Alternate histories posit Ulysses S. Grant was the last valid American president in 1871 and Pius XII the last valid Catholic pope in 1958

If real history is said to repeat itself, perhaps there is no reason that conspiratorial alternative histories shouldn’t either.

Some members of American sovereign citizen movements and QAnon believe Donald Trump will be “re-inaugurated” on March 4 as the 19th president of a “restored” United States of America. Others of us apparently mistakenly believe Trump served validly, if treasonably, as the 45th president from Jan. 20, 2017 to Jan. 20, 2021.

Prices to rent a room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C on March 4 have been hiked to $1,331, more than double the $596 price for a guest room for most of that month and nearly triple the lowest cost.

“They believe that March 4, 2021 is the start for the new Republic. March 4 was the start date of the new President until it was changed in 1933,” Marc-André Argentino, a researcher who studies QAnon, tweeted on Jan. 13.

The basis of the sovereign citizen movements and QAnon claim comes from the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871, which established D.C. as a municipal corporation that is organized as a federal territory, but which they believe didn’t just create a municipal corporation, it turned the United States into a corporation, which apparently is secretly controlled by international bankers and so forth. In reality, the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 simply repealed the individual charters of the City of Washington and the City of Georgetown and established a new territorial government for the entire District of Columbia. By doing this, they created a single municipal government or municipal corporation.

Not good enough for the sovereign citizen movements and QAnon, who now claim every president after 1871, when the incumbent was Ulysses S. Grant, who has led the Union Army a few years earlier as commanding general of the United States Army in winning the American Civil War, and later became the 18th president on March 4, 1869, was illegitimate. Does that mean Donald Trump was a poser between 2017 and 2021?

Soon after taking office Grant took steps to return the nation’s currency to a more secure footing, including committing the United States to the full return to the gold standard within 10 years. During the Civil War, Congress had authorized the Treasury to issue banknotes that, unlike the rest of the currency, were not backed by gold or silver. The “greenback” notes, as they were known, were necessary to pay the unprecedented war debts, but they also caused inflation and forced gold-backed money out of circulation; Grant was determined to return the national economy to pre-war monetary standards.

On March 18, 1869, he signed the Public Credit Act of 1869 that guaranteed bondholders would be repaid in “coin or its equivalent”, while greenbacks would gradually be redeemed by the Treasury and replaced by notes backed by specie. This followed a policy of “hard currency, economy and gradual reduction of the national debt.” The classical gold standard existed from the 1870s to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. “In the first part of the 19th century, once the turbulence caused by the Napoleonic Wars had subsided,” says the London-based World Gold Council, “money consisted of either specie (gold, silver or copper coins) or of specie-backed bank issue notes. However, originally only the UK and some of its colonies were on a gold standard, joined by Portugal in 1854. Other countries were usually on a silver or, in some cases, a bimetallic standard.

“In 1871, the newly unified Germany, benefiting from reparations paid by France following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, took steps which essentially put it on a gold standard. The impact of Germany’s decision, coupled with the then economic and political dominance of the UK and the attraction of accessing London’s financial markets, was sufficient to encourage other countries to turn to gold. However, this transition to a pure gold standard, in some opinions, was more based on changes in the relative supply of silver and gold. Regardless, by 1900 all countries apart from China, and some Central American countries, were on a gold standard. This lasted until it was disrupted by the First World War. Periodic attempts to return to a pure classical Gold Standard were made during the inter-war period, but none survived past the 1930s Great Depression.

“During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one ounce of gold cost $20.67 in the United States and ₤4.24 in the U.K.,” Michael Klein, professor of International Economic Affairs at the Fletcher School of Tufts University, just outside Boston, wrote last year.”

This meant that someone could convert one British pound to $4.86 and vice versa.

“Countries on the gold standard – which included all major industrial countries during the system’s heyday from 1871 to 1914 – had a fixed price for an ounce of gold and thus a fixed exchange rate with others who used the system,” writes Klein. “They kept the same gold peg throughout the period.

The gold standard stabilized currency values and, in so doing, promoted trade and investment.

Sovereign citizen movements and QAnon believe the U.S. has been run by a group of shadowy investors since 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the gold standard. The date of presidential inaugurations was also changed from March 4 to Jan. 20 in 1933.

