Photo of the Week: Apollo Belvedere, Vatican Museum

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Traditional Latin Mass Every Sunday at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Hackensack, New Jersey

Memories of Tomorrow: How Italian Graphic Novelists Are Rethinking Storytelling in the Digital Age

Congratulations to Neapolitan authors Giuseppe Sant’Elia and Alessandro Verre on their graphic novel debut, Timeless Tale – Ricordi di domani, and on the preview of Il Cappellaio.

Today’s cultural discourse often centers on the digital space and its effects on daily life, relationships, political behavior, and the business environment. Two young Neapolitan lawyers, well-versed in the intersection of law, economics, culture, and emerging trends in artificial intelligence, have taken on these themes with ambition and intelligence in Timeless Tale, brought vividly to life through Marco Monelli's illustrations.

Timeless Tale unfolds across two temporal poles: Christmas 2024 and a dystopian 2050, where climate catastrophe has reduced daily life to survival under a regimented, totalitarian order. Through a touch of magical realism, Marco, an older boy in 2024, and Paolo, a younger boy in 2050, transcend time via a magical snow globe, allowing them to see and speak to one another across eras. Each is incredulous at the other’s world. Their dialogue becomes a lens through which the narrative explores alienation, atomization, and the erosion of family life, conditions intensified by immersion in smartphones, social media, and virtual existence.

At its core, the story contrasts the present’s hurried impatience, where Christmas preparations are treated as an inconvenience rather than a source of meaning, with a future haunted by nostalgia, where a father, a son, and a few friends struggle to preserve tradition, continuity, and identity. The present appears as a land of needless alienation; the future as a desperate terrain of rediscovery, where the last remnants of human bonding are fought for among a handful of kindred souls. Reestablishing communication and shared humanity emerges as the only path toward reclaiming civilization itself.

Sant’Elia continues this reflection in Il Sorriso del Gatto, a hybrid comic strip centered on the character Il Cappellaio. Drawing on Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Sant’Elia reimagines the figure as a time-traveling observer who finds himself in contemporary Rome, conversing with the Cat about how, and whether, it is still possible to speak to the public. In the opening episode, set against a grim Roman sunset, the Hatter remarks that everyone is mad but does not know it, whereas he and the Cat are aware of their madness. Observing young people absorbed by their phones, unnoticed by one another or by him, the Cat abruptly transports the Hatter inside a smartphone, grinning, “Now they’ll see you.” The episode ends with a pointed and unsettling “End?”

Underlying both projects is Sant’Elia’s contention that we are attempting to understand the emerging present using conceptual categories inherited from the past. Newsstands are closing, bookstores are burdened with unsold stock, publishers struggle to maintain distribution, and artists feel threatened by artificial intelligence. The question is no longer simply how to tell stories, but how to create narratives within a radically altered ecosystem.

Sant’Elia argues that the decline in reading is not an individual failure but a systemic one. Attention spans continue to shrink, feeds replace articles, and reels last seconds. With so many competing demands on attention and diminishing tolerance for complexity, society drifts toward constant occupation rather than immersion. Long-form reading becomes the exception rather than the norm. In this context, traditional digital comics, often little more than scanned paper works sold as PDFs, struggle to find an audience.

New formats, such as webtoons designed for vertical scrolling and thumb-based navigation, attempt to meet readers where they are. As Sant’Elia notes, in these cases, the form is already the content. Short, self-contained strips circulate easily on social platforms, building narratives incrementally and virally, adapted to contemporary modes of consumption.

Confronting the attention economy poses a dilemma. Traditionalists fear that adapting to it means capitulating to its logic, yet a return to older models is no longer viable. As Sant’Elia puts it, the difference lies between those who are subjugated by the algorithm and those who learn to speak its language to say what they want anyway.

In response, Sant’Elia is now experimenting with AI-assisted, interactive comics and video-fumetti, combining Italian graphic traditions with new narrative strategies. Writing and lecturing on artificial intelligence, he emphasizes that the technology functions as an executive tool guided by the author’s vision, not as a substitute for artistic labor. Recent legal developments recognize the distinction between superficial prompt-generated imagery and works produced through sustained intellectual contribution. Artificial intelligence may generate quick, rough images, but without coherent vision or narrative development, it remains incomplete. Mastery lies in bending the tool to one’s will.

For these reasons, Sant’Elia is currently launching his video-fumetti and narrative reels. The new vision is to plant seeds through each brief bit of content, which will hopefully mature offline, when the reader or consumer has a moment of calmer reflection. The aim is not instant depth, but cultivation. It may be an imperfect strategy, but in a collapsing ecosystem, inaction guarantees failure. Quality will continue to attract an audience. What is changing is not the need for meaning, but the route by which meaning reaches its public.

