private life, because she has picked up the baton of speaking publicly, speaking loudly, speaking truthfully, which is the same sacrifice many other people have made. Obviously, her profile is just very big, so the sacrifice is amplified in this respect.

CH: Could you tell us about your time at Parler?

GF: I came in after the deplatforming incident where Amazon, Apple and Google took Parler out as the ultimate example of Big Tech’s power. It was a huge moment where Big Tech demonstrated in one move that it could basically destroy an entire company if it wanted to. Parler’s raison d’etre changed in that moment because it was not just about free speech; it was also about saying we want to be free of big tech.

We bought a private cloud company which became our own technical infrastructure, and then we could operate without the shackles of Big Tech. People don’t realise how much Big Tech is involved in your life. It is overwhelming how deep it goes. First of all, there are only two major types of phones: you either have an iPhone, which is Apple, or an Android, which is basically Google. By just having a phone, you have already entered into the duopoly of the two of them.

There are also things which are really good about Big Tech. It has made people’s lives significantly easier; for example, the ability to communicate instantly. And I am a big fan of Apple’s “walled garden”, the ecosystem that it creates with all its products which means they work so well together.

What you want, in an ideal world, is to enter into that technological garden without having to sign up to a value system. You want to be able to say I believe what I believe, but I do not want to sign up to a new set of beliefs to use your products. That is where Big Tech has gone wrong, by saying that to use their products you need to sign up to a value system.

CH: How should individuals approach our increasingly tech-reliant world?

GF: Park the conversation about Big Tech’s power, and focus on what you’re exposing yourself to by entering into a virtual contract with these companies: I am signing up for instant communication and being connected. What does that expose us to? Well, it exposes us to significant outside influence, which is why I choose to not have any social media whatsoever. I have a Telegram account, and that is it.

If you look at people who are social media addicts, excluding influencers who use it for career purposes, they are feeding who they are as a person. They need to build their characters on external influences. What you need to be, if you are going to sign up to be connected, is to be a wholly formed person.

If you put someone in a room with a drug, eventually they are going to take the drug. We are expecting people who are poorly formed from a virtue perspective to be highly virtuous online. Social media is not the problem. Social media is a catalyst which then causes systemic problems.

The fundamental problem is that people who are using this type of communication do not have Christ as their centre. If I look at the social media of some people in our community back home in the US, it is centred around Christ. These people are well-formed and have a scriptural understanding. And you contrast that with other people who clearly do not have Christ at the centre of their lives; well, it is often obscene. They know that the Internet wants this, so they put it up because they have no inner spiritual life.

If you sign up to Big Tech, you sign up to being connected, and if you have Christ at the centre of everything you do, you can use it as a force for good. But if you sign up and you have nothing inside of you, then you inherently take in what is out there, which is often evil, so you become a consumer and you cultivate your own internal life and become formed by what is out there.

The most important thing is that we centre ourselves on Christ.

Saturday, April 13, 2024

Martyrdom of Blessed Rolando Rivi, Cassock Martyr

Blessed Rolando Maria Rivi ( Castellarano, 7 January 1931 – Monchio , 13 April 1945 ) was a Catholic seminarian , killed by communists during the Second World War. He is the patron saint of seminarians and altar servers of the archdiocese of Modena-Nonantola.

Born in San Valentino, a hamlet of Castellarano , the second of the three children of Roberto Rivi and Albertina Canovi [1] , he entered the seminary of Marola in the autumn of 1942 but in 1944 , following the German occupation of the town, he was forced to return home. However, he did not stop feeling like a seminarian or wearing the cassock, despite the contrary opinion of his parents, who were worried about the anti-religious acts of hatred widespread in the area: acts of violence and the killing of priests became very common in that period.

On 10 April 1945, during the last stages of the war of liberation , he was kidnapped by a group of communist partisans, [2] [3] [4] who forced the fourteen-year-old boy to follow them into the countryside. A note was left for his parents saying "Don't look for him. He'll come with us partisans for a moment". [2] Accusing him of spying [5] for the fascists, after three days of beatings, humiliation and torture, they killed him with pistol shots in a wood in Piane di Monchio , a hamlet of Palagano . [6] [7]

Following the indications of some partisans, including those of the murderer himself [8] , on the evening of 14 April Roberto Rivi and Don Alberto Camellini, curate of San Valentino, found his body with a face covered in bruises, a tortured body and two fatal wounds, one to the left temple and the other at the heart. The next day they transported him to Monchio, where he had a Christian funeral and burial. [9]

After the Liberation, on 29 May 1945 the body was moved and buried in the San Valentino cemetery, with the homage of all the parishioners. Since his tomb had become a destination for pilgrimages, on 26 June 1997 , with a solemn ceremony, he was given a new burial inside the church of San Valentino, in the shrine of the parish priests of the parish.

