The One Over the Water
The latest scandal among the British royals will doubtless reenergize the long-running argument over the usefulness of monarchy in these times.
Surprisingly often, here and in other fora, one encounters Americans so affronted by the manifest defects of “democracy,” that they declare themselves to be “monarchists.” This has always seemed a little strange to me. Surely the point of monarchy is that it is personal. One can give fealty to a particular royal house, but can one be a “monarchist” in the abstract? Further, “monarchy,” like “democracy,” comes in many varieties, some better, some worse. We need to be sure about what exactly we mean.
Certainly the best of the American Founders would find a predilection for monarchy absurd and dangerous. They feared the executive power and were well aware that the purse, the sword, and the glamour of power could create a large and intolerant following among masses without strong republican virtue. They preferred a constitutional government that would restrain the ruler, whether the one, the few, or the many. But, then, the worst of the American Founders created a Presidential office with as much potential for tyranny as anything ever devised by the mind of man.
I know there are good British people who feel that their monarchy plays an important role as the embodiment of tradition, patriotism, and unity, and I must respect that. I know also that the criticism of the monarchy that comes from the Brit chattering classes is not motivated by moral outrage or democratic sentiment. It expresses the same envy and spite that energizes a similar type in America to hate the Confederate flag. Their nature is to suppress whatever is a remnant of earlier and better times that they fear they cannot fully control.
Yet a real monarchist must admit that the British executed and exiled their legitimate
kings. The Stuarts had defects enough, Heaven knows, but they were royal defects. They had the best of British qualities—courage and intelligence such as nearly conquered the world. Something went badly wrong when the present line of petty German princelings was imported. The German princes were among the stupidest and most repulsive of all the European royals and unfitted to be symbols of a great Empire.
The only positive quality that the present ruling house has ever displayed is middle-class morality and steadiness. And even there, it has been more image than reality, since every generation has produced enough odd characters to fill a zoo. And now we have had two generations that are hardly distinguishable from their peers among the super-rich of the Northeastern United States: at best dilettantes prey of every pernicious cause of the day or else wastrels representative of nothing.
So loyal lovers of Lost Causes everywhere, join me in a quiet toast to the One over the Water.
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"In Orthodox circles, I am regarded as a fire-breathing, anti-Western, "Orthodoxy or death" jihadist of sorts."
Those types can be dangerous but they can also be very good. John Brown for instance was a nut like his more recent ancestors in Kansas. Those poor people who now defile funerals by spewing obscenities towards folks they don't even know and exemplify that peculiar puritan hysteria and fear that many mistake for hatred. For the one it was slavery, for today's variety it is allegedly homosexuals. You do not seem hysterical to me but more like a man whose once open mind has closed around certain convictions and principles that have made him more, not less, than what he was before.( Dare I say charitable?) William Faulkner, for instance, once told a University of Virginia class that Shelby Foote "shows promise, if he'll just stop trying to write Faulkner, and write some Shelby Foote."
Although I am not ashamed of being called a Roman Catholic, I have never believed that unity among christians is the same as uniformity. The obvious variety and goodness in the communion of saints should be enough to dispel that lie. Without knowing you personally I can only say from this perspective, "Keep up the good work ! "
Thank you for the kind words.
Interesting you should bring up Faulkner in the course of this thread of thought which has touched on the Southern aristocratic ideal, which is, in turn, not unrelated to themes in Dr.Wilson's original article. Faulkner and Will Percy, each in his own way, are writing about what happens when the ideal fails and other kinds of men set the tone for the common ethos. Another lecture for that conference on the Southern aristocratic ideal!
I was in Oxford, Mississippi this summer for the first time in my life, to look up a cousin who teaches at Ole Miss. He said that when he first came there a few years ago, he became friends with an elderly English professor, a native of the area who had known William Faulkner. He once expressed admiration for Faulkner's work. She sniffed and said, "William Faulkner was a rogue and a ne'er do well who borrowed money from everyone in town, didn't pay them back,and then caricatured them in his books." I suppose that great artists, like great statesmen and other public men, are never permitted the common courtesy of "nihil de mortuis nisi bonum" !
