Abandoned Altars

The reason this poor blog has been so neglected has nothing to do with the subject matter, depressing as it often has been. No, the only reason for seeming to desert Abandoned Altars is that I have had bigger fish to fry. Much bigger fish — like the entire history of sex in the Catholic Church.

“Real Soon Now”, the results will be available for all to see. I am happy to announce that my latest book, Sons of Perdition, based on all the research here and at my other sites, including Priests of Darkness and Weirdload, is about to be published. It’s an exposé of the sex scandals like none before, and will contain revelations never seen in print.

To go along with it, a complete makeover of all my websites is planned. Much old, stale, and unpopular content will be purged, leaving only the best essays with room for new and hopefully more exciting pieces to come.

For those who have stumbled upon this blog – and especially those who have wanted to comment – thanks for your attention, and please accept my apologies. I’m sorry I have not been able to spend more time with this; hopefully that will change. I plan to expand my interests far beyond clergy abuse, and link up with other fringe thinkers dealing with more positive aspects of life here in the future.

So, please, check back often. Hopefully all the links will continue to work in the meantime. ;->

Peace and thanks for your support,

Sincerely,

Jay Nelson

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The subject line is the first clue, I believe, from Dan Brown’s THE DA VINCI CODE, but it applies equally well to ANGELS & DEMONS, especially the cinematic version, which I saw this weekend. What a con job! The many disappointed reviews only tell part of it…

This is a little odd. After all, Ron Howard is a very talented filmmaker, and the director of APOLLO 13 certainly knows full well how to craft a film like this. With his proven track record, he can call on enough money and talent to deliver thrilling action sequences in spectacular settings with arcane explanations made sensible and effective by A-list actors.

O, if only he would use his tremendous gifts for good, instead of evil!

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Everyone’s heard the sweet story of St. Valentine, a Christian martyr imprisoned by the Romans, who encouraged his followers while he waited for the chop by writing them messages on heart-shaped leaves. From this supposedly we get the whole Valentine’s Day thing. What the saint had to do with Cupid however, has never been really explained, except that in mid-February birds in England and France began to court. Of course, it doesn’t really matter as long as it gets the job done.

In any case, as with most pious myths, it ain’t necessarily so.

In the first place, there are three different St. Valentines, whose feasts are celebrated on February 14. But none of them may be the actual source of the celebration.

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Caption: “The Aim of Pius IX”, 1855, Library of Congress

It sounds like an absurd question, doesn’t it? What could the Pope possibly have to do with Lincoln’s death? Possibly quite a lot, it turns out.

It’s not a new idea, by any means. A friend of his, Pastor Charles Chiniquy, was a former Roman Catholic priest who became a client and friend of the future president, after Lincoln helped him legally fight the Church. Chiniquy claimed that alone was sufficient to mark him for death, and warned him of his danger from the Jesuits. But there were many other reasons as well.

Not that the mainstream media would ever consider such a possibility. Yet, with the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, there’s been a number of shows about his life recently. Most of them, such as PBS’ American Experience episode, The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, follow the typical line. John Wilkes Booth is portrayed as the original “lone gunman” – an embittered loser given an unlikely chance by fate – such as Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan.

Yet, while people still debate the Kennedy assassinations, in the case of Lincoln, there definitely was a proven conspiracy. People were hanged for their roles and most of them were Catholic.

One of the conspirators who got away was named John Surratt. When finally located, he was found serving in the papal guards in Rome. And that’s just one of the amazing coincidences. For more, see The Pope, the President and the Pastor.

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