Queries on Henry VIII's Divorce

A few brave souls have taken the time and trouble to read through my 2009 history thesis on the canon law of Henry VIII's divorce; for this I thank you! Now, two questions have been posed regarding some of my conclusions/research, which I intend to answer here to the best of my ability. Those who are unfamiliar with this issue may be a little lost - please review here and here for more background on the canonical issues surrounding the divorce and the problems posed by various interpretations of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

First, regarding impeding vs. diriment impediments and the impediment of public honesty, one person writes:

I just read your thesis on the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon and I must say that it is very good.

However I do have one question concerning it. You brought up at the end the question of public honesty and whether Henry could have used it to show that his marriage was invalid. Your conclusion is that it is unlikely that Clement would have agreed that because the marriage was never consummated that a dispensation for the sake of public honesty would be required and thus render the marriage invalid.

My question is; is public honesty a 'impeding (or prohibitory) impediment' 'which renders a marriage illegal but not absolutely void. The impediment is said to "impede" the marriage so long as it exists, but once it is taken away, a valid marriage remains insofar as the obstacle has been removed.' Or is it a 'diriment impediment' which 'renders a marriage null and void from the beginning, unlike an impeding impediment which merely makes it illegal.'

What resolution would there be to the problem if the marriage was only 'impeding'?

Good question - public honesty was seen as a diriment impediment that would have rendered the marriage absolutely invalid. However, it was not a diriment impediment according to natural law; if it were, the pope would have had no power to dispense from it. The fact that popes did dispense from it, usually alongside a dispensation for affinity, suggests that the Church never thought of public honesty as something pertaining to natural law, but more to positive ecclesiastical law (especially since much of this issue was bound up with custom, which could vary from region to region, as in the case of Innocent III, who dispensed recently converted Latvians to marry their brother's wives irrespective of issues of public honesty).

What if the problem with Henry's marriage had been merely an impeding impediment and not a diriment one? This I do not know - I am uncertain what steps the Church would have taken back then for a marriage that was deemed illegal but not invalid. Obviously (re)marriage would not have been permissible since they would have been already validly married. My guess is that sacramental confession and a proscribed public penance would have been in order, probably followed up by an papal bull declaring the marriage honest and legal once it had been confessed and Henry had made appropriate satisfaction.

Another person writes regarding the proper reconciliation of Deuteronomy with Leviticus regarding marrying a brother's wife:

From the moment I first read Leviticus 20:21 my first instinct was that it referred to adultery, almost in the exact same wording as does Lev 18 which continually admonishes us not to "uncover the nakedness" of close relatives nor those married to close relatives even if they are not "blood" relations. However, in the case that a blood relative should die, like a brother, since his wife has become one with the family, then it is proper duty for his brother to, in a sense, "take the place" of his brother to build up progeny for him.

I understand your argument of "redundancy" against the adultery argument, but isn't that what scripture is all about? To hammer the point in until us thick-brained dummies get it? God and his prophets repeatedly admonish us to following His commandments throughout all the scriptures to remind us of their great importance.

To me THIS reconciles the contradiction. Henry the VIII got it wrong; or he just REALLY wanted an excuse for a divorce. 

First let's tackle this issue of "redundancy." In my original post on this issue, I made the following observation: Some could argue that Leviticus 20:21 simply forbids intercourse with a brother's wife while the brother was still living, thus leaving freedom for a younger brother to marry the wife of a deceased brother who had died without issue. This argument was supported by Alexander of Hales as well as St. Albert the Great, but it has one major weakness, being its redundancy. To say you can't have intercourse with your brother's wife while he is still alive is to merely condemn adultery, and adultery is condemned already in many other places, rendering the specific prohibition of Leviticus superfluous.

What makes the argument "redundant"? The argument is redundant not just because adultery is condemned already in Scripture; of course, Scripture often hammers away at the same thing, in many different ways. But it is redundant because of the level of specificity of gives. For example, suppose we had a law that said, "Thou shalt not break the window of your next door neighbor's house, sneak in and steal his potted plant," but the real meaning of the law was just to condemn stealing in general. If simple stealing was what was being condemned, why the extra details about breaking the window and stealing the plant? We could say that this law is redundant - it uses an unnecessary amount of specificity to condemn something already broadly condemned elsewhere.

Similarly, if adultery is all that is condemned in Leviticus is adultery, then why the specification about it being a brother's wife(why not anybody's wife?)- also, why the phrase "they shall be childless"? Usually, when one is committing adultery, they do not want children from the adulterous union anyway. This context implies that the man is not just committing adultery with the wife, but is actually taking her to be his own wife.

I do think you are right that Henry really just wanted an excuse for a divorce, and I agree that your interpretation would still resolve the difficulty, but it would leave too many points unanswered. The solution I propose is the one adopted by some of the most eminent fathers and theologians and the one that the Pope Clement did in fact use in Henry's case. Thus Leviticus is seen to be forbidding a man to marry his brother's wife under any circumstances - whether she was a widow or not - with one important exception: if that brother had died without issue. This interpretation has the benefit of being true to the context of each Scripture, does not rob Leviticus of its binding nature but gives full room for a man to fulfill the obligation of Deuteronomy. Thus, Deuteronomy can be seen as the one exception to the general rule laid out in Leviticus.