Got it. Latter day royals are bad because they are of Germanic extraction. So am I, incidentally. I guess I have no place in England, America or France and no business voicing anything that might someday amount to influential about their politics. Je m'en dégage now.
(I guess St. Vladimir, a Viking, had no business making Russia a Christian country, either.)
Perhaps I am "cross-threading" here, but the recent article posted by Mr. Wolf along with the stream here seem tangentially related.
Fr. Steven, in your list of points for agreement you had, "1. Republics are successful only when small and homogeneous religiously, culturally, linguistically, and racially."
So here is my thought or question - I've gleaned from the posts here that there are Protestants (likely of different stripes), Catholics (also of different stripes, all the way from those attending Novus Ordo Mass through the "tradcats" and to Sedevacantists), Orthodox, and possibly an agnostic or two. There may be others, and my point here is NOT to start any sort of theological debate.
While Christian groups have much more in common than non-Christian groups (Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, et al), the fact is that there is often a very strong difference amongst the Christians when it comes to culture. What is the point of homogeneity at which a community/republic can exist? I can agree with a comment from Mr. Moses that the Triune God is a starting point, but it can't be a finishing point. Baptists and Catholics can agree on the Trinity, but there's much left that will cause disagreement and on significant matters, too.
Given the strong difference in culture and traditions, is it really possible to have a long term republic (or even community) without sharing a common religion? I mean, if the non-Christians were not in the picture anymore, and the Socialists/Globalists reduced to an insignificant number, would we all have to then go back to the past time of arguing about the doctrines concerning Mary or the Papacy?
I don't know if I articulated that very clearly.
the paternal ancestors of the "courageous and intelligent " james v of scotland, include the "stupid and repulsive" duke arnold of gelderland, count dietrich of oldenburg, helvig of schauenburg,johann of brandenburg-kulmbach. proof that you should not put square heads into sewert holes.
Mr. Cornell - An excellent and logical question, to which I do not have the answer. I will venture to make an observation and ask a question, to which the more discerning may wish to respond.
Dr. Wilson may have to correct me on this, but I do believe that if one considers the ante-bellum South, one will conclude that there was just enough of that kind of homogeneity I was talking about to make the whole thing work. (The Orthodox, of course, had nothing to do with it. The oldest organized Greek community in the CSA was, I believe, the parish of the Holy Trinity in New Orleans - which still exists, by the way, now housed in a lovely neo-Byzantine church at the intersection of Robert E. Lee and Bayou St. John - which was not founded until 1852. ) For a Christian of strong dogmatic convictions, however, this raises a troubling question - to what extent does cooperation in such an arrangement require, or imply, doctrinal indifference?
Your point? I didnt say the words you ascribe to me, nor did I say all German ancestry is evil. I said the problem started to occur when they were barely the nationality that they claimed kingship over. It would have been a problem if German princes had mostly British, Greek, et all ancestry.
The clergy of the Old South and the Confederacy enjoyed an amazing collegiality among denominations. All were orthodox in basic beliefs. The few Unitarians that came from New England were befriended and soon became orthodox. Can one find fault with this as a lack of doctrinal conviction? I dont think so. Where there is a strong diversity of opinion within a larger agreement then the only Christian approach is mutual tolerance. Further, they understood and agreed that they all led a people who were under vicioius attack from hostile atheist fanatics.
md ; " you really think this song is about you , don't you, don't you " ......it's not.
1. "Your point?" .... it obviously went over your head but at least got your goat.
2. "I didnt say the words you ascribe to me." .... sorry to wound your vanity ,but nothing was
ascribed to you, nor will you find the word evil in my post. you really should read more
carefully.
3. don't feel left out, here is " a song for You" ( a riddle actually) ..... how is a certain
sedevacantist like a methaphysical solipsist?
