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Dear Highlander,

Thank you!

I thought the Scottish Martyr was George Douglas,SJ (?)

MacBeth himself was locally venerated by the Scots (it was Shakespeare who equally villified MacBeth and Joan of Arc). There was even a time when the St John of Kronstadt Orthodox calendar listed him among "those worthy of possible glorification" under August 15th!

And the Orthodox Church venerates his son, St Lulach as the "last Orthodox King of Scots."

I once corresponded with your novelist, Nigel Tranter, as I was an avid fan of his books and have two letters from him (may he rest in peace!)

Dear Brian,

In actual fact, there is an active Cause for the Servant of God Catherine of Aragon!

King Henry VIII was himself rather pious as he carried his psalter and his rosary everywhere and prayed assiduously - despite all that other nasty stuff.

He once gave money for the building of an hospital in London to be run by nuns.

When asked what he wanted in return, the king simply asked the nuns to pray a rosary for him daily as long as the hospital exists.

The hospital does exist (I've forgotten its name) and to this day at 5:45 pm the nuns gather to pray their daily rosary for the soul of their benefactor, King Henry VIII!

Alex

What a well-informed person you are!

If one studies freemasonry one finds that it is the worst kept secret there is, on purpose. They intend to be more and more open about their aims until people openly join in their rebellion against God for that very reason. It is true that there are roots of Byzantine-Venetian banking -- Phnariot, Darius Socinus etc., and there is a stabilization of the power that was concentrated there in and in connection with Switzerland (including the powerful Warburgs and Rothschilds). It is also true that without the connivings of Cardinal Richelieu it would have been stopped a long time ago. It is also true that unscrupulous Jews were involved every step of the way as Bernard Lazare, himself a Jew tells us. There were Jews round Adam Weishaupt in the late 1700�s when Weishaupt added the very Lurianic Illuminism, overt Satanism, the final formulation in which (Weishaupt�s formula) �it will advance until its final conflict with Christianity must determine whether Christ or Satan shall reign on this earth to the end.� Weishaupt�s way is the way of the Masonic lodges today, to first seduce men into his organization through its lower degrees. To quote Monsignor Dillon from his Edinburgh lectures:

"A man, though in Masonry, may not be willing to become an atheist or a Socialist, for some time at least. He may have in his heart a profound conviction that God exists, and some hope left of returning to that God at or before his death. He may have entered Masonry for purposes of ambition, for motives of vanity, from mere lightness of character. He may continue his prayers and refuse, if a Catholic, to give up the Mother of God and some practice of piety loved by him from his youth. But Masonry is a capital system to wean a man gradually away from all these things. It does not at once deny the existence of God, nor at once attack the Christian dispensation. It commences by giving the Christian idea of God an easy and, under semblance of respect, an almost imperceptible shake. It swears by the name of God in all its oaths. It calls Him, however, not a Creator, only an architect � the great Architect of the universe. It carefully avoids all mention of Christ, of the Adorable Trinity, of the unity of Faith, or of any faith. It protests a respect for the convictions of every man, for the idolatrous Parsee, for the Mohammedan, the heretic, the Jew, the schismatic, the Catholic. By and by, in higher degrees, it gives a ruder shock to the belief in the Deity, and a gradual inducement to favor Naturalism."

Dear Highlander you said:

Now that you mentioned Queen Elizabeth, I heard a story once, and since then have not been able to get those thoughts out of my mind.

There is a town in England that celebrates the fact that they fooled Henry VIII. They insist that when Elizabeth was living in that town as a child, she died. The townsfolks panicked, and tried to find someone to replace her. The only child that looked like her and could read and write in Latin was a boy, so they used him as a replacement. In other words, Queen Elizabeth was really a man.Yipes!

Now when we consider that she was half bald, and that she didn't marry....can one blame me for wondering.

Now if she was a man, and her cousin was very beautiful, isn't there a chance that Queen Mary might have realized that something was amiss? :rolleyes:

Okay, me and my conspiracy theories.

Zenovia

Dear Jessup you said:

I say:

You know I wonder exactly what the faith of Prince Charles is? At one time he seemed to be quite New Age, but in the past ten years he has been going to a monastery in Mt. Athos. For all we know he might be Orthodox, after all he was a Godfather to King Constantine of Greece's son. The presiding priest was none other than the Patriarch of Constantinople.

