The Pope to Putin

To His Excellency
Mr Vladimir PutinPresident of the Russian Federation

In the course of this year, you have the honour and the responsibility of presiding over the Group of the twenty largest economies in the world. I am aware that the Russian Federation has participated in this group from the moment of its inception and has always had a positive role to play in the promotion of good governance of the world’s finances, which have been deeply affected by the crisis of 2008.In today’s highly interdependent context, a global financial framework with its own just and clear rules is required in order to achieve a more equitable and fraternal world, in which it is possible to overcome hunger, ensure decent employment and housing for all, as well as essential healthcare. Your presidency of the G20 this year has committed itself to consolidating the reform of the international financial organizations and to achieving a consensus on financial standards suited to today’s circumstances. However, the world economy will only develop if it allows a dignified way of life for all human beings, from the eldest to the unborn child, not just for citizens of the G20 member states but for every inhabitant of the earth, even those in extreme social situations or in the remotest places.

From this standpoint, it is clear that, for the world’s peoples, armed conflicts are always a deliberate negation of international harmony, and create profound divisions and deep wounds which require many years to heal. Wars are a concrete refusal to pursue the great economic and social goals that the international community has set itself, as seen, for example, in the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, the many armed conflicts which continue to afflict the world today present us daily with dramatic images of misery, hunger, illness and death. Without peace, there can be no form of economic development. Violence never begets peace, the necessary condition for development. The meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the twenty most powerful economies, with two-thirds of the world’s population and ninety per cent of global GDP, does not have international security as its principal purpose. Nevertheless, the meeting will surely not forget the situation in the Middle East and particularly in Syria. It is regrettable that, from the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, one-sided interests have prevailed and in fact hindered the search for a solution that would have avoided the senseless massacre now unfolding. The leaders of the G20 cannot remain indifferent to the dramatic situation of the beloved Syrian people which has lasted far too long, and even risks bringing greater suffering to a region bitterly tested by strife and needful of peace. To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution. Rather, let there be a renewed commitment to seek, with courage and determination, a peaceful solution through dialogue and negotiation of the parties, unanimously supported by the international community. Moreover, all governments have the moral duty to do everything possible to ensure humanitarian assistance to those suffering because of the conflict, both within and beyond the country’s borders.

Mr President, in the hope that these thoughts may be a valid spiritual contribution to your meeting, I pray for the successful outcome of the G20’s work on this occasion. I invoke an abundance of blessings upon the Summit in Saint Petersburg, upon the participants and the citizens of the member states, and upon the work and efforts of the 2013 Russian Presidency of the G20. While requesting your prayers, I take this opportunity to assure you, Mr President, of my highest consideration.”

From the Vatican, 4 September 2013
(Signed)
Francis

 

Putin on Syria

 

Let your family become the focus of hope and life to those who need it as we strive together to fight off the new evil

News has emerged today (under the thirty year rule) of a speech prepared by the government for the Queen in 1983 for broadcast in the event of a war with the Soviet Union. It is notable the emphasis it places on the family as the essential unit of society. Thirty years later as the UK removes recognition from the family it is clear that the state-worshipping evil of which HMQ didn’t quite speak now reigns triumphant in her own land. “It is this close bond of family life that must be our greatest defence against the unknown. If families remain united and resolute, giving shelter to those living alone and unprotected, our country’s will to survive cannot be broken. My message to you therefore is simple. Help those who cannot help themselves, give comfort to the lonely and the homeless and let your family become the focus of hope and life to those who need it. As we strive together to fight off the new evil let us pray for our country and men of goodwill wherever they may be.” Amen.

The BBC in its article comments that the text was prepared “in the year that US President Ronald Reagan both enraged and alarmed Moscow with his denunciation of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire'”. I thought it might be interesting to see what Reagan actually said in that speech. Reagan’s speech was delivered to a group of evangelical pastors and it is extremely assertive in its hostility to what we now call the culture of death and the separation of Church and state (as understood by the twentieth century US Supreme Court). He remarks,

“I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities–the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God. Now, I don’t have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to, or at least out of step with, a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based. No matter how well intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they’re freeing us from superstitions of the past, they’ve taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation. Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority.”

Alas, is that still true? Elsewhere he praises a man he heard give a speech once who said “I would rather see my little girls die now; still believing in God, than have them grow up under communism and one day die no longer believing in God.” It makes you wonder if the catastrophe had occurred and Elizabeth II had delivered that speech would not the world that emerged (if any), though brutal and dark, have left more room for human moral struggle and perfection than the degraded horror of contemporary perverted hedonism. For Marx and Engels the beginning of class war is marriage and the family. For the new atheists and sodomanics the destruction of marriage and the family is the final stage in their war to overthrow the West.

“Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness–pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.”

It is a Protestant speech and one inspired by the (to say the least) imperfect ideals of 1776. It even ends with a Pelagian indifferentist flourish “One of our founding fathers, Thomas Paine, said, ‘We have it within our power to begin the world over again.’ We can do it, doing together what no one church could do by itself.” But it is also rather moving. If only he knew that there is only one Church and only her Lord can begin the world over again.

“Yes; for grace can, where nature cannot. The world grows old, but the Church is ever young. She can, in any time, at her Lord’s will, ‘inherit the Gentiles, and inhabit the desolate cities.’ ‘Arise, Jerusalem, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all these are gathered together, they come to thee; thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at thy side.'”

 

Modest proposal: map

[revised 4th June] Having taken into account the comments of Aelianus with regard to the last post but one and some further thoughts of my own, I propose the following interim division of England.

 

Nightmare Scenario….

We who though unworthy exercise on Earth the Keys of Him to Whom all authority is given in Heaven and on Earth, in virtue of our Apostolic authority and in the plenitude of our sacerdotal power do hereby severe from the dominion and sovereignty of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland those islands known variously as the Falklands or Malvinas and do consign them to the dominion and sovereignty of the Republic of Argentina. But should anyone, which may God avert, seek to deny, impede or resist this exercise of our undoubted and supreme Apostolic authority let it be known to him that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome on the Feast of St Gregory VII…..

 

Ronnie Knox on Hiroshima

How was a man of the sanctity, humanity and intelligence of Ronald Knox capable of saying this about the murder of thousands of people?

Theologically speaking, my thesis is that it would have been a more perfect thing not to bomb Hiroshima. Or, if I must needs talk the language of common life, let me dig up a phrase from an almost forgotten, but not wholly unregretted past, and say that bombing Hiroshima was not cricket (God and the Atom, chapter V, 1945).

Truly, war does strange things even to the best men.

 

The Signs of the Times and the Prudential Judgments of Councils

“We wish to cherish and honour the Greeks who in our days are returning to the obedience of the apostolic see….” – Lateran IV (1215)

“A sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man…” – Vatican II (1962-1965)

 

Newcastle upon Tyne – Capital of Scotland 1138-57

I came across this claim in a local history written in 1924: Newcastle-upon-Tyne by F. J. C. Hearshaw. In the year 1138 Newcastle was occupied by King David I of Scotland (Feast Day May 24th) it did not return to the Kingdom of England until 1157. The New Castle on the ruins of the Roman fortress of Pons Aelius had been built in 1080 by Robert II of Normandy eldest son of William the Conqueror and hero of the First Crusade. David’s family already had associations with Newcastle because his Grandmother and Aunt fled there after the death of Malcolm III and St Margaret in 1093. Malcolm III was killed at Alnwick with his eldest son on the way back from a campaign in Northumbria during which he had attended the foundation of the new Cathedral Church at Durham. Hearshaw continues…
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“Queen Margaret of Scotland (sister of Edgar Atheling) survived this double loss only four days, and Scotland became the prey of civil war and anarchy. In these circumstances Margaret’s aged mother, Agatha, and her sister Christina, fled to England, their native land, sought shelter in Newcastle, and there ‘were espoused to Christ’ in the newly founded Nunnery of St Bartholomew, first of Newcastle’s religious houses.”
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This Nunnery was destroyed at the Reformation. The indoor Granger Market and Nun Street mark the land where it once stood. Now Hearshaw is certainly wrong about England being “their native land” as neither of them can have been born there. In fact the place of Agatha’s birth and how she fits into the great extended family of saints surrounding St Stephen of Hungary and St Henry the Emperor is a great historical mystery. Agatha lived out her remaining years as a nun in Newcastle but her daughter did not stay in Newcastle. Christina went on to be the Abbess of Romsey where she educated Malcolm and Margaret’s daughter Edith (later renamed Matilda) by whose marriage to Henry I the royal line of Wessex was united to that of Normandy. This union was later threatened by the survival of only one child of Henry I, his daughter Matilda. Although the Barons agreed to accept her as heir before Henry I’s death, when the King actually died most rallied to her cousin Stephen (famous coward of the First Crusade) sparking a protracted civil war. This helped to provide a pretext for expansion southward by David I (son of Malcolm III and uncle of Matilda)…

