Why we need (hereditary) Monarchy and (all-male) Hierarchy

The following comment by Mrs. Judith Bond at Mr. Muehlenburg’s blog (in the context of the media reaction to recent remarks by The Hon. Tony Abbott M.P. on pre-marital sexual activity, and Mr. Muehlenberg’s whole post on the topic is worth reading) resonated with me:

Judith Bond
28.1.10 / 6am
Our country needs a father figure who freely gives sound, solid moral advice.

Another word for virginity is abstinence.

Judith Bond
[my emphasis,
http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/01/27/tony-abbott-and-the-usual-frenzied-reaction-to-common-sense/#comments]

The part which I put in bold is the part which interests me here. Every country needs such a father-(or, when a woman reigns, mother-)figure, and that’s one reason why an hereditary monarchy is a desirable form of civic rulership. Perhaps paradoxically, no elected ruler, even if his powers are those of a king, can be this kind of father-figure, because the father-figure needs to be, like a biological father, someone with whom one is ‘stuck’, whom the populace cannot simply dismiss from office when it pleases it. And it is fitting that such a temporal father-figure have, and be united officially with, a spiritual counterpart, and one with spiritual jurisdiction at the same level as the temporal jurisdiction of the civil sovereign—that is, at the level of the whole populace. And better yet, another spiritual father at the level of the whole human race too, so that, with a Universal Primate above him, the national primate will not find himself without the moral support of a superior when Church-State frictions arise. Our country needs, and our world needs, a father-figure who freely gives sound, solid moral advice. And if Mrs. Bond, Mr. Muehlenberg and their co-religionists would abjure themselves of their heresies then they would find such a father-figure in the Roman Pontiff.

(Oh, and one of my favourite comments so far on Mr. Abbott’s remarks is this one, in today’s edition of The Australian:

Will the Rudd government set up a ministry of promiscuity to counter Tony Abbott’s pernicious message on virginity ?

F. W. Anning, Ascot, Qld
[bold type in the original,
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/last_post_january_29])

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2010