Photo of the Week: The Apollo Belvedere, Vatican Museum

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Celebrazione del 165° Anniversario della fine dell'Assedio di Gaeta del 1860-61

 In Gaeta

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

This passage, drawn from the reflections of Félix Dupanloup, preserved in The Making of Italy (1882) by Patrick Keyes O’Clery, records a firsthand Catholic witness to the cultural and spiritual devastation wrought by Italian unification. Through the fate of the Neapolitan Chartreuse, Dupanloup exposes how the rhetoric of “progress” masked the stripping away of worship, learning, beauty, and living religious presence—leaving structures intact but their soul extinguished.

"I saw at Naples," said Mgr. Dupanloup, "the celebrated Chartreuse, that admirable monastery which all Europe has visited on that beautiful mountain in front of Vesuvius and that glistening sea. Formerly a gentle and benevolent monk received the traveller, offered him refreshment, and showed him over the monastery with kindness and intelligence. Now a rough soldier receives you, and conducts you over the place, making ridiculous efforts to make his bad French understood. Instead of the magnificent library, which has been carried off and thrown no one knows where, they have placed there a shop of Venetian glass and painted crockery. Such is the progress of civilization! Of the thirty-two monks who were there, two only have been permitted to remain, who wander sadly in the solitude of their desecrated and desolate cloisters. No longer do the praises of God rise up to heaven in hymns and spiritual songs; the choir is deserted. No venerable white-robed monks remain to walk majestically under those magnificent porticoes, or to rise and pray during the splendour of those Neapolitan nights for the great and populous city sleeping at the foot of the holy mountain. Thus had religion, poetry, and art sanctified all the heights, all the valleys, and all the most beautiful sites of this lovely Italy. On all sides prayer and praise in uninterrupted accents rose up to the throne of God. In its solitary places, as in its cities, the soul of man found everywhere holy shelters for lives of love and disinterested charity, for tranquil study or for the devotion and self-abnegation of the apostolate. All these noble creations of Catholic faith on this Christian soil have disappeared or are disappearing. The walls are not yet all cast down, but their soul is gone. Life is extinct. They have left neither religion, nor poetry, nor art, nor truth—nothing!" (pp. 378-379)

Quinquagesima Sunday at St. Michael's Church in Staten Island, New York

The King in the Mountain and the Patience of Authority

The Lamentation of King Arthur or King Arthur Carried to the Land on Enchantment by William Bell Scott (1811-1890)

Previous: The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and the Discipline of Waiting

If the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus concerns the discipline of the faithful under persecution, the European motif of the King in the Mountain addresses the withdrawal of legitimate authority from a world no longer capable of receiving it. Together, the two form a coherent Christian understanding of time—one that recognizes not only the preservation of faith through waiting, but the suspension of sovereignty itself when order collapses.

Where the Seven Sleepers retreat in order to survive, the King in the Mountain withdraws because authority, when severed from order, ceases to act as such. The king does not perish, nor is he truly overthrown. He recedes. His absence is not failure but power held in reserve until it may once again be exercised without distortion.

Federico II di Svevia leads five thousand
knights into the fiery crater of Mount Etna

In Southern Italy, the figure most often associated with this motif is Frederick II, Stupor Mundi, emperor and king of Sicily, whom medieval legend placed not in a tomb but within Mount Etna (Mongibello) itself. There, beneath the mountain, Frederick II was imagined as a sovereign withholding himself from a disordered age.

This tradition was not limited to imperial figures alone. Medieval romance literature also placed King Arthur beneath Mount Etna. There he was said to dwell under the care of Morgan le Fay, the Fata Morgana (Fairy Morgana), not as a defeated king, but as one withdrawn from the world, preserved in enchantment until the proper hour.

In the Sicilian imagination, Etna thus became a shared locus of suspended sovereignty—imperial and legendary alike—where rightful authority was hidden rather than extinguished.

Contemporary politics presumes that legitimacy must constantly assert itself—through visibility, action, and consent. The older Christian intuition was austere: when authority is rejected, it does not acquiesce—it withdraws. Like the faith preserved by the holy youths of Ephesus, sovereignty abides intact outside the churn of history, awaiting a time when it may once again be exercised without sacrilege.

Seen in this light, the King in the Mountain is not a promise of imminent restoration. It is a warning. Authority, like faith, cannot be manufactured by agitation, nostalgia, or procedural imitation. Both must sometimes endure absence. Both must wait.

For the traditional Catholic today, this completes the lesson begun by the Seven Sleepers. We inherit not only a faith that survives through patience, but the memory of a legitimacy that has withdrawn because the world has lost the capacity for order. Our task is therefore twofold: to preserve belief without illusion, and to honor authority even in its absence.

The Seven Sleepers awaken when the world can recognize the faith. The King in the Mountain returns only when the world has recovered order. Neither can be forced. Both depend upon an order not of our making.

Until then, fidelity waits. Authority waits. And history is permitted to exhaust itself.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, February 6th, Feasts of Beato Angelo da Furci and Santa Dorotea

The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and the Discipline of Waiting

Seven papier-mâché sculptures depicting the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus inside the Cappella Pisacane in Angri, Salerno. Photo courtesy of Visit Angri

Next: The King in the Mountain and the Patience of Authority

The medieval legend of the Seven Sleepers—most classically associated with the cave of Ephesus—held a quiet but persistent resonance throughout Christendom. Far from being a marginal curiosity, the tale expressed something deeply consonant with the faith’s traditional understanding of time, endurance, and divine sovereignty.