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“In 1137 a muster of local troops at Newcastle prevented David from pressing his attack far to the south. In 1138, however, his host reached Northallerton in Yorkshire; but there it met with a heavy defeat at the hands of the militia of Yorkshire in the famous ‘Battle of the Standard.’ Nevertheless, though this English victory saved Yorkshire from Scottish occupation, it did nothing to relieve Northumberland, nearly all of whose castles were by this time in David’s possession. The hopeless Stephen, distracted by civil war and debilitated by baronial treachery, felt constrained to make peace on his adversary’s terms. Hence by the Treaty of Durham (1139), the much coveted Earldom of Northumberland was revived and conferred upon Henry, David’s eldest son and heir. Newcastle was not included in this grant. In spite of that fact, however, the Scots took possession of it and held it for some eighteen years.
The Scottish occupation was a notable episode in the history of the town. It was quite clear that David regarded Northumberland as permanently incorporated into his kingdom, and many things indicate that Newcastle was soon in fair way to supersede Edinburgh as his capital and seat of government. He himself was much in the town; he showed it peculiar favour; he issued his laws therefrom; he adopted its customs as models for the four Scottish boroughs of Edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh and Berwick (hence the inclusion of the customs of Newcastle in the Scottish Statute Books); he caused, it is supposed, the old English church near the White Cross to be refounded and rededicated to the Scottish St Andrew; he refounded the nunnery of which his grandmother and his aunt had been inmates. From Newcastle he extended his wide authority over Northern England. Before the end of 1141 (when the cause of Stephen appeared to be ruined and that of Matilda triumphant) he had secured Carlisle, and had made himself master of Cumberland, Westmorland, and a large part of Lancashire. A dependent of his moreover acquired the palatine bishopric of Durham, and the largest dreams of Scottish expansion seemed likely to be realised.
Three deaths, however – viz., those of Henry, Earl of Northumberland, in 1152; of David himself in 1153; and of Stephen in 1154 – completely changed the political situation, and prepared the way for the English recovery of Newcastle and North.”
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Of course, the Scottish Kings were rather more English than the Kings of England at this time as they represented the elder branch of the house of Wessex. Hearshaw is probably wrong about St Andrew’s as well. It is likely that it was always dedicated to the Apostle on account of the devotion to him in the region stemming from St Wilfred’s translation of relics of Andrew from Rome to Hexham in the seventh century. In fact, I am reliably informed, it is quite likely that the relics of St Andrew in Fife and the consequent dedication to Scotland to him probably stems from the theft of some or all of these relics in one of the many raids of the period or their transportation to Fife by a disgruntled deposed Abbott of Hexham. In fact, it was not until after the period discussed here that the term Scotia was used to include the region bellow the Firths of Clyde and Forth. The eastern part of this region still being seen as Northumbrian, giving rise to the surprising fact that St Cuthbert is the patron of Edinburgh and St Andrew of Newcastle.

 

The vow of King John Casimir

Great mother of the God-Man, most holy virgin, I, Jan Kazimierz, by the grace of your Son the King of Kings and my Lord, and by your mercy, king, falling at your most holy feet, take you to be my patron and queen of my dominions. I recommend myself and my Polish kingdom, my dukedoms of Lithuania, Ruthenia, Prussia, Mazovia, Samogitia, Livonia, Smoleńsk and Czernichow, and the armies of both nations and all my peoples, to your particular care and protection. In this woeful condition of my kingdom, full of calamities, I humbly implore your pity and help against the enemies of the Roman Church. And since, constrained by your remarkable kindnesses, I and my nation burn with a new and zealous desire to consecrate ourselves to your service, I swear, in my name as in that of my senators and my peoples, to you and to your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, that I will spread your praises and devotion to you through all the lands of my kingdom.

I promise and vow that when by your powerful intercession and the great mercy of your Son, I gain victory over the enemies and especially over the Swedes, I will ask the Apostolic See that this day be celebrated every year for ever in thanksgiving to you and your Son, and with the bishops of the kingdom I will strive that what I swear be carried out by my peoples.

Since with great sadness of heart I see that on account of the cries and oppression of the serfs the plagues of pestilence, war, and other calamities have these seven years fallen on my kingdom from the hands of your Son, the just Judge, I further swear and vow that when peace comes I, and all the estates, will use means to free the people of my kingdom from unjust burdens and oppression.

 And since you, most merciful Queen and Lady, have inspired the thought of these vows in me, my senators and the estates of my kingdom, do you bring about that I may obtain from your Son the grace of fulfilling them.

 

Cruelty

This has been on my mind all day.

A university student jumped to his death from a bridge a day after two fellow students filmed him having sex with a man in his room and broadcast it live on the internet.

One of those fellow students was his rommate:

In a message posted on microblogging website Twitter on Sep 19 Ravi allegedly said: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”

I am so sad for the poor wee boy. It’s the thought of him first caught up in some homosexual mess, and then publicly humiliated like this. I only hope the cruelty was as thoughtless as its childishness suggests. What if it was entirely deliberate?

Eternal rest …