Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

William Shakespeare, born this day 1564, died this day 1616
Henry V, act III, scene i

God Save the Pope

Tomorrow we shall mark five years since the accession of Joseph Ratzinger to the See of St. Peter as His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Even had he never been elected, his stellar career in service of God, the Church, and the faithful would have proven him one of the most remarkable churchmen of the past century, from young theologian and luminary of the council to leader of the reaction against the postconciliar radicals to Cardinal-Archbishop of Munich to Prefect of the CDF, close friend and confidant of John Paul II, and seemingly at times "auxiliary pope," if such a thing existed.

Then come the events of March and April 2005: while the long-serving and much-beloved John Paul II faces his eternity, then-Cardinal Ratzinger speaks of the "filth" in the Church, so conveniently forgotten today. Then John Paul dies, and Ratzinger gives the homily at his funeral Mass to likely the largest assembly of global notables ever. After that, before the conclave that would elect him, he delivered his memorable address regarding the "dictatorship of relativism."

I recall that during those few weeks I was reading Introduction to Christianity, as part of the theological scholarship I was then undertaking. Quite impressed, I resolved to write to the author after a new pope had been elected and installed, thinking that he would likely retire to Bavaria. Then came the white smoke and the habemus papam. It was a champagne and cigar night for me.

In this day, however, the disgusting vituperation of much of the press against the Holy Father smacks of the worst of Know-Nothingism. Agitated rabble-rousers speak of a "leering old villain in a frock," painting the Vicar of Christ as an enabler of perverted priests and criminal manager-type bishops who cover their tracks. Tell that to Marcial Maciel.

Of course, all the critics of the Pope and the Church have to offer is the tyranny of hopelessness, lies, materialism, and utilitarianism. Facts don't seem to matter in their new moral panic, their secular inquisition, more vindictive and prejudiced than any tribunal ever convened under ecclesiastical auspices. Thus, against the bitter screeds of these malcontents, I raise my voice, solitary though it may be, in defence of Pope Benedict XVI, a truly humane and thoughtful man, against today's answer to Bastille-stormers.

Therefore, happy anniversary, Holy Father. Run not for fear of the wolves, for upon the Rock whose see you hold, the Lord established His Church, and promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I, for one, shall stand with you, even if it may mean my death. Accept today the gift that I offer within this spiritual bouquet.

I exhort you all, dear readers, offer your gift of prayer to the Pontiff here.

Dieu le Roy!
Viva il Papa!

Christus Resurrexit, Alleluia, Alleluia!

Te Deum laudamus:
te Dominum confitemur.
Te aeternum Patrem
omnis terra veneratur.
Tibi omnes Angeli;
tibi caeli et universae Potestates;
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim
incessabili voce proclamant:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra
maiestatis gloriae tuae.
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
Te per orbem terrarum
sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Patrem immensae maiestatis:
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
Tu Rex gloriae, Christe.
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem,
non horruisti Virginis uterum.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo,
aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
Iudex crederis esse venturus.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni:
quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
Salvum fac populum tuum,
Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
Per singulos dies benedicimus te;
Et laudamus Nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
Miserere nostri domine, miserere nostri.
Fiat misericordia tua,
Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.
In te, Domine, speravi:
non confundar in aeternum.

To all my readers, a most happy and blessed Easter.

Feast of St. David, patron saint of Wales

Cymru am Byth!

Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849)

Born March 1, 200 years ago.

Whiggery has seen its heyday

What then shall replace it?

The traditional order of Western society having recently come under unstudied attack in these pages, I cite the always insightful Gerald Warner here as evidence that I'm not merely a nostalgic, romantic dreamer.

I could play tit-for-tat and launch a broadside against the unjust, inhumane, utilitarian, and dictatorial rulers who usurped the old order and rather broadly spread human misery across society.

However, we all know the wonderful record of the dominance of mercantile democratism, and so I think it speaks for itself.