Thank you, Dr. Wilson. This confirms what I thought about relations among Christians in the South before and during the War.
One *could* find fault, I think, if honest theological debate and principled conversion across denominational lines were forbidden by law or by social pressure for the sake of "just getting along" or because "these fine points don't matter."
The Southerners themselves were not the only ones who realized they were fighting hostile atheist fanatics. Pope Pius IX, hardly a theological indifferentist, sent a papal blessing to console our President Jefferson Davis, a Protestant, during his martyric confinement in Fortress Monroe.
I'm okay with a "Gentleman's Agreement" to tolerance, so long as when we head out for the May procession there's just a shrug of the shoulders and a "Those Catholics."
This, alas, is far afield, but I was wondering if anyone knew about when the Southern "tolerance" changed to Protestant distaste of all things Papal? When did the Jack Chick's come about? I know that my wife's Grandmother, whom I love dearly, is a Southern Baptist and has to, on regular occasions, defend us, her Catholic kin, from wild and sometimes heated accusations by folks in her church, sometimes even the pastor. While it is much paler nowadays (although, on occasion, it can rear its head like when we were walking through the gauntlet of "Catholics will burn in hell" megaphoned zealots outside of Nationals stadium after Pope Benedict's Mass), there was definitely a time where Southern Christians were not so understanding of Catholics. I'm curious how this came about given the ante-bellum state of things.
Since you admit to be nothing more than a troll ("..but at least got your goat"), I will be sure to ignore every post of yours in the future.
Mr. Cornell,
There are men who frequent these fora who have much greater historical knowledge and insight than do I; however, I have some supported supposition and some evidence from my own family which might be a starting point for discussion.
Southern Baptist in particular are not aware of how successful Reconstruction was on how Southern Baptists think. Northern Baptists came South with a Puritan missionary zeal to reform the local churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. I believe that they succeeded more than we know and more than we wish to admit. Fundamentalism, including what we today call "creationism" inerrancy and literalism, were for the most part alien to antebellum Southern Baptists. That is obviously not the case now. Also, temperance, i.e. drinking absolutely nothing, now part of a "statement of faith" of most Baptist institutions, was certainly not a monolithic position across the denomination, although some surely held it, during the antebellum and immediate post-war period. My own great grandfather, a veteran of the Louisiana 12th, became, after the war, a Baptist preacher. My maternal grandmother, his daughter-in-law, told me that each Saturday night he came to her to fix her special toddy. Dispensationalism and "rapture" theology swept across the local churches at the close of the 19th century. Something had already undermined Baptist orthodoxy for these errors or heresies to be able to take root.
The General Baptist Convention, before the split in to "Northern Baptist" and "Southern Baptist" was itself a study in tolerance, at least at one level. Those people who called themselves "Baptist" actually came from three very distinct and conflicting theological or doctrinal positions: Arminians who stressed the free will; Calvinists who stressed predestination; and Landmark Baptists who stressed the apostolic succession. They agreed to put their fundamental disagreements aside for the cause of Christ and form the General Convention.
My family hand a staunch line of Landmark Baptist with its understanding of apostolic succession. There was never any anti-Catholic fervor in my family, although I did experience it in others. My best friend growing up was Catholic; my father's best friend was Catholic; we were, I know for a fact, considered secret Papists by some.
I would, however, sound a warning. My friend and I knew as well as boys can know the theological and doctrinal differences between our idioms of the Christian faith and were toward one another uncompromising on them; yet, we loved one another as friends and respected one another as Christians of differing idioms. That is one kind of ecumenical tolerance, the kind, I believe of the antebellum South. The warning is about the "false ecumenical tolerance" as in "actually, we along with Muslims, etc., all believe variations of the same thing." Danger! Danger! I am afraid that some Baptist have become more "tolerant" in that sense in that they have lost their orthodoxy and will hang their clothes in any wind. I would suggest that a devout Roman Catholic does not need them as his allies!
