A Brief History On November 6, 1789, Pope Pius VI appointed Jesuit priest John Carroll as the first Catholic bishop in the United States, although he had earlier been ex-communicated! Carroll was born on a plantation in Maryland in 1735 to Daniel I and Eleanor Carroll, part of the Carroll family that had helped develop the Maryland colony (Province of Maryland). Digging Deeper John’s brother, Daniel II, was a signer of both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States, one of only 5 men to do so. Thus, the Carroll family certainly had its share of…
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A Brief History On November 4, 1979, a mob of angry Iranians stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took 90 people hostage. Americans made up 52 of those hostages, and included US Marines assigned to the embassy and diplomatic workers. Violation of an embassy by another country is normally considered an act of war, but in this case the US never treated it as such, and 52 of our citizens remained hostages for 444 days. No reprisals were ever carried out. Digging Deeper The mob storming the embassy claimed to be college students associated with the group Muslim Student…
A Brief History On November 2, 2004, the great grand nephew of artist Vincent van Gogh, Theo van Gogh, age 47, was brutally murdered by an Islamic terrorist while cycling in Amsterdam. Van Gogh was a movie maker, screen writer and television producer, and had completed a short film called Submission, a movie about the subjugation of women in Islamic countries. Needless to say, the routine death threats followed against Van Gogh and his Somali collaborator, causing his partner, Aayan Hirsi Ali to blow off the threat, saying, “Nobody kills the village idiot” (meaning herself). Digging Deeper Moroccan-Dutch idiot, Mohammed…
A Brief History On October 17, 1979, an Albanian (Kosovan) Roman Catholic nun was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, certainly one of the highest honors any living person can be awarded. Does she deserve that Prize and all the other accolades afforded to her? Many think not! Digging Deeper Made a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church in an expedited process in September of 2016, Mother Teresa is one of the most revered women of the past few decades. Born Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 in what was then part of the Ottoman Empire, little Agnes (anglicized) dreamed of a…
A Brief History On October 5, 1793, Christian Europe was rocked by the Revolutionary Government of France declaring the disestablishment (or dechristianization) of France, a move specifically intended to remove the influence of the Catholic Church upon France and the French people. The Catholic Church had made the French (and other) monarchies “legitimate” by giving the monarchy the mantle of having the will of God behind who the king or queen was. Additionally, the ability of the Church to demand tithes (a sort of 10% tax on gross income if you are not familiar with this) and the power of…