Militantis Ecclesiae.
Leo XIII, ora pro nobis. Pius X, ora pro nobis.
Michael, Archangele, voca nos ad proelium.
Deus misereatur improbis; ego non miserebor.
At West Point, George Custer and Thomas Rosser were close friends. Custer was the class clown from Ohio who racked up demerits. Rosser was a big, tough Texan everyone liked. They pulled pranks together and spent their free time together.
In May 1861, just weeks before graduation, Rosser resigned and went south to join the Confederacy. Custer graduated last in his class and went straight into the Union army.
Over the next three years both men rose fast. By 1864, at just 24 and 28, both were cavalry generals.
And in October 1864, they found themselves facing each other in the Shenandoah Valley.
Rosser had been sent to stop Union cavalry from burning the valley. He'd been calling himself the "Savior of the Valley" and was hounding Custer's rear guard every day.
On October 9th at Tom's Brook, the two old friends lined up across from each other.
Before the fight started, Custer spotted Rosser through his field glasses. He rode out alone in front of his men, swept off his hat, and bowed to his old classmate.
Then he charged.
Rosser's line collapsed. His men fled so fast and so far that Union troops nicknamed it the "Woodstock Races." The chase went on for roughly 20 miles.
Custer's men captured Rosser's headquarters wagon, including his personal baggage and his dress uniform.
So Custer put it on.
He wore Rosser's Confederate coat around camp, then sent his friend a note across the lines. He thanked him for the gift and asked if Rosser could have his tailor make the coattails a little shorter next time.
The war ended six months later, and the friendship survived it.
In 1873, Rosser was chief engineer for the Northern Pacific Railroad, surveying a route through the Yellowstone country. The cavalry escort assigned to protect his crews was the 7th Cavalry, led by Custer. The two old friends spent that summer together on the plains, swapping stories around the campfire.
Three years later, Custer was killed at the Little Bighorn.
As the newspapers started picking apart his decisions, one of the loudest voices defending him was the former Confederate general he'd once humiliated at Tom's Brook.
Thomas Rosser stood up for his friend until the end.
As we move into these troubling times, not for one moment should you wonder, "Lord, why me?"
Instead, thank the Lord and remember these words. "This is my purpose".
Turncoat @RepThomasMassie has officially filed articles of impeachment against the greatest @SecWar in history, @PeteHegseth. Massie is the Benedict Arnold of our generation. I am utterly disgusted by him.
Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic.
🇺🇸
On the timeline, I constantly see people posting, “When will the Catholic Church help the West?” and “When will Pope Leo XIV call a crusade?”
While I admit that Medieval history isn’t my speciality, I still think a quick history lesson is in order.
You have to remember that Christian lands in the Levant were under attack for more than four centuries before any coordinated response emerged. Beginning with the conquests of the seventh century, Roman territory, churches, monasteries, pilgrimage routes, citizens and pilgrims faced attack and occupation.
Even so, the Catholic Church did not launch a crusade just because Christians were suffering.
Even after much of the Middle East and Anatolia were conquered in the eleventh century and reports of attacks on pilgrims and Eastern Christians reached the West, Rome still did not intervene, even though Christians were suffering.
It was only when the Eastern Roman Emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, formally appealed to Pope Urban II for military aid in March of 1095 that Pope Urban II called the First Crusade in November at the Council of Clermont in France.
Christians are under attack again today, prompting some to ask again, why won’t the Catholic Church save Western Civilisation?
Because modern secular states will never call upon Pope Leo XIV for aid — military or otherwise — because doing so would mean admitting that only the Catholic Church has the power to save them. Doing so would be an admission that the Bishop of Rome is still the most powerful man on earth, because with a word, he can rally tens of millions of men and women to his cause.
But the sobering reality is this. We need an inquisition before we need a crusade, and when it is called, it will not be in distant lands but against ourselves.
Nuclear family is a failed, secular convention. It has destroyed family bonds and the strength that family once provided. Multi-generational households should return to being the norm, as they provide both individual as well as evolutionary advantage.
We have grandparents for a reason, when other animals do not. We got the nuclear family, and grandparents get to die lonely, abused, and unutilized in nursing homes. This is a stark shift from human evolutionary trajectory, and it isn't a healthy one. Socialist government will never be able to replace family, no matter how hard it tries or how many publicly funded alternatives it offers.