Art of the Western World - Episode 6: The Northern Renaissance

This is the sixth episode in our weekly series,  Art of the Western World.  Previous episodes of this beautiful series are here:

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; and Part 4, 
and Part 5

UN Council Approves Russian Resolution Affirming Family Values

From Catholic World News

The UN’s council on human rights has approved a resolution stating that an acceptance of traditional moral principles is important to the promotion of peace and the protection of human rights around the world.

The UN resolution—which echoes the themes put forward by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, in an address to the General Assembly—was introduced by the Russian delegation. It was approved despite opposition from delegates from the US and western Europe, who argued that a defense of traditional moral principles could undermine the advances of the sexual revolution. 

Additional sources for this story
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• UN Human Rights Council Affirms Traditional Values (C-FAM)
• International problems reflect moral crisis, Vatican official tells UN (CWN, 10/2)

Shanghai’s Priests and Nuns Forced to Attend Government Classes

From the Catholic Herald (UK)

Members of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart pray in their motherhouse chapel in Fushun, China (Photo: CNS)

Priests and nuns in the Shanghai diocese have been forced to attend compulsory “study classes”, which observers believe were imposed by Chinese authorities in response to the new Shanghai auxiliary’s renunciation of the Catholic Patriotic Association.

Chris Matthews Has Breakdown Over Obama's Poor Debate Performance

There was no "tingling feeling" running up Matthews' leg last night.

Pope Benedict's Pilgrimage to the Holy Shrine of Loreto

 

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI

Our Lady of Loreto Square, Loreto
Thursday, 4 October 2012 

 

[Video]

Your Eminences,
Dear Brother Bishops,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

On 4 October 1962, Blessed John XXIII came as a pilgrim to this Shrine to entrust to the Virgin Mary the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, due to begin a week later. On that occasion, with deep filial devotion to the Mother of God, he addressed her in these words: “Again today, and in the name of the entire episcopate, I ask you, sweetest Mother, as Help of Bishops, to intercede for me as Bishop of Rome and for all the bishops of the world, to obtain for us the grace to enter the Council Hall of Saint Peter’s Basilica, as the Apostles and the first disciples of Jesus entered the Upper Room: with one heart, one heartbeat of love for Christ and for souls, with one purpose only, to live and to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of individuals and peoples. Thus, by your maternal intercession, in the years and the centuries to come, may it be said that the grace of God prepared, accompanied and crowned the twenty-first Ecumenical Council, filling all the children of the holy Church with a new fervour, a new impulse to generosity, and a renewed firmness of purpose” (AAS 54 [1962], 727).

The Road to Totalitarianism Begins in Ekaterinburg

So how could a Stalin apologist be a ‘tireless agitator for a better world’?

 
From The Catholic Herald (UK)
By Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith

Stalin smiles at the Teheran Conference, Iran, in 1943 (AP Photo)

The other day I visited an Orthodox Church, which, like most Orthodox churches, was full of icons. I looked for and found the two icons that I always look out for – that of Saint Elizabeth of Russia and that of the Imperial Martyrs.

Saint Elizabeth was the Grand Duchess Ella of Russia, and she was married to the Tsar’s uncle Grand Duke Sergey, who was assassinated in 1905; after his death, she became a nun, and when the Revolution came, she was murdered in Siberia by the Bolsheviks, by being thrown down a mineshaft, a fate she shared with several other members of the extended Imperial family. The horror of her death is redeemed by her serenity and faith in the face of it. Her relics are now venerated in Jerusalem.

Pope Benedict on Forthcoming Pilgrimage to Loreto

At the end of his Wednesday Audience Pope Benedict said : Tomorrow I will visit the Sanctuary of Loreto, on the 50th anniversary of the famous pilgrimage of Blessed Pope John XXIII to that Marian shrine one week before the opening of the Second Vatican Council. I ask you to join me in prayer in recommending major ecclesial events that we are about to live to the Mother of God. The Year of Faith and the Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization. May the Holy Virgin accompany the Church in her mission of proclaiming the Gospel to the men and women of our time.