~ By Antonio Isernia

Essential Bibliography:
• Sant’Elia and Verre, Times Tale, Gagio Edizioni, 2024
• See, Il Mattino’s review of Timeless Tale: https://www.ilmattino.it/en/timeless_tale_echoes_of_tomorrow-8590814.html
• See, bibliographical information at publisher Gagio Edizioni: https://www.gagioedizioni.it/prod/timeless-tales-ricordi-di-domani/

Feast of Blessed Takayama Ukon at the Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Raritan, New Jersey

February, the Dark Threshold

Madonna di Montevergine, ora pro nobis

February arrives stripped of illusions. The year is no longer new, but it has not yet learned how to endure. Light returns reluctantly, thin and colorless, as if purified by cold rather than welcomed by warmth.

Candlemas reflects this tension. Flame is held against encroaching shadow. The Purification of the Blessed Virgin reminds us that holiness advances quietly, through obedience and endurance. At Montevergine, Our Lady stands as a sovereign presence in the mountain mist, severe and maternal at once.

It is also the month of blood and memory. St. Valentine, reduced by modernity to sugar and sentiment, remains first and last a martyr, bearing witness that love is proved only through sacrifice. For me, February is sealed by a more personal reckoning, the month my father passed from this world, leaving silence where authority once stood.

February does not console. It purifies. It teaches that love, faith, and lineage endure only by passing through darkness without complaint.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, January 31st, Feast of Beata Maria Cristina di Savoia

Saints of the Day for February

(L-R) Sant'Agata, Madonna di Lourdes, and Sant'Antonino di Sorrento

February is traditionally the month the Church dedicates to the Holy Family.

• February 1 — Novena to Santa Scolastica da Nursia
• February 1 — Feast of San Raimondo di Fitero
• February 2 — Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Candlemas)
• February 2 — Feast of the Madonna di Montevergine
• February 2 — Feast of the Madonna del Soccorso di Sciacca
• February 3 — Feast of San Biagio
• February 3 — Feast of St. Werburga of Mercia
• February 4 — Feast of Sant’Andrea Corsini
• February 4 — Feast of Santa Giovanna di Valois
• February 5 — Feast of Sant’Agata of Sicily
• February 5 — Novena to San Valentino Martire
• February 5 — Novena to Sant’Antonino di Sorrento
• February 6 — Feast of Beato Angelo da Furci
• February 6 — Feast of Santa Dorotea
• February 7 — Feast of San Lorenzo Maiorano
• February 7 — Feast of San Riccardo del Wessex
• February 7 — Feast of Sant'Egidio Maria di San Giuseppe
• February 7 — Feast of Beato Pio IX
• February 8 — Feast of San Giovanni de Matha
• February 9 — Feast of San Sabino Vescovo
• February 9 — Feast of San Corrado di Molfetta
• February 9 — Feast of Sant’Apollonia di Alessandria
• February 10 — Feast of Santa Scolastica da Nursia
• February 11 — Feast of the Madonna di Lourdes
• February 11 — Feast of San Severino di Agaune
• February 12 — Feast of San Giuliano L'Ospitaliere
• February 12 — Feast of Santa Eulàlia of Barcelona
• February 13 — Novena to Santa Margherita da Cortona
• February 13 — Feast of Beata Beatrice di Ornacieu
• February 14 — Feast of San Nostriano di Napoli
• February 14 — Feast of San Valentino Martire
• February 14 — Feast of Sant'Antonino di Sorrento
• February 14 — Feast of Santa Fortunata
• February 15 — Feast of San Claudio de la Colombière
• February 16 — Feast of Santa Giuliana di Nicomedia
• February 17 — Feast of the Santi Sette Fondatori dell'Ordine dei Servi di Maria
• February 18 — Feast of St. Bernadette Soubirous
• February 19 — Feast of Beata Elisabetta di Mantova
• February 20 — Feast of San Leone di Catania
• February 22 — Feast of the Chair of San Pietro Apostolo at Antioch
• February 22 — Feast of Santa Margherita da Cortona
• February 23 — Feast of San Pier Damiani
• February 24 — Beato Tommaso Maria Fusco
• February 25 — Feast of Santa Valburga
• February 26 — Novena to San Tommaso D'Aquino
• February 27 — Feast of San Gabriele dell’Addolorata
• February 27 — Feast of San Leandro di Siviglia

• February 28 — Feasts of Saints Romano di Condat and Lupicino Abate

Candlemas at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Jersey City, New Jersey

Snowed In, Finished at Last

Archival photograph by the author

Being snowed in for a few days in late January did something rare: it cleared the noise. With nowhere to go and no distractions to hide behind, I finally completed two longer pieces that had been lingering unfinished for far too long.

