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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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- on I guess we can criticize the Pope now: “https://zenit.org/2014/01/21/pope-francis-presented-with-lambs/ This says that the lambs are now raised by the nuns of San Lorenzo in Panisperna, but I’m not…”
- on I guess we can criticize the Pope now: “Story from Joan’s Rome in 2019, explaining the procedures used to prepare the lambs for being carried: https://joansrome.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/january-21-st-agnes-baby-lambs-and-the-pallium/ An interesting…”
- on I guess we can criticize the Pope now: “The lambs no longer come from a Trappist sheep farm. The news stories don’t say where they are getting lambs…”
- on I guess we can criticize the Pope now: “In the February 3, 1930 issue of Time Magazine, the reporter recounts that “two of the most docile” of the…”
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- on I guess we can criticize the Pope now: “I would to post a response to Mr. Ivereigh, but he blocked me along ago for daring to question Bergoglio.…”
- on 23 January: St. Raymond Peñafort – surfer extraordinaire: “Father, have you tried to surf like this?”
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- on 23 January: St. Raymond Peñafort – surfer extraordinaire: “Not just politicians… but also clergy too…”
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Wow! These photos have been great & wonderful. I would love to see them bound in a booklet.
The photos from Rome continue, excellent.
Fr. Z, I caught up with Tracer Bullet briefly. I resupplied him with Lucky Strikes and gin, then asked “how’s business in Rome?” I’m not sure I should have. He lit a Lucky Strike, from out of nowhere a saxophone player appeared, and Tracer began to speak.
“It was evening in the Eternal City near the Emanuele Bridge, the kind of evening where the sky was more Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse than In Hoc Signo Vinces. At the stairway leading up from the Tiber to the Bridge some urban peasant in a shabby coat was trying to sell me a newspaper. I wasn’t so sure.
“The newspapers are like crazy uncles these days, blurting out all sorts of things. Union bosses were clamoring for more men and movie actresses were spreading disease. Or maybe it was the other way around.
“What the newspapers didn’t talk about was Pius XII and Jewish refugees hidden ’round the city. Mussolini’s OVRA boys didn’t talk much about them either. They spent most of their time barracking in the cafes, stuffing their faces with rigatoni and grappa, while the poor waitresses daydreamed about taking the veil. So Himmler sent in the SS. Leather-coated thugs crawled through the streets of Rome like sick roaches.
“Anyway, then a boat pulled up at the landing under the bridge. Two men in leather coats got out. Something was on their minds more than just their hats, and it wasn’t a picnic in a sunlit meadow. The big, ugly one looked like he had a bright future in the xenophobia racket. The tall, thin one looked like he just climbed out of his coffin for a night on the town. The man in the boat said something and the two SS men turned and yelled back at him.
“Well, I’ve got plenty of friends. I also got plenty of enemies. Didn’t need any more. I asked the peasant for yesterday’s paper, I needed the sports section. His eyes flickered briefly and he grunted he was sold out. I folded a five-Reichsmark note and said ‘keep the change.’ He handed me the paper from the bottom of the stack. ‘Virtus et Honor’ he said. ‘Maranatha,’ I replied, tipping my fedora, then I climbed the stairs to the Bridge.”