Thanks to J.K. Baltzersen at The Monarchist for the link.

A Whiggish Challenge

An old friend recently chimed in regarding my fondness for traditional Catholic monarchy, repeating many of the same tropes that we are so accustomed to hearing from the "enlightened" chattering classes. Oddly, readers, when I began this little blog, I intended not so much to meditate upon politics, but rather upon such things as culture and religion. Nonetheless, we live in a highly politicized age, and such matters are difficult to avoid. I reassert that the contemporary political scrum will not be spoken of here, as it scarcely matters to me which species of modernist wields the imperium in Washington or London or Paris or Brussels.

Anyway, without further ado, my first comment which provoked Eoin's epistle:

"I'll gladly take a generally hands-off agrarian ruler governing according to religious and traditional principles which have stood the test of time over the rule of a maleducated, concupiscent mob that has no idea about the personal boundaries of others and is easily swayed by whatever "novelty," no matter how violent, counterproductive, or illogical."

Eoin responds (his comments in italics):

Okay- first problem, the assumption that concentration of ultimate power into one person's hand, or the hands of one family, is patently false and proven so over centuries.

Point noted, and such point would hold true were my primary purpose in defending monarchism defending the enlightened despotisms of the 18th century. Indeed, I grant that it was a commemoration of Louis XVI of France that provoked this letter. However, the narrative of Western history that I understand scarcely begins with the Enlightenment, as do so many contemporary accounts. The fact remains that it is only in these recent times that any king or emperor (or STATE for that matter) has ever held the ultimate power of which you speak, Eoin. Let us take the case of medieval feudalism, in which every lord (that is, local landholder) managed his own ship, so to speak, and higher lords, up to and including the king or emperor, were only able, and indeed were obliged, to interfere should the situation facing their vassal be too great for them to handle or should the rule of that vassal be adjudged inept or unjust. Likewise, the vassals were obliged to assist their lords should they need their assistance. The result was a remarkably diverse and decentralized Christendom governed according to principles that would in modern times be identified as subsidiarity and solidarity, a far cry from the "monoculture" that comes to emerge in very centralized and despotic states.

Secondly, the contention of these somehow "religious and traditional principles", which, of course, you refuse to define beyond mentioning them, being preferable to today's system of civil liberties and secularism is ludicrous. The Inquisition, for one, serves to display the horror of these principles in practice.

Ludicrous? You scarcely elaborate on what you mean by this either. Yes, I do believe that a humanistic religious régime is far preferable to a secular régime in which human rights or civil liberties are not granted by the grace of God, but according to the will and pleasure of the state. This is all providing, of course, that the clergy are not under the heel of the state, as in the Byzantine Empire, and that the Church remains a separate institution from the apparatus of civil government. The Church is the external check on injustice in the governmental apparatus, not so much through proclamation but as through the forming of the minds and morals of those who will govern and, indeed, all those in society according to the virtues necessary to their station in the world, that all may conduct themselves with due magnanimity, dignity, and civility in their lives and work. The king, leader of the people, and far more a leader than an administrator, is thus consecrated by the ecclesiastical authority, the agency of the transcendent yet incarnate God upon the earth, led by men completely given over from worldly cares to the imitation of that all good, all true, all beautiful Christ, with the charge and mandate that he will lead justly and virtuously--and should he not, he would then be excommunicated, as were Emperors Theodosius I and Henry IV.

As for the Spanish Inquisition, according to most scholarship, likely 3,000 to 5,000 met their end after being turned over to the civil authority over the 350 years of the Inquisition's existence. How many did such secular leaders as Ataturk, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao kill over their far briefer reigns of terror? Indeed, this is only averaging 9-14 executions per year; how many people are executed in the United States annually? Not to stand in complete defense of the Inquisition, as much about it is problematic to me, but faced with the sins of secularists who desire to refashion society in their own image, any attack on the Inquisition is quite specious in my eyes.