One is a romanzo di formazione—an account centered on an unexpected meeting with an old friend, a piece I’ve been carrying around, half-formed, for ages. The other is a short history of the Sanfedisti and the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799, a subject I’d long avoided finishing simply because of its density and complexity.

Finishing them felt less like triumph than relief—a weight quietly lifted after months of avoidance and delay.

Because both pieces matter to me more than most—and as I do with all longer work—I asked a couple of trusted friends to edit and proofread them. I’m eager to hear their thoughts and sift through their notes. With a bit of luck and their final touches, we’ll be publishing both here soon.

In Its Own Time

St. Cornelius, ora pro nobis

Among the personal items I had blessed by the Pope last October was a small pocket shrine of St. Cornelius. When I returned home from Rome and realized it was missing, I assumed the worst. I searched everywhere—pockets, bags, wallet—turning my luggage upside down. I even invoked St. Anthony, the last resort of the desperate, but nothing came of it.

Eventually, I accepted that it was gone for good. Life moved on. The search ended.

Then, three months later, without warning or explanation, it appeared—sitting plainly next to my computer, where it could not possibly have been overlooked. Gone, and then suddenly present. Lost, and returned, as if it had simply been waiting for the right moment to come back.

~ Giovanni di Napoli, January 30th, Feast of Santa Martina

This Year's Private Shrine to Beata Maria Cristina di Savoia, Queen of the Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies

Beata Maria Cristina, ora pro nobis

O God, You adorned Blessed Maria Cristina with diligent and wise charity, so that by her witness, she would contribute to the building up of Your Kingdom. Grant us also, by her example, to do good, drawing on the true riches of Your Love. Through our Lord Jesus, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen

Candlemas at St. Anthony of Padua Church in East Northport, New York

Three Million, Somehow

I’m told that reaching 3,000,000 visitors is a big deal. Friends insist on it. People who understand analytics assure me that I should pause and mark the occasion.

Noted.

Still, numbers flatter more than they explain. They can be padded, manipulated, and inflated.

What actually excites me is something quieter and harder to fake. In March, this site turns 17 years old.

Seventeen years of writing, thinking, arguing, refining, reposting, changing my mind, and occasionally getting it right. Seventeen years of watching blogs I admired appear with a flash of brilliance and disappear just as quickly. All while trends burned through themselves and moved on.

Longevity can’t be fudged. You’re either still here or you aren’t.

So yes—thank you to everyone who clicked, read, shared, lurked, or returned over the years. Three million is a milestone. Seventeen years is a testament.

And I know which one I’m prouder of.

A Quiet Toast to Faith, Empire, and Tradition: Celebrating the Feast of Beato Carlo Magno in NYC

A vintage Pernod absinthe poster presiding over the meal

After the traditional Latin Mass, we met a friend at a cozy Parisian-style bistro in Manhattan for a celebratory dinner in honor of the Feast of Beato Carlo Magno—Imperator Romanorum. Any excuse to celebrate our faith and culture—especially when it carries a monarchial lineage and includes la fée verte—is reason enough. Devoted to the Emperor, we settled into a table of excellent Gallic fare: pâté de campagne, confit de canard, steak au poivre, and boeuf bourguignon. A fitting feast for the great Pater Europae. Evviva Beato Carlo Magno!

Art Deco absinthe fountain and Pontarlier glass with absinthe spoon

Pâté de campagne

Confit de canard

Boeuf bourguignon

Steak au poivre

Basque cheesecake

Mousse au chocolat

Candlemas at the Church of the Sacred Heart in South Plainfield, New Jersey

Remembering S.A.R. Elisabetta delle Due Sicilie

2 February 1933 – 29 January 2022

In memory of S.A.R. Elisabetta delle Due Sicilie, Princess of Württemberg, Dowager Duchess of Calabria, Dame Grand Cross of Justice of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George, we pray for the happy repose of her soul.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Days of the Blackbird and the Coming of Persephone

Mythological Scene with the Rape of Persephone, early 1680s,
oil on canvas, Luca Giordano, The National Gallery

"Nature, as such, has become extinct in our century. Only in the art of previous centuries do we discover, to our astonishment, that nature is not just a simple physics experiment operated by industrious little organisms." ~ Nicolás Gómez Dávila, The Authentic Reactionary

In Italy, the last three days of January (29th-31st) are known as I giorni della merla or the days of the blackbird. Rooted in folklore, it refers to a number of old legends about a family of blackbirds and the coming of spring. In the Anglosphere, it is often referred to as Italy’s cousin to Groundhog Day. Continue reading

Festa Liturgica della Beata Maria Cristina di Savoia

In Castellana Grotte (BA)

Sal Buscema, 1936–2026

Sal Buscema (born Silvio Buscema), one of the great craftsmen of American comic art, passed away on January 24, 2026, two days before his 90th birthday. A first-generation Sicilian American from Brooklyn, Sal was part of a wave of New York–based artists who helped define the visual language of Marvel Comics during its formative years.

