The Great Pio Nono Did Nothing Wrong

Edit: he did the right thing in removing a baptized Catholic from a Jewish household, where he could be raised in the faith and given a good education. There's a lot of controversy in some Catholic circles over this issue, and we can only say that they must be hiding their Catholic principles for fear of the Jews.

It was Pius' duty to take care of his people, especially a lost sheep whom he raised. And of course, there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church.

Last Flag of the Papal States Returns to the Vatican -- Saved in 1870

(Rome/Vatican) After 144 years the Papal flag, which flew from the city door of the Porta Pia, will return again to the Vatican. The flag was flown from the Aurelian city wall of Rome till the 20th September 1870, as a continuation of a thousand years came to an en, when Italian troops attacked the Church State.

The flag comes with an especially symbolic character for the troops of the Kingdom of Savoy charged the city walls seeking to breach and break through the Pia Porta, built by Michelangelo in the 16th Century.

The Papal flag on the battlement did not fall into the hands of the attackers. They were saved by Prince Ruslpoli. The Troops of the Kingdom of Italy succeeded in their successful incursion through the garden in the Villa of Napoleon Karl Bonaparte, a Grand Nephew of Napoleon I, and Christina Ruspoli. In the garden of the villa was the site of the last defensive battle in the siege at which 19 Papal Zouaves fell. The flag, perforated by numerous bullet holes, was brought to safety by Princess Cristina and since then guarded by the Ruspoli family.

29. September 2011, for the feast of the Papal Gendarmes, Prince Sforza Ruspoli will place the Vatican flag back. The restoration ceremony will take place at 17.30 on the square at the Governorate in Vatican City. After the review of the various units, and the honorary procession and National Anthem of the Papal State, Prince Ruspoli will hand over the Papal flag of the Porta Pia and therefore the last flag of the old Church State, to Cardinal Secretary Tarcicio Bertone. Finally, a commemoration to the fallen will take place where a message from Pope Benedict XVI will be read.

The relationship of the Ruspoli Family with the Popes speaks of a long history, which experienced an intensive period in the 18th century. In 1708 Francesco Maria Ruspoli raised the Ruspoli Regiment with a strength of a thousand men and put it at the service of the Holy see. In 1721 Pope Benedict XIII raised Francesco Maria and his heirs to the Roman Principate. At the end of the 18th century the Ruspoli lent the sum of 800.000 gold scudi to compensate the dues which Napoleon Bonaparte had then levied against the Church.

The current family head, the 84 year old Prince Sforza Ruspoli, organizes every year on the 20th of September with the Militia Christi, a counter demonstration at the Porta Pia, where the Freemasons and other enemies of the Church celebrate the fall of the Church State every year. For this event, he unfurls the rescued Papal flag on the battlements of the city gate to remember the Papal soldiers who lost their lives in defense of the Pope and the Church.

Text: Vatican Insider/Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: Vatican Insider



Link to original, Katholisches...

George Weigel Defends Americanism: Again.

Once again George Weigel proposes something for the reasonable consideration of Roman Catholics in the USA. He banks on the fact that most Americans are unaware of what was at stake when the Masonic Garibaldi finally triumphed over the Papal forces to unify Italy in that fateful year of 1870, while the Prussians trounced the French further north, and he does not fail to disappoint in that he adds more confusion than clarity in the bargain while running rough shod over Church teaching in the bargain. In his latest article for the National Review he says, after piling some well deserved abuse on the Masonic republics that have ruled Italy since 1870, that the Church somehow benefited from the loss of its temporal power. He even gets a few licks in on the old Soviet Union, continuing to try to convince us that Communism was overcome and that John Paul II had something to do with it. Perhaps what he's selling is favored with a few in the modern Papacy, but his verbiage would have been regarded unfavorably by sensible churchmen before 1965.

Weigel is aware of these things, but he explains sentences like this away by an appeal to a historical argument, suggesting a decided Modernist cant to his daring do.

76. The abolition of the temporal power of which the Apostolic See is possessed would contribute in the greatest degree to the liberty and prosperity of the Church. —Allocutions "Quibus quantisque," April 20, 1849, "Si semper antea," May 20, 1850. (Condemned as error).

He even makes a citation of good old Evelyn Waugh writing in his Sword of Honor, citing the incomparable Norman, Guy Crouchback:

News of the King’s flight came on the day the brigade landed at Salerno. It brought Guy some momentary exhilaration.

“That looks like the end of the Piedmontese usurpation,” he said to his father. “What a mistake the Lateran Treaty was. It seemed masterly at the time — how long? Fifteen years ago? What are 15 years in the history of Rome? How much better it would have been if the Popes had sat it out and then emerged, saying, ‘What was all that? Risorgimento? Garibaldi? Cavour? The House of Savoy? Mussolini? Just some hooligans from out of town causing a disturbance. Come to think of it, wasn’t there a poor boy whom they called King of Rome?’ That’s what the Pope ought to be saying today.”

Mr. Crouchback regarded his son sadly. “My dear boy,” he said, “you’re really talking the most terrible nonsense, you know. That isn’t what the Church is like. It isn’t what she’s for.”

It's interesting reading, but is that really what Evelyn Waugh had in mind to reconcile the Papacy's concordat with Italy in 1933? He leaves this unanswered and proceeds on to defend the erroneous notion that the Papacy need not have had its temporal power, and that this temporal power was an impediment.

George Weigel is in love with the State, but like Frederick II of Prussia, he knows the importance of religion to the run of the mill out there, and he writes for them, he influences them in terms they appreciate and understand, even if he leads them down the wrong path in the end.

You can have the Church as the institution She claims to be, with the rules she's always had, or you can deny that she has those rights ascribed to her in the Syllabus of Errors, but you can't have it both ways. If you're not a Catholic of all times, you're not really a Catholic at all, you're just an apologist for Modernism and Freemasonry, which is what Weigel has always been. No friend of the Church is he.

Next thing you know, old George Weigel will be saying that the Church was wrong about there being no separation of Church and State, cheeky devil.

Read further...

140th Anniversary of the Fall of Papal Rome

The Zenit Article which is cited by 'Catholicism.org' really misses the point of the wars of Italian Unification and the alleged loss of temporal power by the Papacy, almost seemingly embracing the error that says that the Papacy shouldn't have temporal power, condemned by Pius IX:

24. The Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect. -- Apostolic Letter "Ad Apostolicae," Aug. 22, 1851.

[Papal Documents Online, here]

She seems to struggle a bit, understandably, with her loyalty to the Italian State and her Catholic Faith. Considering Berlusconi's hostility to the Church recently, it might be too much to hope that the conflict of interests between the Church and the State have subsided.

140th Anniversary of the Fall of Papal Rome