The Black Madonna

Some time ago, I decided that my religious ravings at my other blog, The Black Republican, were getting a little too Catholic for my own taste. On that site, I may talk about anything at any particular time, but TBR always returns to issues of politics and culture as they are tinged by prejudice and racism. While there's nothing inconsistent in this day and age about being both Republican and Catholic, when I talk about the Faith there it feels like I'm trying to do too much in too small a space. The Catholic "angle" is overload, and detracts somewhat from the intended topic.

So I eventually decided to start another blog, and Ex Parte Fide was born. Naturally - as nothing good is ever easy - new problems arose. Actually, two interconnected problems: other than reflections about my Catholic faith, I wasn't sure what the new blog was about; and as a result, I tended not to post much, when I posted at all.

Several times, I thought of shutting this space down, as it was too underused. Even when I finally found something to say, I would feel compelled to post in both places, so that readers of TBR wouldn't be left wondering what I was thinking about some religion-inspired issue. Of course, that simply defeats the purpose of having a separate blog. Things were definitely spiraling downward.

But Our Lord had other plans. Pope John Paul II was due for a promotion (one day to Saint John Paul the Great, perhaps), and finally succumbed to the strain of his illnesses and an amazing and arduous 26 years on the throne of St. Peter. My interest in posting something to the religious blog increased, but I still wasn't sure what to say. I wanted to comment on my personal favorite to be the new pope, Francis Cardinal Arinze, a strongly orthodox bishop from Nigeria, but that would be unseemly before his election, wouldn't it? Yet, how our Holy Mother Church would be blessed by showing the world that the love of Our Lord knows no color! Besides, I reasoned, it's not like the College will choose someone too well-known and too orthodox, like Joseph Ratzinger....

As pope, I believed Cardinal Arinze would cause quite a stir with the press and the world, as they tried to grasp why Catholicism didn't feel scandalized by the selection. Surely Europe, of all places, can't embrace such an image... right?

The answer to that question is revealed in the faces of the mother and Child now adorning the masthead of this site. While I knew well of the Catholic tradition of veneration of The Black Madonna, and that inspirational thought drove me to look more closely into a new companion site for TBR, I must admit I'd forgotten that the monastery of perhaps the most famous of these Madonnas (Our Lady of Czestochowa) is in Jasna Gora, Poland. This would be the perfect complement to The Black Republican, I thought: a site that honors both our dear departed Holy Father, a new Holy Father from an unexpected place, and last but certainly not least, operating under the gaze one of the oldest and most beloved images of Our Lady.

As everyone knows by now, Our Lord surprised me again. My joy at the election of His Holiness Benedict XVI is almost beyond description, but some of our friends in the media world have apparently decided that Germany is enough of an unexpected place for them, and have generated some rather dark (though sometimes humorous) caricatures of him.

I know the Holy Catholic Church is "ready for a black pope". But I'd forgotten that perhaps the rest of the world might not be - some still aren't ready for any pope at all. This site will be devoted to the task of that preparation, and so we dedicate our work here to Our Lady of Czestochowa, that she might sway the hearts of the unready.