I would say, hoping for others to clarify, that the period of intolerance and now this period of meaningless tolerance, are the spawn of the same spirit, a dangerous one which William Gilmore Simms had detected in his Northern counterparts over one hundred-fifty years ago.
"actions speak louder than words". congratulations you solved the puzzle.
Thanks for this new post, Dr. Wilson. You have “made my day” so to speak. Regarding the “constitutional” issue, as with many, it involves a “failure to communicate.” What we need is a form of “Vulcan mind meld.” E.F. Schumacher addresses the communication problem in A Guide for the Perplexed. (Due to laziness, I am relying on my memory here, which, unlike some wines and some cheeses, does not improve with age.) One has to be able to translate his thoughts and ideas into words that accurately and unambiguously describe them. Then the listener (or reader) must be able to accurately and unambiguously translate the words back into the same thoughts and ideas that their author intended. Schumacher believes this happens often. I think it does not happen very often. It would be difficult for anyone to argue persuasively that words meant something other than what the originator meant if we could transmit what we meant directly from one mind to another. Of course, this would require the ability to record and transmit thoughts like we can record and transmit sounds. “Is it live or is it Memorex?” As it is, just as we have a proliferation of Christian denominations because everyone has his or her own interpretation of the Scriptures, we have a “living” (and therefore, dead) constitution because everyone has his or her own interpretation of it.
Mr. Peters,
Thank you for the very informative and helpful comment. I suspected it tied to some effort during the Reconstruction. I know little of the Baptist history, and I was not aware that the widespread idea of temperance was a post-war development. Pickens County, where Grandmother lives, is still a dry county in Alabama (where blue laws still prohibit alcohol sale on Sundays). When her Catholic Kin comes to visit, though, wine is made available (so long as we ensure to hide it before taking any pictures).
Last time I was at St. Paul's Cathedral in Birmingham I read a little blurb about Fr. Coyle, the pastor who was shot while sitting on his front porch in 1921. I believe he had officiated in the marriage of a local girl to a Puerto Rican which did not sit well with the girl's father. I also know that, much later, Catholic clergy were involved with the Civil Rights movement, often on the side of the desegregationists. I think it would be an interesting study to look at Catholic/Protestant developments after the War. I'm curious if there was any influx of Northern clergy?
* * *
As an interesting coda to this post and subsequent stream, I just returned from Mass where a new shrine to Bl. Karl of Austria was dedicated. Bl. Karl's great-grandson, the Archduke Imre Emmanuel Simeon Jean Carl Marcus d'Aviano (quite an impressive array of names from which to choose), was there along with his fiancé to present a relic of Bl. Karl to be incorporated into the shrine.
Archduke Imre gave a short speech afterwords of which the one line I was struck by was that Royalty comes with both Rights and Duties. Austria no longer recognizes any of the Archduke's Rights, but he still has and takes seriously his Duties. Bravo to a young man who seems to have a decent head on his royal shoulders and a heart that is seeking the important things!
Nuns took part in Civil Rights marches in The Sixties, most notably at Selma, where nuns, or people paid to dress as nones, took part in the interracial sexual orgies that occupied the marchers in their free time.
Yes, "false ecumenical tolerance" is dangerous. I don't know how a parent, for instance, can have a hope of inculcating in his children a deep desire to follow Christ, as revealed in Scripture and interpreted by the religion within which one's family locates one, when the leaders of that religion seem embarrassed by any attempt to stress the doctrinal and other differences between their and other religions. It is an icily slippery slope from teaching that we "all believe variations of the same thing" to thinking that religious faith must not be very important.
One of my favorite moments on this website happened last year when a bunch of us Catholics got into an argument about the doctrine of salvation only through the Catholic faith. Tempers were rising and accusations were flying. Hairs were being split so fine they were disappearing. Editorial authorities rode in to quell the disturbance, but it kept going. Finally, Doc Wilson couldn't take it any more and cut loose with "You are a bunch of idolators!" What a great blast from the past! It is no coincidence that the time when Catholics had to be circumspect or even covert in their practice (obviously, this does not include the deadly type of repression that went on in the Soviet Union or 17th century) coincides with a time of higher morals in general, among people of all faiths.
