Who was Anscar Vonier?

Abbot Vonier "was the most gifted dogmatic theologian writing - and preaching - in England in the inter-war years."  He is also the author of "A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist," a book which Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ said "should never be out of print."  I just ordered my copy.  You can order yours by clicking on the "My Favorites" widget to the right.  That way (assuming I set it up correctly) Amazon will share a tiny fraction of the proceeds with me, at no additional cost to you.
 
Incidentally, many years ago I had the good fortune to be introduced to Avery Dulles.  Fr. Dulles was at lunch in a Jesuit residence, and surrounded by admirers.  He appeared to suffer rather than welcome this attention.  Fr. Dulles was tall and thin and wore a white dress shirt which had been ironed sufficiently to remove most, though by no means all, of its wrinkles.  I suspect the ironing had been done by Fr. Dulles himself.   He was courteous, though not effusive.   Though our meeting was over in minutes, I knew afterwards that Fr. Dulles didn't attract crowds to himself just because he was famous.  Fr. Dulles, in his quiet, courteous way, was also a holy man.

The Holy Name of Mary, The Battle of Vienna, and 9/11

The Most Holy Name of Mary

Today's feast honoring the name of Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684 AD, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar.  The feast commemorates the victory of Holy League at the Battle of Vienna on Sept 11-12, 1683.  Although outnumbered nearly 2 to 1, the forces of the Holy Roman Empire joined with a Polish Lithuanian forced commanded by the Polish King Jan Sobieski to defeat the Ottoman army which had besieged Vienna since July 14.  Before the battle, the Polish king had placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Consequently, the feast not only honors Mary and celebrates the great victory, but also gives thanks to the Virgin for her assistance and protection.  The siege of Vienna was the high water mark for the Ottoman invasion of Europe.  Other defeats for the Ottomans followed, as the Austrian Habsburgs would go on to clear southern Hungary and Transylvania of Ottoman forces. 

The late Christopher Hitchens, among others, has speculated that the terrorists who attacked NY and Washington, DC on 9/11 were not only aware of the historical significance of the date, but chose it for that very reason.  As Hitchens writes:

“Now this, of course, is not a date that has only obscure or sectarian significance. It can rightly, if tritely, be called a hinge-event in human history. The Ottoman empire never recovered from the defeat; from then on it was more likely that Christian or western powers would dominate the Muslim world than the other way around... in the Islamic world, and especially among the extremists, it is remembered as a humiliation in itself and a prelude to later ones."

We would do well to imitate King Jan by placing ourselves under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary during our current war.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

Wednesday is the fourth anniversary of "Summorum Pontificum"

                                                           Venerable Elena Aiello


The Forma extraordinaria has not taken NJ by storm, though it is celebrated in a growing number of churches.

Wednesday is significant for additional reasons.  It is also the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, and it is the day Venerable Elena Aiello will be beatified.   If you are not already penitentially inclined, the prophecies of Sr. Elena Aiello are sure to spur you to penance.

Undoubtedly, Pope Benedict selected the date Summorum Pontificum would come into force and the date of Venerable Elena Aiello's beatification with great care.

Venerable Elena Aiello, pray for us.

Ditto for Paul Krugman

And he's even less funny than Dick Cavett.

Dick Cavett is a pompous hack

He proves it in the first few paragraphs here.
In the rest of the piece he proves he is a lot less funny than Mel Brooks.

Famous formerly Catholic university loses another football game

Nice retro unis, though.  If they paid as much attention to orthodoxy as they do to marketing, I'd root for them again.

Cultural Catholicism is useless.  It merges undetectably into non-Catholicism.  One of Cultural Catholicism's lesser shortcomings appears to be that it leads to losing a lot of football games.   I expect this will continue until they address their orthodoxy problem.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Sad note on post-Catholic Quebec

In a land where kids now ask "who is the guy on the cross?" even the swear words have lost their meaning.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.