As far as a maleducated, concupiscent mob? This is a representative democracy, Matthew, not a pure democracy, so your argument can't even stand the test of the first adjective.

Yes, it is a representative democracy. The representatives still need to dazzle the populace enough to receive their votes, whether by vacuous promises about "hope" and "change," or by fearmongering about some bogeyman in a far-off land, to cite two recent examples. Elections are made by sound-bites and superficial pandering, not by anything of any qualitative substance. Few seem to have the perspicacity to see past the medicine-shows that electoral campaigns are today.

Secondly, the well-documented sexual perversions of the royalist ruling class display a far more concupiscent population than the common people. As far as personal boundaries, in a monarchy there are no boundaries, as you know.

They do? Really? That's news to me. A number of kings may have had mistresses, but the truly hedonistic were shunned. On the contrary, such figures as St. Louis, Blessed Karl, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and many others seem to have been shining pillars of marital virtue. Furthermore, in this day and time of booty-pop, reality television, and general trashiness all about, when perversion seems to have become mainstream, how on earth can you throw perversion at the feet of Catholic monarchists? It seems rather bizarre to me.

Regarding personal boundaries, no, I don't know. England is a monarchy; are there personal boundaries there? And if they're crossed, as by violations of your beloved civil liberties, who is crossing them, the Queen or the Labour government? Are there boundaries in Spain? What about Japan? You say democracies stand for civil liberties and monarchies do not. I disagree; gracious God gives us our liberties, and despotic governments take them away.

As far as "novelty", without defining the term properly, there isn't much of an answer to it. I can only assume that you mean a type of political novelty- much like monarchism to a civilian of a democracy seems.

Indeed, and much like a hyperstatist régime like that of the Chinese or the Turks seems to a child of Western Christendom as myself.

"Does this régime accord liberty? Try starting a business, raising a family, smoking in a pub, distilling your own whiskey, not paying taxes, building an addition onto your house, digging a well, hunting for your food, keeping chickens for eggs, etc., and then tell me."

I think one can raise a family freely, seeing as it is our evolutionary calling to propagate.

Indeed, you can have as many children as you're able to support, but who educates them: you or the state?

Again, your argument has absolutely no definition or sources to its claims... Smoking is unhealthy for humans, so I find no issue with it being prohibited in public places.

But how is it the state's job to decide paternistically what is good for us or not?

As far as the rest go, property is 9/10ths of the law, thus the bureaucratic bullshit you refer to here- still, I'll take it over the preposterous argument that a monarchist system, in which no-one's right to their property supersedes the ruler's, is a better one.

You as well, Matthew.

Firstly, is such language appropriate for a civil conversation? Some ladies read this blog, you know. I still assert that the modern state has more control in their micro-managing of society than any medieval monarch ever dared dream of. There is no room for any other social element in this régime continually slouching toward totalitarianism--not the Church, not families or communities, not voluntary associations. All that remains is the social organ intended toward crisis management, and it continually wriggles itself into crisis situations to assert its increasing central control once again.

P.S. You can't possibly support the pro-Iranian Shah crap that your blog friends do, do you?

My specialty is Western Christendom, and far be it from me to meddle in the affairs of another culture. However, I then ask you, would you prefer to live in the Shah's Iran or in Ahmadinejad's?


My point remains that I am a supporter of Catholic monarchy, not ideologically-driven dictatorship, and that our present society resembles more an ideological dictatorship than it does a traditional Western kingdom. A medieval serf was far freer than a contemporary wage-and-debt-serf. He worked less, ate better, and had better religion and social interactions. His burden of tax was miniscule by today's standards, and the society in which he lived was generally peaceful. He was not a mere unit of manpower to be used to benefit an alien power's interest for warfare or expansion or acquisition. He lived largely autonomously, and the role of the lords in his society was largely to safeguard that peace in which our medieval peasant lived.