Mr. Cornell,
I have found a part of an essay online which was enlightening to me; I think that it will be enlightening to you. You might "google" the title and find the essay entitled: Southern Harmony: Catholic-Protestant Relations in the Antebellum South by Andrew Stern. It supports my own "informed" supposition about Catholic/Protestant relations in the Antebellum South.
Herr Doktor; "dress(ed) as nones,".....they must have been the nones of March.
Well, while I have no problem believing that Catholics did stupid things, if it was after Vatican II it couldn't have been real nuns. All of the "real nuns" burned their habits so they could start dressing like public school librarians.
Mr. Jacobi, never in my long and dubious life have I ever referred to Catholics as "idolators" and do not believe any such thing. Don't know where you got that. I did object to some silly young fellows who thought that the Lord is only permitted to save those who adhere strictly to the Roman way as they define it.
Mr. Schulz, your contributions are invariably personal, hateful, and without intellectual content.
The young fellows referred to are like the chap in the print Chronicles who berated me for being for slavery when his Church currently teaches it is unacceptable. Missing the fact that the Church coexisted comfortably with slavery for centuries. Bishop Las Casas, the great prelate of the Indies, declared that slavery was bad and unjust for Indians but good for Africans. I by no means whatever intend criticism of Catholics, who I admire, but these fellows remind me of liberals in their ignorant zealotry.
Clyde Wilson, as I recall, once said some folks were acting like Strausians instead of Catholics but I never recall him saying Papists were idolaters. ( although The Church did once warn the Montanists about something along those lines) The thing about Chronicles, as I have said before, is that it is a tough crowd but if a guy knows what he is talking about with a modicum of manners he can get along pretty good here but if he doesn't, he is liable to catch hell from some pretty wiley coyotes . The problem for Christians these days is that they believe everything they here from others about their faith without knowing much about it themselves. The idea that baptized Catholics are better at the art of living life than other folks is kind of silly although they probably should be given all the access to grace at their disposal. But I recall Christ warning his own followers that there is never a reason to boast about such things because to those who are given more, more will be demanded. I doubt any of us would want to be judged on the blessings we have wasted. Dante thought most folks were trimmers in any age of history and whatever Clyde Wilson is, he is no trimmer.
The problem for Christians these days is that they believe everything they here ( Hear ?) Oh well, .... I am no judge, etc.
Reply to Moses @ August 31, 2012 • 5:38 PM
No Moses, thats not what I am saying. I dont hate Germans. That was the expression ("One German for another") some of the chattering class in Britain uses whenever Jacobitism comes up. I thought some others might be familiar with how its discussed in the UK, but I guess not.
In your reply in print, you made a good point that many American Catholics dont like to hear - that its a part of an immigrant created mythical history.
Mr. Wilson : Invariably I draw the style and inspiration of my infrequent contributions from the offensive, derogatory and condescending statements of those my barbs adress. I did not call Germans square heads, their princes stupid and repulsive, nor implied that "nones" took part in "interracial sexual orgies". I called no one a "Pavlovian rube", nor claim that "cosmopolitan Germans..are traitors . I did not claim that Germans "degraded European royalty" and imply that nostalgia is simply replacing one degenerate German with another. Are these terms of endearment the subtlety of which rubes like myself "would miss" or slander en masse ?
Perhaps the german title Herr Doktor offends you or do you object to, or find no humor in my innocuous "nones of March" pun? If so, lighten up - just because a man believes his cause is lost, is no reason for him to lose his humor. He would be better off developing a thicker skin. As to the pun- I assume your phrase" were nuns,or people paid to dress as nones" contained no spelling error, and that you are aware the word "nones" has multiple meaning. If you meant to suggest that the marching nuns of Selma were "nones", as per the polling catagory- those of no religion- kudos. My offensive pun is meant to be nothing more than the simple juxtaposition of the calendar event , nones-i.e. the ides of a month- with the tramping nuns.
aguecheek
Re Dr. Wilson's last post: Many well-meaning Catholics were unfortunately brainwashed with the tenets of liberalism in the Catholic schools, which were commandeered by leftists in the 1960's and have only gotten worse. This is why serious Catholics have abandoned the older institutions and started their own schools from scratch, usually run by laymen and affiliated with no religious order for the good reason that the religious orders - what's left of them - are peopled by cultural Marxists - aging and pathetic, but still dangerous.