According to the legend, seven Christian youths, fleeing imperial persecution, fall into a miraculous, Epimenidean sleep and awaken centuries later in a Christianized world. Medieval Christians understood this not as fantasy but as a manifestation of God's providence: empires rise and fall, persecutions pass, but the faith abides intact, waiting to reemerge when the time is ripe.

19th-century engraving, Chatterbox (1888)

For modern traditionalist Catholics, the legend is no mere relic of medieval piety—it is a mirror. The youths who slept through centuries of persecution and decay did not preserve the faith by agitation, managerial reform, or accommodation. They endured by withdrawal, fidelity, and trust that history moves according to God’s hour, not man’s impatience.

Today’s traditional Catholics inhabit a world that has largely apostatized. Institutions persist, but belief has thinned into sentiment or ideology; language remains, but its meaning is hollowed out. The temptation to force renewal through politics, activism, or restless innovation is constant. The Seven Sleepers offer a more exacting lesson: preservation precedes restoration.

Catholics long understood this in practice. When order collapsed, or authority grew hostile, the faithful conserved form—liturgy, custom, hierarchy, rhythm—often quietly, often in marginal spaces, waiting without illusion. Survival was not glamorous, but it was real.

From a traditionalist perspective, our task is analogous. We are not called to “win” the age, but to outlast it. To keep the faith intact while the surrounding civilization exhausts itself. This requires restraint, patience, and an acceptance of obscurity—virtues modernity despises.

The Seven Sleepers awaken not when they choose, but when the world is once again capable of receiving them. So too with us. Renewal will not come from noise or speed, but from fidelity preserved under pressure. The proper hour is not ours to declare. Our obligation is simpler and more austere: to remain asleep to false urgencies, awake to truth, and ready—when God, not history, calls us to rise.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, February 5th, Feast of Sant’Agata of Sicily

Feast of Our Lady Lezajsk at the Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Raritan, New Jersey

Simple Pleasures — Celebrating the Feast of Sant'Agata with Delicious Cream-Filled Pastries

What better way to celebrate the Feast of Sant’Agata than with traditional cream-filled pastries in her honor? Yes, your eyes do not deceive you—they are shaped like breasts. Patron saint of women with breast cancer, rape victims, and wet nurses, Saint Agatha was brutally tortured and had her breasts cut off for taking a vow of chastity and rejecting the advances of a powerful Roman patrician. Sant’Agata, ora pro nobis.

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes at Corpus Christi Church in South River, New Jersey

Six Degrees of Separation from Naples

The Tavola Strozzi, depicting a panoramic view of medieval Naples,
 attributed to Francesco Rosselli (c. 1472-1473)

My affection for Naples has become a running joke among my non-Neapolitan friends. They tease me by exaggerating my enthusiasm to the point of absurdity and mockingly attributing Neapolitan origins or influence to the most unlikely things—snow cones, shoehorns, roller coasters, and anything else at hand. My response is always the same: give me enough time, and I will find the connection. Especially if the object in question is something I deem worthy of serious consideration.

What began as a joke gradually revealed itself as something closer to a principle. Early in my studies, I realized how often Naples appeared at decisive moments in the history of the West. Philosophical schools, legal traditions, religious developments, musical forms, political experiments, scientific inquiry, culinary traditions, and aesthetic sensibilities all seemed, sooner or later, to pass through the city or to be shaped by those who lived there, ruled it, or were educated within its orbit. Naples didn't just receive history; it absorbed, transformed, and redistributed it.

In my mind, the city functions less like a provincial capital and more like a nexus. Greek foundations, Roman administration, Byzantine continuity, Norman ambition, imperial governance, and Spanish grandeur layered themselves on top of one another without ever fully erasing what came before. The result was not chaos, but depth—a concentration of ideas, disciplines, and forms that radiated outward across centuries. To study Naples is to study how culture moves, develops, and endures.

Consider law. Naples maintained a continuous tradition of classical legal education long after it had faded elsewhere. This tradition passed through Byzantine administration, was reorganized under Norman rule, and achieved full institutional form under the Hohenstaufen emperors. The University of Naples—founded by Frederick II explicitly to train imperial administrators—became the first state university in Europe, producing jurists whose education shaped legal practice across the Kingdom and beyond.

This is why the “six degrees” joke persists. With enough patience, the connections do emerge. What at first appears fanciful often turns out to be layered history waiting to be uncovered. The laughter wanes once the pattern becomes clear. Naples is a conduit, a crucible, and a bridge between antiquity and modernity. The city’s importance to Western civilization is not a matter of oikophilia or romantic attachment, but of fundamental significance. Naples is everywhere because, in a very real sense, it has long been an indispensable place through which ideas and cultures have historically passed.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, February 3rd, Feasts of San Biagio and St. Werburga of Mercia

New Book — History of Sicily: When the Sea Stacked Civilizations Like Stones

A new title that may be of interest to our readers. Available at Amazon.com

• History of Sicily: When the Sea Stacked Civilizations Like Stones by Kenny Draft

Publisher: Independently published
Publication date: January 12, 2026
Paperback: $10.99
Kindle: $5.99
Language: English
Pages: 59

Read description

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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.