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Iranian Empress Farah Pahlavi and her granddaughter Princess Noor Pahlavi, the eldest daughter of Prince Reza Pahlavi, were special guests of the French Senate Tuesday during special conference, “Woman, Life, Freedom! Iran, Revolt or Revolution?” which included French senators declaring their support for the Iranian national uprising against the Islamic Republic.“Empress Farah Pahlavi, Princess Nour Pahlavi, I would like to say that we are extremely honored to be your host in the Senate this afternoon,” said French Senator Bruno Retailleau in his opening remarks.“Your presence gives greater weight to the message of support that this conference aims to send to...

Today, August 18, is the feast of Saint Helena Augusta, mother of Constantine the Great. A long lived and active woman, even in her old age, Saint Helena died ca. AD 330 and was greatly mourned by her son. Please enjoy this short video taken from The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine, written about the year AD 340 by the bishop Eusebius Pamphilus, detailing some of the works of Saint Helena. It also includes some lovely images of Helena and her son from antiquity and later art. St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, as described by 4th Century historian...

A small weekly paper in California claims that a White House official asked it to remove a sentence from a “benign” feature about Marine One because it reflected poorly on first lady Michelle Obama. In an email to The Daily Caller, Gina Channell-Allen, president of the Pleasanton Weekly in Pleasanton, California, said that her paper “received a call from the White House asking us to take out part of the story because it reflected poorly on the First Lady.” The story in question was a soft feature about Marine One titled, “Inside Marine One, President Obama’s helicopter,” that ran in...

TOKYO — The drizzly weather didn’t dampen the excitement at the annual spring imperial party last month as the royal family strolled along Tokyo’s Akasaka Palace grounds. Mao Asada, the Olympic figure skating silver medalist, was so overwhelmed when Emperor Akihito spoke to her that she managed only to repeatedly reply “yes,” and “thank you very much.” It was a typical reaction that shows the magnetic hold the emperor and empress have over the Japanese people. Missing as usual from the festivities was Crown Princess Masako who suffers from a stress-related disorder that causes anxiety and distress and only occasionally...

Many readers will rejoice - fittingly on this Gaudete Sunday - to learn that last Thursday, 10 December 2009, the Cause of Beatification of the Servant of God Zita, last Empress of Austria and wife of Blessed Emperor Charles, was solemnly opened by His Excellency Msgr. Yves Le Saux, Bishop of Le Mans, France. The process was opened in Le Mans, and not in the Swiss diocese of Chur, where the Empress died 20 years ago in 1989 in Zizers, with the consent of Msgr. Huonder, the Bishop of Chur, and the permission of the Congregation for the Causes of...

Mysterious rings found at tomb of Chinese only empress Chinese archaeologists have found a group of huge rings at the site of the 1,300-year-old tomb of Wu Zetian, China's only empress, but they are unable to explain their existence. At least 10 rings appeared on aerial photographs taken by experts from the Xi'an Preservation and Restoration Center of Cultural Relics and Qianling Museum in a survey of Qianling. Most of the rings were 30 to 40 meters in diameter and were in a zone four kilometers long from east to west and two kilometers from south to north, said Qin...

TOKYO - A government panel discussing imperial succession decided Monday to propose allowing female members of the royal family to ascend to Japan's throne. Panelists agreed that Japan's succession law should be changed to give the first-born child the right to ascend regardless of gender, said committee head Hiroyuki Furukawa, a former Tokyo University president. "If the priority is given to a male heir, it would make an unstable system that could involve a long wait for the birth of a boy in an uncertainty," Yoshikawa said. "It's not desirable." The advisory panel has been meeting since January to study...

Forget empress, let's have concubines, says prince By Colin Joyce in Tokyo (Filed: 04/11/2005) A Japanese prince has shocked the country with an attack on plans to let women ascend the imperial throne. Prince Tomohito, 59, the emperor's cousin and fifth in line to the throne, became the first member of the imperial family to speak out on the issue when he called on the nation not to abandon tradition. Under the constitution, the monarchy plays a purely symbolic role and members of the royal family are forbidden from making political statements, even on matters of direct concern to them....

When American bombs were raining down on what is left of Afghanistan, fellow Muslims in the neighbouring Islamic republic of Iran took out to the Streets. Contrary to our expectations in the West, they did not rally to denounce the 'Great Satan' - the name given to America by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Instead, ordinary Iranians, in one of the most extraordinary shifts in the geopolitical landscape since September 11, challenged their own hard-line Islamic clerics who swept Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from power in 1979. Tens of thousands of men and women also demonstrated, in several cities, after World...