But then again, when it comes to royalty...I guess the Godparents don't really have to be Orthodox. Well!!! Charles grandmother was an Orthodox nun. I guess special privaleges. :rolleyes:

Zenovia

I doubt if Prince Charles Comments had anything to do with the masons but from his appreciation that Britan is a multicultural society. An early influence on Prince Charles was the late Sir Laurens van der Post a South African who was very anti apartheid. He like HM The Queen have an appreciation of the various cultures of the nations of the Commonwealth. It is more likely to me to see this as informing that comment. It was his great grandfather or great great grandfather who modified one of the coronation oaths, so as to not offend Catholics of the then empire. We cant put that down to masonic influence.

Royalty tend to have many Godparents not just 2.

Dear Highlander,

Thank you, but I've been upbraided for my errors on Celtic history and the Celtic Church - one person here once went after me to say there never was such a thing as a "Celtic Church!"

Certainly, the Celtic Church would have been considered an Orthodox Church by Orthodoxy and one Fr. Geoffrey O'Riada used to have a "Celtic Orthodoxy" website. There is another that has translated the Celtic breviary and other items at: www.celticchristianity.org [celticchristianity.org] - they are an independent group.

Historically, as you know, the Highlanders hung on to the Celtic traditions and the Lowlanders became Latin Catholic. Later, the Highlanders maintained their commitment to Catholicism and the Lowlanders became Presbyterian. In Ontario, the Scots Loyalists were divided in terms of Highland and Lowland Scotland identifiable by their religion.

In our city of Guelph, there is a beautiful Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception built by a Scottish Cardinal on land donated to him by a Scots Presbyterian landowner - the Scots are truly a civilized people!

I think that Bl. George Douglas was beatified among the Blessed Martyrs of England and Wales and St John Ogilvie was canonized . . .

And the Declaration of Robert the Bruce actually does affirm that the Scots came from Scythia and that "Scottia" is a play on that name - which is why the two have the same patron saint - Andrew the Apostle.

I always mention this as Master of Ceremonies at our Ukrainian school graduation - you'd be surprised how many Scots-Ukrainian marriages we have here!

Alex

Not to mention the Scots who came to Ukraine in Kozak time as mercenaries and intermarried.

Not to mention the Scots who came to Ukraine in Kozak times as mercenaries and intermarried.
To this day there are Ukrainian surnames like "Makula" = McCollough"

Zenovia

The story you referred to about Elizabeth I dying and being replaced by a boy her age, is known as the story of the Bisley Boy. It allegedly occured in the Gloucestershire town of Bisley. National Geographic even mentioned it in the 1970's. There was an even more bizarre story from Tudor England, that Henry VIII actually fathered his second wife Ann Boleyn.

I remember discussing William Wallace with my brother who has several books about him. An interesting side note is that he was around 6'7" at a time when a big man would have been 5'8". So in battle, he just mowed everyone down with that big Claymore of his. Which is why in Braveheart my brother laughs when the smart guy in the army says that he thought William Wallace was taller, as Mel Gibson is reported to be 5'8".

As for Freemasonry, I have received more kindness and support from the Masons around here than our local Knights of Columbus which is 1300 members strong! Not that I'll ever join, but we Catholics have a long way to go in terms of hospitality.

Originally posted by Jessup B.C. Deacon:
Sad to say, the majority (if not all) of the members of your Royal Family is Masonic. I remember Prince Charles saying he was in favor of changing the "Defender of THE Faith" title for the monarch to that of "Defender of Faith".
Even that assertion sounds Masonic. Of course it has been said that every American president (with the lone exception of John F. Kennedy, who was no saint) since George Washington has been a Freemason.


Dn. Robert

Speaking of George Washington, is there any truth in the story of his deathbed conversion to the Latin Church?

I think that is false.

Dear Zenovia,

Of course there was also a scurrilous story going round that one of the popes was a woman, Pope Joan. So maybe your story was an urban myth too.

Actually, I think the ugliness of Elizabeth, (she brought in the fashion for neck-concealing ruffs) was due to her lineage. Her brother Edward died of congenital syphilis. Henry VIII blamed his VI wives for his lack of a viable heir, but they were not to blame. Henry also tried to bully the Scots into marrying their infant Queen Mary to his unfortunate son. The great abbeys along the Border were not destroyed during the religious wars, but by our Catholic neighbour. Also I don't think Mary and Elizabeth ever met. That was just Hollywood.