Pius XI drafted the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (“With Deep Anxiety”). It was the first major church document to criticize Nazism. Smuggled into Germany, it was read on Palm Sunday from every Catholic pulpit—before a single copy had fallen into Nazi hands. As Richard Pierard explains, the encyclical protested the oppression of the church and called on Catholics to resist the idolatrous cult of race and state, to stand against the perversion of Christian doctrines and morality, and to maintain their loyalty to Christ, his church, and Rome. Hitler reacted furiously at first, but then decided to avoid a break with Rome by treating the encyclical with silence. Knowing that he had the support of the German Catholic laypeople, Hitler simply stepped up the pressure on the churches to eliminate the possibility of organized resistance.
What did you get into
The torchlight dances in his dark eyes as he stares down at me. “Let’s
start with your name.”
“I’m Severine.”
“No. Your real name.”
“That is my real name.”
He cocks his head, and a lock of ebony hair falls before one of his eyes.
“If I desire, I can wrap you in a dream, girl. And in that dream, you will feel
compelled to say your real name a thousand times. You will say it for days,
for weeks, until you starve half to death, until the word no longer has
meaning. So, let’s try this again. What’s your name?”
Thunder rumbles outside, rattling the diamond-shaped glass panes.
I feel it then, a touch of his velvety power, brushing at the edges of my
mind. Threatening to wrap around me, to envelop my reality. He really will
do it unless I act fast. The shield in my mind isn’t strong enough. There
wasn’t enough time to practice.
Lying works best when it is laced with truth. I can give this evil fucker a
crumb.
I narrow my eyes at him, jaw tightening.
I should be acting like a meek girl, intimidated by the crown prince. But
Raphael’s words still echo in my mind, and the state of his ravaged, tortured
body burns my thoughts like a brand.
“Fine, it’s Nia.” I spit out the words. “Vaillancourt.” My words come
out sharper than they should, while my mind is whirring, making up a story
that would work, that would convince him I’m not worth his time.
“So, Nia. What are you doing here?” His voice is so uncannily familiar,
and the sound of his deep, velvety voice as he speaks my name sends a
strange rush of heat through my blood.
My pulse is racing out of control. Some Fey can hear a heartbeat while
standing nearby. I wonder if he’s one of them.
I lift my chin. “My family and I are tenants on farmland we don’t own.
The territorial settlements agreed at the Vienna Peace Congress of 1814–15 created a new Europe. A Dutch-Belgian composite state, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, appeared in the north-west. Norway was transferred from Denmark to Sweden. Austria struck deep inroads into Italy with the acquisition of Lombardy-Venetia and the installation of Habsburg dynasts on the thrones of Tuscany, Modena and Parma. The borders of the Russian Empire, redrawn to encompass the bulk of eastern and central Poland, extended further westwards than at any time in European history.
She is a Fae
Her pliant warmth turns stiff, her mind racing fast enough that I can
hear it whirring. I watch as her head lifts from my shoulder, eyes flicking
around, taking in the dark cave, seeing the swill of gold still puddled on the
floor just a foot away.
“Slade...” she says, but this time, it isn’t with the plea of pleasure. It’s
a call of fear.
“You’re okay, Auren,” I say, but she’s already scrambling off me,
yanking up her discarded leggings from the floor.
I get to my feet and pull up my pants, tying up the laces as I watch her
circling around, her eyes wild as she takes in the cave, her fingers spearing
into her hair as she shakes her head. I don’t know if it’s the shock of taking
in this unfamiliar place, but the pain in her eyes as reality comes crashing
down around her makes me want to roar, want to protect.
She stumbles on her feet, eyes wide, hand snapping up to grab her
throat, right over the subtle slice of a scar. She’s staring at the gold on the
floor like it’s utter demise looking back at her. When the gold starts to
move, starts to come closer to her, she flinches back with a cry. “No, no, no,
no, no!”
“Auren.”
Panic has set in, her head shaking nonstop. For the first time since she
woke, worry creeps up the back of my neck. Before, when she was
attacking me, I had complete confidence that she would snap out of that
state and come back to me, had complete confidence that she was in control
of her magic.
But now...
Her breathing starts to go quick and hollow, like no matter how much
she inhales, she can’t get enough air.
“Auren, look at me.”
She spins in place, looking around wildly. “I don’t… Where am I? I
can’t let the gold go. I need it away from me! I need it to stop!”
Go then I am right behind you
“Stay back,” I call over my shoulder.
I lay Auren down on the cloak, the faintest traces of rotten lines
stretching up the veins in her neck. Her hair is spilled in a halo around her,
somehow gleaming even in the darkness. She looks so small with my cloak
tucked around her, so lifeless.
I kneel over her, immediately focusing as I snap my eyes closed. My
magic is there, clinging to her prone form like a poison. Unnatural decay is
slogging through her veins and withering the heart in her chest. It’s slinking
up her deteriorating throat, barred by her unmoving lips.
Tension rolls through me. Instinctually, I want to yank the magic out
of her as quickly as possible, but I’ve found pulling it out too fast is like
ripping a blade from a wound. I don’t want to do any more damage than
I’ve already done.
Carefully, I call the power back inch by inch so as not to shock her
system. Behind me, I can hear the murmured words of the rest of my Wrath,
uncertain footsteps shifting in the snow, timberwings chuffing at one
another, and thunder from the clouds we just departed signaling a cold front
blowing in.
I shove all of that away and keep my awareness on the magic
coursing through her. Like the roots of a weed, I drag it out as gently as I
can manage. Fingers dig through soil, removing the rotten stasis I buried
her in, letting her body reacclimate. I’m meticulous, lifting each bit of
corrupted patches like drying clay, ridding it piece by cracked piece.
Despite the biting air, sweat beads at my temples. My teeth clench as
I pull the power back to me, back to the recesses carved from my veins to
simmer in my own spoils. I get it all out of her, until there’s just one single
fragment left. One seed left buried in the center of her chest.
Yet when I call to it, try to unearth it from
We are the pure, timeless and unchanging being, but
due to the debilitating effects of the egoic or personal
identity, many people have drifted away from the
natural state and so begin suffering from deep
insecurities within themselves. Consequently, many
human beings want to become ‘someone special’, and
so much energy goes into this. But in truth, or you may
say from a higher standpoint, no one is special because
to be special requires that others have to be less special.
Maybe there is a sense, ‘If I am not different and
special, then I will become vulnerable.’ But actually,
to be special, to be anyone, is to be vulnerable.
Paradoxically, the way to be free of psychological
vulnerability and the sense of separation is to become
nobody. Somehow, without the attachment and
pride of personal identity, we feel and know, ‘I am
the same one in everyone.’ The sense of ‘I’ being one
with ‘others’ now seems greater and truer than the
sense of ‘other’ being apart and different from ‘I’. We
seem afraid of this discovery yet it is a liberation.
And so much love, real joy and compassion arises.