I had an older schoolmate in seminary, by the name of Jody Simoneaux, who hailed from Rayne, Louisiana, in the heavily French Lafayette diocese. According to Jody, the Catholic diocese there anticipated "civil rights" by several years, forcing racial integration on French towns which had had both a "blanc" and a "noir" parish for generations. His elders had recounted to him the memorable events on the Sunday in the early '50's on which the much loved and much respected (and theologically conservative) longtime bishop of Lafayette, Jules Jeanmard (called "'ti Jule" because of his diminutive stature) came unannounced to the white parish in Rayne and excommunicated the leading family of the town in front of everyone, because of their opposition to the forced racial integration of the two parishes there. The (equally) beloved Archbishop Rummel of New Orleans did similar things. These were men who were truly Catholic liberals in the 19th century sense. They were not at all theological progressives, but they thought they could combine conservative theology with the social principles of 1789. A fatal mistake.
I've been trying to figure out how to get to the article that Mr. Peters recommended (one website is trying to charge me $12 to download it, that seems a bit steep for one article) because Catholic-Protestant relations before the War is a subject I am very interested to learn more about.
As far as post War relations, my unfounded suspicion is that just as the Baptists may have been infected by Northern Baptists, so too might Catholics have been overtaken by certain ideas from up yonder. In fact, the Catholic system seems to make it even easier for such a thing to happen with bishops traditionally playing such a key and unrestrained role in governing such large areas. I've heard stories similar to the one Fr. Steven relates about Southern clergy leading the charge on desegregation, often by stomping directly on good, faithful Catholics who declined to follow their lead.
I may be asking for it, as I will readily admit that I am not studied on this subject, but the Church does seem to have a record of opposing the modern understanding of slave trading. There are several bulls and letters and pronouncements harassing much of Europe, especially Spain, about the practice. I quote from the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia:
[. . .] in 1462, Pius II declared slavery to be "a great crime" (magnum scelus); that, in 1537, Paul III forbade the enslavement of the Indians; that Urban VIII forbade it in 1639, and Benedict XIV in 1741; that Pius VII demanded of the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, the suppression of the slave trade and Gregory XVI condemned it in 1839; that, in the Bull of Canonization of the Jesuit Peter Claver, one of the most illustrious adversaries of slavery, Pius IX branded the "supreme villainy" (summum nefas) of the slave traders. Everyone knows of the beautiful letter which Leo XIII, in 1888, addressed to the Brazilian bishops, exhorting them to banish from their country the remnants of slavery — a letter to which the bishops responded with their most energetic efforts, and some generous slave-owners by freeing their slaves in a body, as in the first ages of the Church.
The relation of modern slavery to serfdom to living servants . . .etc. is not a simple matter. The idea of a society of "free" men, economically speaking, seems almost mystical to me. The majority of men, even today, are slaves to someone or something in order to make a living. And the role that culture plays in all of this seems an important piece that is often dismissed. A "free" man must be capable of the responsibilities that come with such a freedom and understand and appreciate the society within which he will move and operate.
While I would very much enjoy a discussion on these finer points, I'm not sure if its a topic that can be handled adequately through an Internet comment board.
Many Southerners before the War opposed the renewal of the African slave trade. See Dr. Wilson's *Carolina Cavalier* for an excellent summary of James Johnston Pettigrew's fight against renewing the slave trade in South Carolina. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America was the first American state document on the national level to outlaw the slave trade.
But the same men also opposed the Jacobin lunatics who proposed immediate abolition of domestic servitude as it was practiced in the South. We see in retrospect how right they were to do so.
Obviously European society's attitudes towards and practice of slavery were softened and humanized by the wise influence of the Church. But this took centuries, and when it was done right, was done in a common-sense, organic fashion, not by utopian wildmen slashing and burning every traditional social institution in sight to get their way.
frsteven makes an important historical point that is often confused. The difference between the slave trade from Africa and the settled institution of domestic servitude that evolved in the South from the slave trade of the colonial period. I would only amend that "Most" Southerners rather than "many" Southerners opposed the foreign slave trade. Nearly all supported the closing of importations in 1808 and faithfully abided by that thereafter. The main reason for the NW ordinance provision against slavery was to prevent further importations: it was not a precedent against slavery as was later contended. There are numerous cases of Southerners as U.S. representartives abroad and Southern navy officers acting vigorously to apprehend American citizens engaged in the African slave trade. However, right up to The War, New England shippers continued to engage in the bringing of Africans from their homeland to Cuba and Brazil. One successful voyage could make a Yankee ship owner rich for life. These traders included Rhode Island Senators, Daniel Webster's best friend and bankroller, and numerous others. Slave trading in the 19th century was carried out almost entirely by Spanish, Portuguese, and New England Yankees.There were a number of Yanklee families who continued to own lucrative slave sugar plantations in Cuba even AFTER EMANCIPATION in the U.S. Southerners had many reasons to oppose the African trade, which, as frsteven points out, was banned by the Confederate Constitution. In the South the black population grew dramatically by natural increase---unlike the Catholic colonies where trhey died off rapidly.
I would like to thank Dr. Wilson and Fr. Steven for continuing my education. Also, for Mr. Peters, and anyone else who might be interested, it appears that Dr. Stern has expanded his original article (about Catholic & Protestant relations in the Old South) into a book due for release this November.
http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Crucifix-Cross-Catholic-Protestant-Relations/dp/0817317740
It may be worth looking at.
Nuns took part in Civil Rights marches in The Sixties, most notably at Selma, where nuns, or people paid to dress as nones, took part in the interracial sexual orgies that occupied the marchers in their free time.
The curious politics of Catholicism in the Anglophone world stem from the fact that the origins of the Left-Right divide in England began with the Roundheads and the Cavaliers, the Nonconformists versus the Episcopalians, read: the more Calvinist sensibilities within the Church of England versus the more Catholic sensibilities therein. Yet that happened so early on that by the time Catholicism began coming back to England and coming to America in large numbers via immigration (from Ireland but in America also from German, Italy and Poland) the more conservative elements of British and American society opposed Catholicism as un-English or un-American, and so the Catholics were happy to support a leftist politic that would be destructive to the unfamiliar Protestant society from which they felt apart.
Of course this would come back to bite us from within once Catholic communities began to dissolve into the larger culture, a process which Vatican II accelerated. But because of this "in society but not of it" factor, there was a time when an unthinking man might be a good Catholic without any stain of leftist sociopsychology in his personal life and still support the Labour Party; these days, that is almost impossible in the strictest sense. But the legacy of all this remains, and it goes a long way to explaining the bizarre mix of political discourse that one hears from the American episcopate calling for social justice and expanded immigration while lambasting abortion and same-sex marriage. It is not that Catholicism is for socialism or unrestricted flow of migrants so much as that the largely Irish-descended Church infrastructure in the United States remains in some measure consciously or unconsciously ill-at-ease with the Protestant America that American conservatism has historically been bent on conserving. There are of course other factors, including curiously and almost paradoxically the desire to appear "respectable" by the progressive establishment (a desire that figures into Church politics in other countries these days as well), but Catholic politics in the Anglosphere remains a very bizarre case indeed.
No Moses, thats not what I am saying. I dont hate Germans. That was the expression ("One German for another") some of the chattering class in Britain uses whenever Jacobitism comes up. I thought some others might be familiar with how its discussed in the UK, but I guess not.
Well, my reaction was a bit hotheaded in the first place, so thank you for kindly clearing that up.
Nick,
There is no end to the silliness especially the English variety. Henry the VIII was a Catholic in all things but polygamy and he had his reasons, after that it was a lust for wealth, a land grab so magnificent in scope and ruthless in consequences it could only be compared to Yankee involvement in the slave trade for a few dollars more. The idea that we Christians were many from the beginning, that Christ intended to establish a Church but everything went wrong, that theology is something you make up as you go along, that sanctity developes like the great apes generation after generation,that simply reading a book will do wonders for a man, and all the other nonsense is probably best avoided given the times.
There is no end to the silliness especially the English variety. Henry the VIII was a Catholic in all things but polygamy and he had his reasons, after that it was a lust for wealth, a land grab so magnificent in scope and ruthless in consequences it could only be compared to Yankee involvement in the slave trade for a few dollars more.
Henry VIII was all-around a rotten human being who on numerous occasions betrayed his own word, the women around him and his friends.
But yes, dissent, intrigue and bizarreness in the Church has a long and storied history. And while this may be a sobering thought, the fact that such a dysfunctional family could not only survive but flourish over two thousand years is probably the most striking evidence of its divine provenance.
"What is hardest in the task of the high school teacher in religion is to show how the human element in the Church is continually thwarting the divine, and how at the same time Divine Providence is daily making use of this human element in helping the Church achieve her destiny."~Fr. Francis J. Bredestege
Yes, he was a grave and somewhat sinnister leader but we have endured thousands of them. I was referring to the King's defense of the Holy Eucharist as surely some evidence of his Catholic upbringing, his holy faith and a smidgeon of evidence that he was not a reprobate of any real significance.
I'm glad y'all brought the conversation full circle with Henry VIII which ties to the picture gracing this post. I have to give another BZ to the Lone Photoshopper for another splendid image!
Dear Mr. Cornell - You are welcome! It is enjoyable to have people who care about important things with whom to communicate, both to teach and to learn from.
By the way, lads: the first American Catholic chaplain killed in action was a Confederate, shot by Yankees while he was attending wounded.
There were Catholics on both sides -- mostly Irish but in those days the advice from the hierarchy was that of General Lee: Do Your duty! A long cry from the days of the Wikileaks and all that. Here is a recent attempt ( last year I believe) to say something true when the current PC police would prefer nothing be said at all. http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/catholics-and-the-civil-war.html
Dr. Wilson,
Well, I've had a good time re-reading many fine Chronicles articles and comments, but I can't locate the one in which the word idolator, or the phrase idol worshippers was used. I know my memory's getting as fuzzy as a hippie's navel, but I was, and remain, dead certain I saw the term used on a Chronicles thread. It's not a word that you see every day, and it really leapt out at one because of the heated nature of the thread and its unexpectedness. The Southern Methodist Church was also in the mix of topics in that thread, which further linked it in my mind with you.
Again, I was not offended by it and never believed whoever used the term to be trying to offend. In fact, I took it as a kind of compliment, a recognition of the intensity of religious feeling Catholics are or have been capable of. Moreover, that term implicitly recognizes Catholicism's ancientness, as the Christian religion with the deepest roots in time, to a time when pagans still ruled the world.
However, in light of my failure to produce the quote and in deference to you, I retract the statement. Thank you for your response.
Speaking of Catholic clergy and the Confederacy: The poet laureate of the Confederacy was Fr. Abram Ryan, a Catholic priest. There is a fine stained glass window depicting him at the Confederate Memorial Hall on Camp St. in New Orleans, right off Lee Circle. If any of y'all ever visit N.O., you must go!
St. Boniface, on the corner of Jackson and Liberty in Louisville, Ky., has a plaque on the outside marking the site where Fr. Ryan, poet-priest of the Confederacy, died. For years the Clarksdale housing project was on the other side of the street; I wonder what the inhabitants thought of the plaque.