When it comes to questioning the legitimacy and validity of its number one office holder, some who identify as Catholics long ago had a head start on those from sovereign citizen movements and QAnon waiting for a “re-inaugurated” Donald Trump on March 4 to become president of a “restored” United States of America.

A minority group within the traditionalist movement, sedevacantists claim the Holy See has been vacant, due to the Roman Catholic Church’s espousal of what they see as the heresy of Modernism and that, for lack of a valid pope, the Holy See has been vacant since the death of Pope Venerable Pius XII on Oct. 9, 1958.  The term “sedevacantism” is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which literally means “with the chair [of Saint Peter] vacant.” Sedevacantism as a term in English appears to date from the 1980s.

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From Antipope Hippolytus to Saint Hippolytus: Today marks the memorial of the first antipope and the only antipope to eventually become a canonized saint

For years now, Jeanette as had a really cool mobile app (cool that is to an eccentric at times and eclectic at all times Catholic history nerd like me) for her Apple iPhone called Saint of the Day, which is a product of Franciscan Media in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was started by the Franciscan Friars in 1893 with St. Anthony Messenger magazine.

Back around about 2010 or 2011 probably when I convinced Jeanette, an Anglican, to purchase the app for $2.99, or something like that at the time, I assured her it would be a worthwhile investment. This was at a time when free apps were starting to flood the market (the first generation iPhones had been introduced by Apple in the American market only several years earlier on June 29, 2007, and Jeanette purchased an iPhone 4 in June 2010, the same month they were released.)

Jeanette noted it was easy for me, the Catholic, to say, as it wasn’t my $2.99 being shelled out, as I didn’t even have a smartphone. At the risk of digressing – I do now, namely Jeanette’s old iPhone4, which would have been her new one back then – but it is not connected to my MTS telephone or Shaw Internet network providers now, so I can’t use it to listen to Saint of the Day, but I do use the old smartphone some, mainly for its camera and calculator applications, less frequently as a voice recorder, and rarely as a Big Ben alarm chime wake-up.

In any event, digression aside, I think history as proved that at least on this occasion, I spent someone else’s money well, and the Saint of the Day app, upgraded at least once over the last six years, if not more often, and has proven itself to be a sound $2.99 investment.

The Saint of the Day for Aug. 13 is Saint Hippolytus, the only person to make the journey from being an antipope to canonized saint.

Antipopes are pretenders to the Chair of Peter, who set themselves up in opposition to the legitimately canonically elected pontiff, frequently exercising pontifical functions in defiance of the legitimate occupant heading the Holy See. Sound pretty straight forward? No so much. Take Pope Gregory XII, who resigned at the request of the Council of Constance on July 4, 1415 to help end the Great Western Schism, and until Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI announced his resignation Feb. 11, 2013, had been the last pope to resign some 600 years ago. The schism had actually begun some 37 years earlier in 1378, and over the course of the next three and more decades, saw two papal claimants, and later three, vying for supremacy over the medieval church in a papal dance that stretched from Avignon in France to Rome in Italy, and eventually saw the not only Pope Gregory XII resign, but also two papal impostors, the contenders,  Antipope Benedict XIII and Antipope John XXIII (not to be confused, of course, with St. John XXIII, who was pope from 1958 to 1963), paving the way for Pope Martin V in 1417, the first pope in almost 40 years to be able to command the allegiance of the whole Latin Church.

Cardinal Joseph Hergenröther, the first cardinal-prefect of the Vatican Archives, has enumerated a total of 30 antipopes between Antipope Hippolytus in 217 and Antipope Felix V, whose regnal name was Amadeus of Savoy, and was the last of the papal schismatics, whose pretension to the Chair of Peter ended in 1449. Hippolytus was a brilliant theologian and is considered a Church Father. He wrote treatises against several of the heresies afflicting the Church in the late second and early third centuries – most of them Trinitarian or Christological – “as early Christians sometimes struggled to discern the correct terminology to apply to the apostolic teaching that Jesus was true God and true man,” notes Steve Weidenkopf, a lecturer of church history at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College in Alexandria, Virginia, in the bog Catholic Answers (http://www.catholic.com/blog/steve-weidenkopf/the-antipope-who-became-a-saint).

In particular, Hippolytus was frustrated by Pope Zephyrinus’ slowness to “make a quick and authoritative decision concerning the heresy known as Modalism,” Weidenkopf writes. Modalism, known also as Monarchianism and Sabellianism, blurred the distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, positing that these were just different modes of one divine person. To a Modalist, God the Father appeared on earth in the mode of Jesus Christ, God the Son. When Pope Callistus I succeeded Pope Zephyrinus in 217 and showed no more inclination than his predecessor in dispatching the Modalism heresy, Hippolytus was so angered he claimed Callistus was unworthy of the office due to his checkered past, when as a young slave, some believed, he had embezzled his master’s money, Hippolytus gathered a group of followers who elected him pope. In so doing Hippolytus, opened the door to the concept of the antipope, which reached its height during the Great Western Schism of 14th century. As for Modalism, it would eventually be declared a heresy by Pope St. Dionysius circa 262.

Hippolytus’ schism lasted for 19 years, Weidenkopf says, “and through three pontificates. “As a rigorist who did not believe that serious sinners should be re-admitted to communion in the Church,” Hippolytus also refused to accept the more-merciful approach of Pope Callistus I and his successors.

However, when Maximinus Thrax, also known as Maximinus I, became Roman Emperor in 235, he resumed persecution of Christians, particularly clergy, and both Antipope Hippolytus, and Pope Pontian, who had also been elected in 230, were arrested and sent to the mines on the island of Sardinia.

Amidst the suffering and hardship of the mines, Hippolytus renounced his schism and papal claim and was reconciled to the Church by Pontian.

Both men later succumbed to the harsh conditions, and their remains were transported for burial in Rome, where they were recognized as martyrs and saints of the Church.

And if you happened to guess today is also the memorial of Saint Pontian, you guessed right.

So the Roman Catholic Church’s Saint of the Day for Aug. 13 is actually saints plural: Saints Pontian and Hippolytus.

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Hello from Canada, Lithuania: Where art thou, Romania?

I used to think for a writer I was at least marginally tech savvy. After all I was hired as the managing editor of The Kingston Net-Times, a short-lived online local daily “newspaper” experiment of sorts, way back in November 1996. That makes me a so-called “early adopter” – doesn’t it? Maybe not so much. How do I know that? I wrote a soundingsjohnbarker (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/) blog post on March 7 headlined “Tipping points and blogging by the numbers” (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/tipping-points-and-blogging-by-the-numbers/) where I observed that “on an ordinary day, readers in about a dozen or more countries around the globe read what I have written here. The makeup of the countries changes somewhat but the overall number of 12 or slightly more on a daily basis, has been the same almost from the beginning. It doesn’t go up or down much.”

Well, here’s my mea culpa. It actually just appears stuck at 13. Why is that? The WordPress format I am using for my statistics page will only “display” 13 countries, as it has to find sufficient room to display other categories below “VIEWS BY COUNTRY.” The square box format on that area of the stats page makes that accommodation work across from the countries display (I’ve always loved their colour flags feature) in “TOP POSTS & PAGES” by offering “Other posts” when necessary at the bottom of that particular category. Not so for counties apparently. There is nothing called “Other countries.”

There are, of course, ways to drill deeper and mine such data within WordPress in other locations, off the main statistics page, showing such fascinating tidbits as “Most popular day and hour.” This is the “day and hour when you have been getting the most views on average. The best timing for publishing a post may be around this period.” Currently I get “21 % of my views” on Monday and “6% of my views come at 4 p.m.” on Monday, making that the “Most popular hour” for reading soundingsjohnbarker.

Happy Monday, then.

And thanks Lithuania for topping the leaderboard so far today! That honour usually goes to the United States or Canada (among some of my favourite countries to show up under VIEWS BY COUNTRY and cause me to wonder what their citizens or other residents might be reading on my blog – none of which are on today’s list so far today – are the Holy See, European Union, Israel and the Palestinian Territories). I was also quite popular in Romania for a couple of days late last week, but not so much today it seems.

There’s more, much more. But that’s too much like work and Google Analytics. And If had wanted to be a statistician instead of a writer, I’d have presumably exerted more effort in Sister Dorothy’s math class. Well, actually if I had exerted more effort, I wouldn’t have been in Sister Dorothy Schweitzer’s Grade 10 “general” math class in the first place. I’d have been in “advanced math.”

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Shrived by the confessor: Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday arrive for penitents as the liturgical season of Lent is upon us, but not before one last rich feast of pancakes Feb. 17 as shrovetide ends

Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras.  Máirt Inide. Dydd Mawrth Ynyd.  Fastnacht. Fastelavn. Sprengidagur.  Güdisdienstag. Vastlapäev.  Užgavėnės.  Fettisdagen. Laskiainen. Shrove Tuesday. Call it what you will, but make sure you eat – and eat big and eat rich – on this moveable feast, based on the lunar cycles of the moon, and celebrated around the world, falling this year on Feb. 17 – next Tuesday – the last day of shrovetide before the penitential season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which is its colloquial name.  Dating to the A.D. 900s, the official name is the Day of Ashes.

“Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return,” will be said by Catholic priests in churches around the world Wednesday, as they make the distinctive of signing the foreheads of the faithful with the sign of the cross in ashes, blessed by a priest and made from burning palm fronds which have been saved from last year’s Palm Sunday masses.  Blessed ashes having been used in such religious  rituals since the time of Moses.

The historical reason that pancakes are associated with the day preceding Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent is that the 40 days of Lent form a period of liturgical fasting, during which only the plainest foodstuffs are eaten by the devout. Therefore, rich ingredients such as eggs, milk, and sugar are disposed of immediately prior to the commencement of the fast.

Pancakes and doughnuts are an efficient way of using up these perishable goods. The word shrove is a past tense of the English verb “shrive,” which means to obtain absolution for one’s sins by confessing and doing penance.

Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the shriving or confession that Anglo-Saxon Christians made immediately before Lent, a season of soul-searching and repentance.

For Roman Catholics, Lent runs from Ash Wednesday on Feb. 18 up to but excluding the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday on April 2. The evening of Holy Thursday is already part of the Good Friday liturgical day, the first of the three days of the paschal triduum, so it is not liturgically a part of Lent in the Roman Catholic Church, although it is still reckoned as part of the “40 days of Lent,” because the paschal triduum begins the evening of Holy Thursday and concludes with the evening vespers of Easter. The triduum includes Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and reaches it high point at the Great Easter Vigil. The name “Maundy” comes from the Latin antiphon Mandatum Novum, meaning “a new mandate.” The new mandate from Jesus is taken from John 13:34: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

In many mainline Protestant churches, Maundy Thursday is still liturgically part of Lent since many do not recognize the triduum as distinct from Lent.

In regards to fasting and abstinence for Roman Catholics during Lent, particular regulations vary in each country according to the norms established by national episcopal conferences and approved by the Holy See, so it is not always easy to know what regulations are in force. The Ottawa-based Canadian Conference of Catholics Bishops (CCCB) says, “Fasting means cutting down on the amount and richness of our food and drink. Done as a penance for sin, it helps us to pray better: an empty stomach can lead to more attentive prayer. The money we save on food should be given to others in alms, In reference to abstinence, the Canadian bishops go onto say, “This form of penance needs to be seen as a near cousin of fasting. We may give up meat or other desirable foods on one or two days a week during Lent, especially on Friday, the day of Christ’s saving death on the cross. Our abstinence is another way of sharing in Christ’s work of saving the world.”

The norms for Canada are based on the Canadian Conference of Catholics Bishops’ Order of Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours and Celebration of the Eucharist, known more commonly and simply as the Ordo, which is essentially a guide for clergy in Canada, updated from time to time, to aid in preparation of the liturgy. The Ordo dates back to the Middle Ages:

•  All Fridays are days of abstinence from meat, but Catholics may substitute special acts of charity
  or piety on this day;
•  The paschal fast is observed on Good Friday and, where possible, continued through Holy
  Saturday;
•  Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting and abstinence from meat;
•  The law of abstinence from meat binds those who are 14 and older; the law of fasting binds
  those from 18 to 59 years of age.

While Canadian bishops have placed particular insistence on Fridays of Lent as days of penance, the “manner of fulfilling this duty is left to the discretion of the faithful.” (National Bulletin on Liturgy, 42 – from the 1966 statement of the CCCB on Penance).

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