Category Archives: Christendom

A Note on Sovereignty and the Knights of St. John

26 Thursday Jan 2017

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This post is in part a response to a very recent article by the Modern Medievalist, whom I respect highly (and yet nonetheless disagree with in this case), and partly as a general response to the distortion of the concept of Sovereignty in Modern times. This has been brought to the forefront by the investigation of Holy See into the Religious Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. As the investigation is still on-going, it would be unwise to comment on specific situation of the Order today, so this post is mainly confined to the general principles involved.

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Catholic, Western, and Supranational

26 Thursday Jan 2017

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Austria has always been a stronghold of Catholicism: the former head of the supranational Holy Roman Empire, the secular arm of Christendom, has always been a luminous antithesis to all forms of provincialism. This is not primarily because Austria was the head of a great empire with many inhabitants, but rather because it was Catholic, Western, and supranational…

-Dietrich von Hildebrand, Der Genius Österreichs und der Provinzialismus

Austria, the true heir and embodiment of the Holy Roman Empire, has always reflected in its forms and institutions the true Catholic ideal of the supranational country. Ever since the Roman Empire was transformed into a truly foederatial system in the fifth century Heroic Age has Christendom striven for this ideal. However, in few institutions has this ideal ever been as wholly achieved or pursued as in the Kaiserlich und Königlich Gemeinsame Armee, the Imperial and Royal Common Army, of which the Hapsburg Restoration Movement is in part a spiritual successor and continuation. Therefore, it might be asked, what are the qualities that allowed the K.u.K. Armee to act as a unifying element of the Empire? 

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Was there ever a “Medieval Nationalism”?

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

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The first truly concrete, “systematized” identitarian revolution in Europe is Taboritism, the radical form of Hussitism… This furious explosion of a synthetic mixture of nationalism, socialism, and radical democracy with communist innuendos not only had devastated large parts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper Hungary, but also had deeply shaken the social and spiritual fabric of Europe. In their perennial ramifications the shadows of this profound revolution are still with us and will continue to be for some time.

-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism

Recently I came across an article attempting to claim that Nationalism was not only a political-philosophy that originated in the “Medieval Period,” but that it was the political norm. Referring to the Holy Roman Empire with the absurd (never officially recognized) addition “of the German Nation“ the article goes on to claim that the Crownlands of Empire in the Sacred Ages “included all people of the German nationality,” a falsehood which completely ignores not only the Transylvanian Saxons, but also the Danube Swabians, the Carpathian Germans (Zipsers), the Walddeutsche, the Teutonic Livonians, the Saxons of Schleswig, and the Vosges Germans. Still the questions remain, was there a form of Nationalism present in the Sacred Ages, and was it the prevalent understanding of the political order?

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The Three Magi and the Sacrétemporal Worldview

06 Friday Jan 2017

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When Jesus therefore was born in Bethlehem of Judah, in the days of king Herod, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east, and are come to adore Him…” and behold the star which they had seen in the east, went before them, until it came and stood over where the Child was. And seeing the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And entering into the house, they found the Child with Mary His mother, and falling down they adored Him; and opening their treasures, they offered Him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

-The Gospel of Saint Matthew, 2:1-2, 9-12

The Feast of the Epiphany commemorates the threefold manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ in His earthly life, His baptism, the wedding feast of Canna, and the visit of the Magi. Of these three, Western Catholicism has held the first revelation to the Gentiles in the primary place of recollection, and with good cause. Ancient tradition holds that there were three principle Magi, men fere reges (like unto kings), St. Melchior of Persia, St. Caspar of India, and St. Balthazar of Ethiopia (or Arabia), embodying the three great gentium of Mankind, and forming in themselves a microcosm of the Sacrétemporal understanding of the world.

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The Lost Count

25 Sunday Dec 2016

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Deep in the snow-laden forests surrounding the river Aare in small cave a young lad stirred from a painful sleep. Fiery embers still glowed warmly just outside the low entrance of the cavern as dawn illumined the east, far from the shadow of the western mountains. He lifted his golden haired head from under the great wolf pelt which had covered him the last night, still half asleep but dimly conscious of a large shadow moving in and for a moment concealing the sunlight beyond. As the boy tried to recollect what exactly it was he had seen, he suddenly realized that he could not even remember his own name.

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O Oriens splendor lucis aeternae

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

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thewesterlyhope

O Morning Star! Splendor of Eternal Light and Sun of Justice!
Come, and illumine those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death!

“The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen… For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a Son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: He shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for ever: the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.”

– the Book of Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

G.K. Chesterton on the Legend of Emperor Charlemagne

17 Saturday Dec 2016

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It is when a fact is thus too big for history that it overflows the surrounding facts and expresses itself in fable. Nay, it is when the fact is in a sense too solid that its very solidity breaks the framework of ordinary things; and it can only be recorded through extraordinary things like fairy-tales and romances of chivalry. Everybody felt that merely saying that one Carolus or Carl had lived and died at a certain date, and had a palace at Aix, and fought such and such campaigns against Saxons or Saracens, was wholly inadequate to explain what had happened.

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Salve Regina!

12 Monday Dec 2016

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O Lady whom the stars adorn
O Star that shone in sunless hour
Light of those now oft forlorn
Winter’s rose, unfrosted flower

Clear were those stars upon that eve
Thyself thy God did bring to earth
And Greatest Gift of God receive
Upon that night of Holy Birth

O Maria! mother purest maid!
Look kindly on thy knights in gold
To Christendom’s Citadel swift bring aid!
The help of Him Whom thou behold

And lastly we pray in the vale of tears
Save those whose life is yet unborn
Keep safe the passing of the years
For those who wait before the morn

☩

A Restorationist in the Age of Racialism

07 Wednesday Dec 2016

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fromtheashes

The first of these pernicious errors, widespread today, is the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong, and by the redeeming Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross to His Heavenly Father on behalf of sinful mankind.

– Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus

Encouraged by certain “victories”, the world is triumphantly entering a New Age of Nationalism… or so we are told in shouts of jubilation or despair. The sad truth is that the world has never left the downward spiral that is Nationalism; it has merely entered beginning the last phase, Racial Nationalism. That the world has fallen to such lowness is not surprising; such was always the Fate of the Fallen world, and yet we are not bound by that fate, but by Divine Providence alone. With God’s grace we can fight against this marring of the world.

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Hope Beyond Defeat

03 Saturday Dec 2016

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That on you is fallen the shadow,
And not upon the Name;
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.

That though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.

That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse