Quote of the Day
Posted on 24 February 2012
Mark Shea over at Catholic and Enjoying It quotes the great Macauley
There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s.
Mark Shea adds: Since this was penned by Macauley, the British Empire has gone to pieces, Europe has committed suicide in two global wars, the Soviet Empire has come and gone, the Japanese Empire likewise, the Chinese Communist experiment is daily menaced by a growing Church, and the thousand year Reich vanished like a mayfly in 12 years. Don’t over-estimate the odds that our fantastically ephemeral cult of celebrity, hedonism and imperialism is likely to inflict lasting damage on the Church.
My comment: The Church lasted so long because each generation that was threatened willing offered up witnesses and martyrs to the divine truth we uphold. Fortunately, in this country, our ‘prosecution’ will probably amount to no more than people posting images of flying spaghetti monsters on Facebook, or fines, or jail time if we don’t pay the fines. Only in the Middle East and Africa are they actively burning churches and slaughtering Christians. Compared to that, what are we being asked?
We are being asked to resist the Tyrant.
Resist the Tyrant. Merely because Mr Obama (aided both by a compliant media and by those who are his alleged opponants) by one slow step at a time has reached the point where he feels it within his powers to nationalize automobile industries, health care industries, banks and mortgage industries, not to mention the student loan industry, and he feels it within his powers to murder American citizen suspected by an unknown government body of terrorism, and also feels it within his powers to appoint officers without the advice and consent of the Senate, and also feels it within his powers to define to the Catholic Church was is and is not permissible exercise of our freedom of religion, at that point there is nothing, economic nor military nor judicial nor theological, beyond his grasp, or to serve as a check on his power.
At that point, he is a tyrant. We might as well call him one.
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From my position of a lack of direct knowledge, if Obama does go too far, then the public will rebel, just like they did when Roosevelt tried to take on the Supreme Court. No matter how complicit the media is, the truth will out.
We’re still alive and kicking over in Europe, thanks. We produce more than you, our combined military power is greater than yours, and if we could actually get round to the little things like speaking the same language, we could well cause another world war. (The premise there being that we become the ‘United States of Europe’, you feel threatened, and China and Russia feel threatened and become the ‘United Not-USSR’, and Africa gets sulky and becomes ‘Africa’, as does the Middle East, and we get into really, really big groups and kick each other to death).
The point being, don’t get too overconfident.
Well, I am not sure about the production, but the military budget and resources of the United States are greater than the military budgets and resources of the next forty countries combined.
Dylan was right- the times, they are indeed a changin’. Over here in Blighty we recently had a strong defense of our Christian heritage laid down by Baroness Warsi when she went to meet the Pope. It is worth noting that this proud defender of the faith is a Muslim.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/02/17/the-visit-led-by-baroness-warsi-to-the-vatican-ended-in-feelings-of-good-will-all-round-all-the-same-the-holy-see-made-it-plain-it-is-preparing-for-battle/
Our problem is the wholesale replacement of Christianity by a vague mishmash of ideas, foremost among them the notion of eternal progress away from a hideous religious past.
See, in America, the Church’s enemies aren’t trying to rewrite or forget history just quite yet. Christianity can be co-opted in certain areas for the benefit of the state- see the gaggle of useful idiots (though well meaning) who pop up from time to time on HuffPo. For the more awkward Christians or other believers it’s all about the shame game. See how the whole debate has moved from “Obama isn’t trying to weaken religious freedom, idiot!” to “Well, okay, he made a stupid move, but the compromise is good” to “Stop being so mean and let me have contraception you dark age fascist!”
But you know, in a weird way I’m almost glad this has happened. It’s like the Phony War is over and just now the panzers are starting to roll across the border.
Or maybe the current administration will back down when it starts to worry about bad press in the election. Who knows?
There are good and practical reasons why Walter Miller used the Church as the keystone of
the rebirth of civilization in A Canticle for Leibowitz.
The same reasons why history used the Church in the West as the keystone of the rebirth of civilization after the fall of Rome, no doubt. The Church is always predicted to be about to die, and is always bringing new life, and life more abundantly.
Hindus can make a similar claim. Vedas were being chanted more than a thousand years before the Church was born and are still being chanted.
Who has dispraised the Hindus?
I don’t think it was a dig at Hinduism as much as Catholicism, saying that the Church itself is young compared to some entities. Of course that is rather arguable, as Hinduism maps less to Catholicism and more to Abrahamic faiths in general, and the Jews go about that far back themselves (depending on the fads in the history department this week).
I would say it is inarguable that the Catholic Church is one of the oldest surviving human institutions, and is certainly the most powerful such survivor. I doubt anything short of human extinction or radical transformation is going to remove it for the foreseeable future.
Hmmm? And who is the Hindu Pope? Of what shape is the Hindu hierarchy?
If your claim is that religiosity is that old, then you have no objection from me. But if you’re thinking that Hinduism has the same institutional clarity and stability as the Catholic Church, then I don’t think that’s quite right.
And Hinduism has faced death too- the rise of Buddhism, of Islam, of Portuguese and English. The Hinduism has outlasted them all.
Again, I don’t understand the point of your comment. I did not say Christianity was the oldest religion on earth, I said the Catholic Church is the oldest institution, with the possible exception of the Japanese monarchy. Hinduism is not an institution.