Friday, February 5, 2010

Response to comments at my previous post

For some reason I can't publish comments in the combox for Why we need (hereditary) Monarchy and (all-male) Hierarchy, so here's what I wanted to say:
Thanks for your comments, Louise and Matthias, and I apologise for my tardiness in getting back to you. Between posting that post and now I’ve only been on the internet once (and on that occasion I ran out of time to respond), and then after that last occasion I lost internet access until yesterday. Here's my response (which I drafted while off-line):

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"Cardinal go over to cooees to see what 'dIETRICH rUDD said in his mamby pamby obviously high church Anlgican liberal way ."

I read Mr. Rudd's comments elsewhere, and was unsurprised. As others have pointed out, he's happy to do photo opportunities outside his church but he won't back up the perfectly sound, unobjectionable advice--sound and unobjectionable, one might have hoped, to anyone who professes to be a Christian, or even just to respect the natural law--of his rival. To invert a popular saying, he walks the walk but won't talk the talk. But, as others have also noted, this strategy--and it is not paranoid to expect that the Rudd/Gillard reaction is indeed a planned and co-ordinated strategy by Labor strategists--is a miscalculation, because what father doesn't impart to his children the kind of advice--or even less likely, imparts the contradictory or contrary advice--(if not in precisely the same words) as Mr. Abbott says he imparted?

And you're right to remind us of Mr. Rudd's much-mentioned devotion to the memory and teaching of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (sp?), Matthias. No doubt the late Herr Bonhoeffer would have been in full agreement with Mr. Abbott here, so is one to infer that Mr. Rudd is selective in which elements of Bonhoeffer's morality he professes? Mr. Rudd has been outspoken against economic liberalism, but why does he shy away from confronting sexual libertinism?

"Wow, what a fascinating post, Pole. Lots of good thoughts there."

Thanks Louise; Mrs. Bond's comment really resonated with me, and I thought I'd throw out a few thoughts on the matter.

"Pole, does it injure your argument if I point out that some fathers and kings are dolts?"

Good question. If we think of a State which has not been evangelised, or a State which has been evangelised but has either once held and later rejected, or has never accepted, the Faith, then the fact that a given king is, as you put it, a dolt can be a huge problem. That's one reason why the union of Church and State is such a desirable thing, since it is unlikely that both the respective national Heads of Church and State will be dolts at any given time, and still less likely that both the temporal and spiritual Hierarchies will be composed mostly of dolts at the same time, and if either such unhappy coincidence should occur (e.g. Henrician England), then there is the possibility of recourse to the Universal Primate.* Just as a good parish priest can, to a significant extent, compensate for a doltish father, so can a good national Hierarchy make up for a doltish king.

To sum up, I suppose I would put it this way: An hereditary monarchy (and all-male Hierarchy) can at least sometimes offer the kind of father-figure(s) which human nature rightly craves, whereas other forms of government--legitimate though they can be--can never offer the benefit of a national father-figure (though this lack does not, as I indicated, make them entirely incapable of serving the common good; pure democracy, pure aristocracy, or some mixture of two or more of monarchy, democracy and aristocracy are all permitted by the natural law). (Though of course we know from Revelation that other forms of Church leadership, such as a mixed male-female hierarchy or having no spiritual leaders higher than the level of local pastor, can never be legitimate.)

*Therein is another reason for Catholics to oppose a World State (by whatever name its advocates call it)--a temporal sovereign at the same level (i.e. at the level of the whole human race) as our spiritual sovereign means that, humanly speaking, we could imagine at the universal level the kind of subjugation of Church to (World) State as we saw at the national level in the Protestant (and Greek-Schismatic) countries. (I say 'humanly speaking' because of course we know by Faith that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Universal Church or the Church of Rome; nevertheless one can imagine great harm being done to the good of souls in such a situation.)

"'twonk" ah yes Twit without kids""

That's a new one to me!
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Enjoy your weekend. I'll be back on Monday, God willing.

6 comments:

Matthias said...

"we could imagine at the universal level the kind of subjugation of Church to (World) State" You know Cardinal,this comment of yours is not dissimilar to those of some Protestant groups ,who believe that there will be a coming world state with the Church being persecuted because of not bowing the knee. many in these groups see the RCC as being complicit in this World State,lumped with the Liberal proddy groups of course like the UCA and the WC of Churches
BUT the great Russina writer Vladimir Soloviev-deemed to be the founder of the Russian Orthodox in Communion with Rome church,in his book THE ANTICHRIST portrays a Christian church out in the wilderness of Sinai,because they refused to bow the knee to the World State ,being led by the Pope who is supported by a Russian orthodox Elder John and a German protestant pastor Dr Pauli(?). Of course this book is only part of an even larger tome Three Conversations. Thank you Pole for giving me something to meditate upon,especially as i try and sit through a rendtion of hymns -dreadful and dirgy -at churhc this sunday

Matthias said...

Very interesting the latter comment must be Greek

Anonymous said...

Again, well done, Pole!

You seemed to know what I was getting at, even though of course it is no argument against fatherhood, for example, if a father is a dolt. But you could see what I was getting at.

Excellent reply! Your superior knowledge in this area is a blessing to me.

Anonymous said...

There was once a lovely post on Miss Hilary White's blog with a picture of graffiti on a wall in Rome which said simply "Benedetto" (or else, "Benedict"). Her title for the post was:

"The only city which has a father."

Very touching.

And if you ask me, it explains some of the goings on in Rome (e.g. all its naughty sons and daughters rebelling against the Pope).

Anonymous said...

"twonk" ah yes Twit without kids"

I thought that was pretty good, Matthias. :)

Anonymous said...

From your previous post:

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.

Explains somewhat the tendency towards a nanny state where there are other forms of gov't.