​October, Friday the 13th Came and Went

​October, Friday the 13th came and went. That said, that particular day was an auspicious day for at least two reasons. First, the unluckiness of the day has its origins in the slaughter of the leading international bankers of medieval Europe - the Knights Templar. Second, that day this year marked the hundredth anniversary of the visions of the Virgin Mary appearing to three children at Fatima, Portugal during World War I.

In the middle ages, the worst person to be was a lender, who had a huge book of receivables with the royal house as the leading client. This was the singular reason for the expulsion of Jews from nation after nation in medieval Europe. If the king could not repay due to moral hazard - borrowing more than his ability to repay, the solution was to enact the royal cram down - or simply abolish the debt by seizing the book of business while enacting an edict of expulsion. This happened in England in 1290, the first of its kind. But, what happened in 1314 in France was a slaughter. The establishment turned against its finest and against its own - and butchered them out of existence and the survivors fled into hiding. King Louis the Fair had 5,000 Knights Templar arrested under an array of insulting and damning charges. What began as a noble cause through Bernard of Clairvaux in 1128 came to a shameful end in 1314. The king could not repay. The king refused to repay. When the king is the law, the case is closed. It happened on Friday the 13th.

In the early Twentieth Century, during World War I, the Virgin Mary appeared to three children in Fatima, Portugal. Crowds gathered along with secular journalists and scoffers like the Freemasons, who showed up to ridicule. It was October 13th. The Freemasons, who came to scoff, ended up bombing a chapel in Fatima that had later been dedicated to the Visions. What was the message of the apparitions? Repent. Wars are the scourge of God for living life outside the will of God. World War I ended, but a worse world war followed. Today we sit on the precipice of more wars, expanding wars, and even fears of new wars. 

And so, October, Friday the 13th came and went. Yet, we all know deep down that talks of peace, blustering talk, and kicking the can down the road - whether it is debt-related or nuclear technology-related - will eventually give way to the chastisement, the scourge, and the painful correction - where the living survivors will envy the dead.

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