In 1951 the Court of Assizes of Lucca sentenced those responsible for the killing, Giuseppe Corghi, who had shot, and Delciso Rioli, commander of the 27th Garibaldi "Dolo" Brigade, to 23 years of imprisonment. The conviction was confirmed in 1952 by the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Florence and became final in the Supreme Court. [10] The two were then convicted - in all three levels of justice - for murder to 22 years in prison, but they served only 6 as a result of the Togliatti Amnesty .

Giuseppe Corghi (1919-1998) (left) and Delcisio Rioli (1922-1996), (right) convicted in 1951 for the murder of Rolando Rivi.

After a series of healings recognized as miraculous by the Catholic Church, as they were obtained with his intercession, his cause for canonization was opened on 7 January 2006 by the Archdiocese of Modena . In May 2012, the competent Vatican commission of theological "censors" approved the validity of his martyrdom of him in odium fidei . [11]

On March 28, 2013, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree recognizing his martyrdom. [12] On 5 October 2013 the beatification ceremony was celebrated in front of thousands of people gathered in the Palazzetto dello Sport in Modena . [13] [14]

After the Angelus at Saint Peter's Square on 6 October 2013 Pope Francis said:

"Dear brothers and sisters, yesterday in Modena Rolando Rivi was proclaimed blessed. He was a seminarian of that land, Emilia, who was killed in 1945 when he was 14 years old out of hatred for his faith. He was guilty only of wearing a cassock during a period when violence was unleashed against the clergy for having raised their voice in the name of God to condemn massacres that immediately followed the war. But faith in Jesus conquers the spirit of the world! Let us give thanks to God for this young martyr and for his heroic witness to the Gospel. And how many 14-year-olds today have this example before their eyes: a courageous young person who knew where he had to go, who knew the love of Jesus in his heart and gave his life for him! A beautiful example for young people!"

In autumn 2013, a traveling exhibition entitled " I am of Jesus " was also prepared, consisting of twenty panels. [15] In some places, such as Rio Saliceto, the exhibition was boycotted by the parents of the local " Anne Frank " school [15] [16] who, on the grounds that the exhibition "sullied the memory of the Resistance ", obtained the suspension of visits educational. [15] [17] The bishop of the Diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla Massimo Camisasca responded to the stop on visits:

«The beatification of Rolando Rivi was presented by the diocesan Church as a great moment of reconciliation. This is the meaning of the Church's recognition of martyrdom. Reconciliation cannot occur through the denial of historical truth. No one should be afraid of historical truth. If there is an evil that has been done we must denounce it: we must forgive those who committed it, but not hide what happened."

( The bishop of the Diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla Massimo Camisasca regarding the Rio Saliceto controversy [15] )

On 15 April 2018, on the 73rd anniversary of the martyrdom, Mrs. Meris Corghi, daughter of Giuseppe Corghi, in the presence of Bishop Massimo Camisasca, shook hands with the sister and other living relatives of the Martyr, sending a message of peace and of union for the end of all wars "...this handshake between our two families is the symbol of the right atonement for the brotherly hatred for every father, for every grandfather, for every great-grandfather that everyone has in our family returned alive from the war." [18] [19] [20]

The liturgical memory of Blessed Rolando is celebrated on May 29 , the day of his transfer to the San Valentino cemetery in 1945 . The liturgical feast is celebrated all over the world and in the Philippines there is a group of "friends of Rolando". Relics of the young seminarian are widespread throughout the world, generally fragments of the wooden box in which his body was kept [21] .

Notes
1. Andrea Muni, Holy children, holy boys , Lulu.com publisher, 2011
2. Jump to:a b "Victim of communist partisans will be beatified", article inStoria in retenº 91 of May 2013, page 4
3. Rolando Rivi will be blessed. This is his story | Tempi.it
4. From "Il Foglio"
5. Andrea Zambrano, Blessed Rolando Maria Rivi. The child martyr , Imprimatur editore, 2014
6. From "il Giornale"
7. Rolando Rivi , in Saints, blessed and witnesses - Enciclopedia dei santi , santiebeati.it. URL consulted on 2 April 2013 .
8. The seminarian killed by partisans will soon be blessed - Vatican Insider
9. « Die decima quinta mensis aprilis 1945. Rivi Rolandus, filius Ruperti et Canovi Albertinae, statu celebs, e S. Valentino (Regii Lepidi) hic, aetate annorum 14, die 13 aprilis currentis, hora 19, per manus hominum iniquorum, in Comunione Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae, animam Deo reddidit. Cadaver autem eius, hodie, sacris persolutis exequiis, ac Missa celebrated, in coemeterio parochial, sepultum est. » Death certificate taken from the parish register of Monchio.
10. Article by Luigi Accattoli
11. "Yes to the beatification of Rolando Rivi", in Resto del Carlino of 18 May 2012.
12. PROMULGATION OF DECREES OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE CAUSES OF SAINTS Archived on 31 March 2013 in the Internet Archive .. Rolando Rivi will be blessed on 5 October, as announced by the Archbishop of Modena Monsignor Antonio Lanfranchi on the day of commemoration of the death of the seminarian killed by the partisans on April 13, 1945.
13. Rolando Rivi, "one more priest" in the ranks of the blessed on Agenzia Zenit dated 5/10/2013
14. Rolando Rivi is blessed on Agenzia Zenit of 7/10/2013
15. Jump to:a b c d School: visit to Rolando Rivi exhibition prevented | News | www.avvenire.it
16. Negri: the no to the Rolando Rivi exhibition is serious | Tempi.it
17. Elementary school bans exhibition by Rolando Rivi | Tempi.it
18. From "Avvenire"
19. From "Famiglia Cristiana"
20. From "La nuova Bussola Quotidiana
21. Aldo Cazzullo , The priest shot by the fascists, the seminarian killed by the partisans: secrets and truths of the "Italian civil war" , in Corriere della Sera , 30 May 2021. URL consulted on 30 May 2021 .