He was the younger brother of the legendary John Buscema (1927–2002), and together they formed one of the most influential sibling pairs in comics history. While John was often celebrated for his grandeur and classical power, Sal’s work was marked by clarity, discipline, and an almost architectural command of sequential storytelling. His long runs—especially on The Spectacular Spider-Man—taught generations of readers how comics were meant to flow.

I read their comics as a kid and admired the work for many years. Looking back, it’s clear that what they shared was not just talent, but a seriousness about the craft.

Sal Buscema leaves behind a formidable body of work, defined by strength, discipline, and a mastery of visual composition that helped shape the medium itself. He is survived by his wife and three sons.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli

Remembering Papal Zouave Philippe Marie Jean de Vassal-Cadillac

Philippe Marie Jean de Vassal-Cadillac

Born on August 14, 1850, Philippe Marie Jean de Vassal-Cadillac joined the Papal Zouaves in February 1868 at the age of 18. He was promoted to Sergeant in November 1869. 

The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July, 1870 led France to enact a conscription. Jean was one of those conscripted so he was forced to resign from the unit in August 1870.

Jean became Sergeant Fournier in the French Mobiles and was then promoted to Lieutenant in the 119th Line Infantry Regiment.

During the 2nd Battle of Dijon on December 18, 1870, he received two gunshot wounds and was seriously injured. Never truly recovering, he died in Angers on January 28, 1873.

The above portrait comes from my personal collection and once belonged to the Vassal-Cadillac family.

Archduchess Maria Theresa

On the back is an additional portrait of the Countess of Chambord Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, the wife of legitimist French King, Henry V.

I also have Jeaan's Papal Zouave Manual Prayer Book. Page 117 is circled which includes a prayer of thanksgiving after Communion and instructions on how to receive an indulgence.

Below is the translation.

ACT OF KINDNESS    

The tenderest and most generous of friends! what could now separate me from you, after you have given me such touching proof of your love? Ah! I renounce with all my heart what had taken me away from you; and I propose, with the help of your grace, to fall no more into faults which have so often afflicted your heart. 

Papal Zouave Manual prayer book

Those who, after going to confession and after receiving Holy Communion, recite the following Prayer before an image of the Crucifix, can gain a plenary indulgence and deliver a soul from purgatory.  (Pius VII, April 10, 1821.)

O good and sweetest Jesus, before Thy face I humbly kneel, and with all fervour of soul I pray and beseech Thee to vouchsafe to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, and charity, true contrition for my sins, and a most firm purpose of amendment; whilst I contemplate with great sorrow and love Thy five Wounds, and ponder them over in my mind, having before my eyes the words which, long ago, David the prophet spoke in his own person concerning Thee, my Jesus: Foderunt manus Meas et pedes Meos; dinumeraverunt omnia ossa Mea.*

Five Paters and five Aves are then said, for the ordinary intentions of the Holy Church, to receive the plenary indulgence.

By Brendan Cassell (Papal Zouave History @PapalZouaveUS)

* They dug My hands and My feet; they numbered all My bones.

Remembering Henri du Vergier, Comte de la Rochejaquelein

The Death of Henri de La Rochejaquelein by Alexandre Bloch

"Friends, if I advance, follow me! If I retreat, kill me! If I die, avenge me!" ~ Henri du Vergier de la Rochejaquelein

In memory of Henri du Vergier, Comte de la Rochejaquelein (30 August 1772 – 28 January 1794), Généralissime of the Catholic and Royal Army during the wars in the Vendée, we pray for the happy repose of his soul. 

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

Feast of St. Francis de Sales at the Oratory of St. Josaphat in Bayside, New York

Who Are the Real LARPers?

The Crown Jewels, 1887, by Blaise Desgoffe. The painting depicts the Crown
of King Louis XV and the sword of Blessed Emperor Charlemagne

Whenever we meet new people and certain views come to light, familiar questions tend to arise. The same is true for new readers here. It's worth addressing the most pertinent ones directly.

