At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .
Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”
Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.
Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (1942)
The video is from three years ago, but I assume it continues to represent her sentiments. No one could say that discovery of the New World was an unmixed blessing, but I would contend that it has, in the fullness time, resulted in far more good than bad, especially due to the spread of Christianity, and the birth of the United States. Those who attack Columbus and the new era he opened, do so for current political battles, and not out of any concern about the historical record.
For the record, no lobotomized man or woman should be able to run for ANY public office within the United States of America. That would of made Biden and Harris uneligible.
She is beyong pathetic.
The DEI VP showed her true self in that video. No, she has not changed.
Some cultures are better than others.
No one could say that discovery of the New World was an unmixed blessing
Few things in history are. I think we were especially blessed by some blessings that were clearly unmixed in nature, so that anything not perfectly wonderful is easy pickings for those who want to zero in on the bad to the exclusion of the good.
I am so tired of hearing how the Europeans descimated indigenous peoples. We are to believe that it was Garden of Eden like pre Columban. No diseases. No intruders. No landgrabbing. The wheel was introduced to the northern and southern hemispheres by the Spanish.
An aquaintance and her husband recommended 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Reading the reviews ( I am not going to read the book) the populations of both continents were much, much greater than originally thought. Crossing the Bering Straits was not the only way to reach the Americas. Long ocean voyages also helped populate.
I can’t help recalling a quote from Chateaubriand, with delightful Gallic cynicism: “Isn’t it true, gentlemen, that you would have no problem with Catholicism if you had no problem with chastity?”
That all this anti-western hate comes simultaneous with mass (and increasingly mindless) randiness on the part of the Left is no accident. I wonder how many faithfully-married couples with children have problems with Columbus?
If this gets more media attention, she’ll have the Italian American and the Pretendian votes all locked up.
Just how many Pocahontas’ are there anyway?
Maybe Warren and Harris are cousins?🫣
😉”mean” tweet revisited;
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052168909665824769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1052168909665824769%7Ctwgr%5E1c92afe22ea9581e654104a410c98b58f4bc1d5f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2018%2F10%2F16%2F17983250%2Felizabeth-warren-bar-application-american-indian-dna
Kammy sez that the Europeans had a devastating effect on the native population. Well, the natives were ‘devastating’ each other with wars, genocide, rape, sodomy, human sacrifice, and other atrocities long before we came on the scene. Our collective arrivals basically stopped a lot of that nonsense, for the Europeans wanted to be safe from those things. And as for the poor condition of the native populations of today being the fault of the European descendants, engaging in self destructive behaviors such as alcohol and drug abuse, spousal abuse, unemployment, and other dysfunctional behaviors is caused by a mindset that perpetrators these behaviors through generations.
Who else was thrilled and elated at the final scene of Apocalypto, when the banner of Christ appears with the conquistadors and the priest with them? I will never be ashamed of or apologize for the arrival of Christ’s ambassadors on the shores of the New World.
Fr. J., slightly tangential, I may have been the only one in the audience to do so, but, during the Fountain of Youth episode of Pirates of the Caribbean, I cheered when the Spaniards arrived, trashed the Fountain, and sternly declared, “Only God can grant eternal life!”. Perhaps my take was not what Disney intended. I don’t care.
I never saw it, but I’m with you 100%, SouthCoast. Hollywood sometimes shows the Faith in a good light despite their best efforts to the contrary.