Bibliography
  • Mino Martelli, One war and two resistances, 1940-1946. Works and blood of the Italian clergy and in particular the Romagna-Emilian clergy in the war and in the resistance on two fronts , Bari, Edizioni Paoline, 1976.
  • Paolo Risso, Rolando Rivi, a boy for Jesus, Camposampiero, Edizioni Del Noce, 1997. ISBN 88-86115-85-7 . Available online .
  • Emilio Bonicelli, Blood and Love. Novel , Milan, Jaca Book, 2004. ISBN 88-16-30403-0 .
  • Roberto Beretta, History of the priests killed by the partisans, Casale Monferrato, Piemme, 2005. ISBN 88-384-8459-7 .
  • Emilio Bonicelli, Rolando Rivi, martyr seminarian (preface by Luigi Negri ), Camerata Picena, Shalom, 2010. ISBN 978-88-8404-220-0 .
  • Emilio Bonicelli, Rolando Rivi witness to the truth, in Il Nuovo Areopago , nn. 1-2/2014, pp. 45–49.
  • Andrea Zambrano, Rolando Maria Rivi, il martire bambino, Edizioni Ares, 2023.

Thursday, April 11, 2024

The Cross is Back Atop Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini


TLM (The Liturgical Movement) has a post featuring pictures of the newly restored facade of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, with one gross omission: the capstone cross on top of the typanum! None of the photos on that page features that most obvious restoration on the facade: the restored crowning cross at the pinnacle, the absence of which I often lamented and am now happy to see returned! 

I first noticed that cross was missing when a friend made for me a sketch of the facade, sine cruce! When I objected, he simply replied that it had no cross on top. Now it does. Deo gratias!

Perhaps I should now commission another sketch.

N.B. The past couple of days Father Z's posts on the restoration have consistently featured the cross on top, though he also neglects to mention that newly returned member of the restored facade.
Historically the Church had a large cross mounted on an elaborate pedestal.
Before the recent restoration.
Fully Restored

Sunday, April 7, 2024

An Earthquake and an Total Eclipse


Everyone here is talking about the earthquake of the day before yesterday and tomorrow's total solar eclipse, on the transferred Feast of the Annunciation.

Today is the Octave Day of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. Two Fridays ago was Good Friday, the 1991 anniversary of the act of Redemption by Jesus Christ our Blessed Lord.

"Now from the sixth hour (when he was crucified) there was darkness over the whole earth, until the ninth hour (when he died on the cross)." Mt. 27:45

"And Jesus...yielded up the ghost. And behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent. And the graves were opened: and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose...Now the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus, having seen the earthquake, and the things that were done, were sore afraid, saying: Indeed this was the Son of God." Mt. 27:50-54

Christ is the Lord of heaven and earth. Even they give testimony to His victory of sin and death!

Happy Easter!

Christus resurrexit!

Saturday, April 6, 2024

Easter is the Time to Enjoy the Virtue Acquired in Lent


"After all your Lents do you see any progress?"

Thus the question put to me by a freshman at the (first-class Liberal Arts Catholic) College where I am chaplain, a question which won't stop nagging me.

I never thought of Lent explicitly in those terms before, of measured progress, as with the life of virtue/vice (for example in our devotion of frequent confession, deliberately trying to uproot the predominant fault by exercising the opposite virtue). 40 days is ample time to acquire the virtue of the "Lenten Fast," which one might (and, perhaps, should) freely and joyfully continue throughout Easter and the whole year. That is the implication of his question. How has Lent made you better? And the succeeding years one should do the same, with a new virtue every Lent! In other words, if we are doing Lent right, the rigor, having become habitual, is no longer rigorous but pleasurable and easy: a virtue! And that virtue is itself a cause of Easter joy.

This really changes my perspective on the Lenten penance. Lent could become the school of permanent change, instead of an exercise in temporary "virtue" to be quickly discarded at Easter, returning routinely then to the troublesome vice of before. Why shouldn't we Christians revel gladly and freely in a life of great (indeed, heroic) and ever growing virtue, growing from Easter to Easter, to the eternal Easter of every perfection!

P.S. This, exactly this, might be my sermon for tomorrow, the Sunday of the Octave of Easter (Quasimodo Sunday).