How would you respond to critics who claim that monarchists are disconnected from political reality, or merely sentimental idealists lost in a historical fantasy?

In the popular imagination, to be a monarchist today is often to be dismissed as a LARPer—a dreamer lost in romantic pageantry, acting out in a world that has “progressed.” Monarchists are mocked as quixotic fantasists with no real grasp of political reality. And yet, what appears more delusional: the sober recognition that order, hierarchy, and transcendence form the pillars of any enduring civilization, or the misguided belief that democracy, equality, and progress can build a coherent and lasting society?

The modern liberal state rests upon several articles of faith: that all men are equal, that history moves inexorably toward greater freedom and enlightenment, and that the rule of the many is wiser and more just than the rule of the one. Long treated as self-evident truths, these assumptions now reveal their failures. Egalitarianism produces resentment rather than harmony. Democracy devolves into a procedural contest of interests, easily manipulated by oligarchic forces. “Progress” increasingly serves as a euphemism for the managed decline of culture, authority, and meaning itself.

The monarchist’s worldview does not promise utopia; it promises continuity. Authority is not invented but inherited, sanctified, and exercised within limits set by divine or natural law. Unlike the faceless bureaucrat or the demagogic party functionary, the monarch embodies a sacrificial function, bearing the burden of political and spiritual order as a duty and offering for the common good. He does not reign to flatter the mob or manage opinion, but to stand as a visible link between the people and the transcendent. His authority is not absolute, but symbolic of a higher order, which is precisely what modernity has severed in its hubris.

The liberal order, in contrast, suffers from a curious schizophrenia. It insists that all hierarchies are arbitrary, while simultaneously enthroning technocratic elites; it preaches tolerance while engaging in cultural erasure; it claims to liberate the individual while dissolving all bonds of tradition, place, and faith that give individual life meaning.

Who then is the LARPer? The man who looks to the past for the principles that built civilization—or the one who acts out the fantasy that mankind, newly unmoored from faith and culture, can invent a just society ex nihilo (from nothing, as if by sheer will alone) through votes, slogans, and algorithms?

Monarchism is not a “LARP.” It is the political expression of metaphysical realism. It is an acknowledgment that man is fallen, that power must be based in tradition, and that legitimacy cannot be manufactured but must be transmitted. To believe otherwise requires not only delusion, but faith in illusions that, after centuries of trial, no longer even pretend to work.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, January 26th, Feasts of Sant’Alberico di Cîteaux and Santa Paola Romana

Holy Hour at Saint John Vianney Church in Colonia, New Jersey

Photo of the Week: Marble Portrait Bust of Emperor Hadrian, Vatican Museum

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Feast of St. Blaise at St. Mary of Mt. Virgin Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey

Ponderable Quote from The Making of Italy by Patrick Keyes O’Clery

Written in 1892, this passage from The Making of Italy by Patrick Keyes O’Clery offers a contemporary Catholic critique of post-unification Italy, exposing the social and economic costs hidden beneath liberal slogans of “freedom.” O’Clery’s account captures how dispossession, militarization, taxation, and emigration defined the lived reality of Italians—especially in the South—under the new national regime.

"Besides making the soldiers live at free quarters on the people, another expedient was the more ordinary one of selling their lands and goods. Year after year these were thrown on the market in such numbers as to bring very low prices, while the unfortunate owners left the country:— year after year the tide of emigration from Italy has increased. But the Italian is told he is free. It is true he is still subject to arbitrary arrest, to imprisonment in which he waits wearily for trial, and to domiciliary visits; it is true that the press is liable to State prosecutions and suppression, and that "order" is guaranteed by an active gendarmerie, who are not over-scrupulous in their proceedings. The Italian will say he had all this under some at least of the old governments. But the Government of United Italy gives him more than this. He no longer sees the monastery looking down upon his village, but he has the secularist school, he can travel by railway (though it is true he sometimes looks in vain for a good road to it), he has the privilege of spending some years in barracks under the law of compulsory military service; instead of the various metallic coinages of the old States, he has one uniform currency of dirty paper, and as the value of this paper fluctuates, and it would be difficult to state prices both in coin and paper, the shopkeepers are saved the trouble by there being scarcely as much as a franc piece in circulation. Finally, the free Italian has the advantage of paying a tax on everything he touches or possesses. It is lamentable that in some parts of Italy all these advantages were not always appreciated as they should be. The Sicilians especially behaved badly. They had an unpleasant habit of shooting the tax-collector, and taking to the hills as brigands, where the bersaglieri hopelessly attempted to hunt them down." (pp. 366-367)