The Neomedievalist

On the 4th of November, thirty years ago in 1990, Albanian Catholics and non-Catholics gathered spontaneously at the former Catholic cemetery of Rrmaj in Shkodër, Albania. They were waiting for the surviving priest to say the Holy Mass. Since the Communist government had killed and convicted most of the clergy and laity, and eventually banned religion in 1967, the aforementioned action was considered deadly. The brave priest Dom Simon Jubani (pictured here) showed up, improvised the altar, and brought a Missal, crucifix, and vestments which he had kept secretly for decades.  Rev. Simon Jubani celebrating the Holy Mass according to the Ancient Roman Rite, Versus Populum Knowing he could be killed during the Mass, Fr. Robert Ashta O.F.M. decided to wear the liturgical vestments as well, in order to be there to finish the Mass if necessary. Thank God, nobody was shot. The first public Mass was celebrated in Latin according to the traditional Roman Rite, because neither of the survivin...

  L'Allegoria della Virtù e del Vizio by Lorenzo Lotto Recognizing the disastrous history of totalitarian regimes, R. Reagan and M. Thatcher minimized the government and promoted the free market, thinking they would give more liberty to the individual and prevent the rise of totalitarianism. But evidently, they had 'forgotten' about the existence of mega-corporations—that grew big enough to fill up the governments' place/role, in which they systematically impose certain ideologies, and of course, exploit and oppress the Middle and Working classes. Their idea of individualism, of course, had gone too far, at a point which one may think they had forgotten about the existence of common good and society—whose existence Thatcher and a few neoconservative thinkers and politicians had begun to deny. If one thinks deeply, the concept of the neoliberal Free Market is quite nihilistic and indifferent in its nature. The idea of ethics, common good, and culture doesn't seem t...