Thanks for all the questions and the interest in this issue!

Books and discounts

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Can saints be possessed?

This week I've been reading An Exorcist Tells His Story by Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of the Diocese of Rome. It's a pretty neat book, a good introduction to the theology and praxis behind exorcisms that lacks the hyper-sensationalized accounts one finds in Malachi Martin's Hostage to the Devil. Also interesting from a Traditionalist point of view is Fr. Amorth's statements that exorcism prayers said in Latin are always more effective (p. 77), that the removal of the exorcism prayers from the new baptismal rite was a "grave mistake" (p. 54) and that "allowing the ministry of exorcism to die is an unforgivable deficiency" on the part of diocesan bishops; for all these things he says that the hierarchy must say a "forceful mea culpa" (p. 55). When ancient rites are modified and divested of some time-tested prayers and rituals, their spiritual efficacy can be weakened dramatically. 

Yet there are also some things in his book that are a bit difficult to get a grasp on. My biggest sticking point is his assertion that absolutely anyone is open to satanic possession, not excluding saints living lives of unitive contemplation with God. On page 57 of his book, Fr. Amorth makes this stunning statement to the effect that  saints are not exempt from full-blown diabolical possession:

"The lives of many saints include examples of this affliction. Among modern saints, I can cite two who have been beatified by Pope John Paul II: Father Giovanni Calabria and Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified (who was the first Arab to be beatified). In both cases, and without any human fault, they were subjected to periods of true satanic possession. During those periods, the two saints did and said things totally incompatible with their holiness without the least fault, because it was the devil who acted through their bodies" (p. 57).

Fr. Amorth is an experienced exorcist, and when he uses the phrase "true satanic possession" I am assuming he is being precise with his words and does not mean either diabolical oppression or obsession (many saints, like St. John Vianney, St. Padre Pio and St. John Bosco, were oppressed by the actions of the evil one). But true satanic possession of saints? I have never heard of this - I do not deny it's possibility outright, so maybe some of you can enlighten me if there is something I am missing. But my sensus fidelium reacts against the idea at the outset for the following reasons:

If a person is described as a saint while still on the earth, this means they are living a life of eminent sanctity - meaning a detachment from all mortal sin and most voluntary venial sin and the heroic practice of the virtues, inspired by an abundance of sanctifying and actual grace conferred by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost dwells in this person in an abundant way, directing all of their natural faculties and works towards supernatural ends: the love of God. In the saint, the Scripture is most perfectly fulfilled which says, "I will dwell in them and with them" (2 Corinthians 16).

Yet, if this is undeniably the case with saints, how can a demon also dwell within their body? As St. Paul asks rhetorically, "What fellowship hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor. 6:14-15). It seems to me that, based on the presence of such an eminent degree of grace and holiness in the soul of the saint (through the Spirit), that this state is incompatible with true demonic possession.

It may be argued that in demonic possession, the demon takes hold only of the person's body but not of the soul, and it is the soul that is sanctified by the presence of grace. Thus, a demon could theoretically take full and complete possession of a body, leaving the Spirit-filled and sanctified soul completely unhindered. In my unlearned opinion, this seems to posit too much of a radical distinction between the soul and body, for two reasons:

1) The saint is one who, by virtue of the excellent state of their soul, is able to bring their body into perfect subjection to the soul through prayer and mortification. The fact that the soul is eminently sanctified does not mean the body is cut loose - rather it means that the soul has a more perfect degree of control over the body and its passions. Since the body is subject to the holy soul, it seems unlikely that such a soul would succumb to the entrance of a demon into the body.

2) When a person is sanctified, their whole being is sanctified, body and soul - this is why the relics of the saints have efficacy, because their bodies, in a mystical way, anticipate the general Resurrection and already possess a degree of that glorification that will come at the end of time with the ultimate vindication of the just. If, therefore, a saint's body already possesses on this earth a foretaste of that glorious exaltation, how can this same flesh be overcome and possessed by a demon?

One other argument to take into account:  True demonic possession is rare, but mortal sin is common.Yet, in the case of mortal sin, we know that grace is lost if a mortal sin is committed; or to put it another way, deadly sin and grace cannot co-exist in the same soul at the same time - they are contradictions, akin to the distinction between life and death. But one can commit a mortal sin without the presence of an actual devil in the body. But if grace and mortal sin cannot coexist in the same person, why should a demon be able to coexist with grace?

It could be objected, I suppose, that committing a mortal sin destroys the soul, while a demon only possesses the body. But I think this brings us back to the point I raised above about the manner in which sanctity effects even the bodies of the saints.

Thus, it seems to me that we should not be seeing cases of true, full-blown satanic possession in the lives of the saints, especially since (as Fr. Amorth points out) demons tend to enter people through the senses (p. 78), especially through the eyes. Since saints exhibit an extraordinary control over their bodies and passions, especially in custody of the eyes, it seems extremely unlikely that a demon would find occasion to enter the saint - furthermore, because of the saints' radical commitment to the interior life, we might ask how a demon could force entry into a saint and the saint not "notice" what was happening to them, especially since saints are so adept and detecting the presence of the evil one?

The only recourse we really have left is to suggest that perhaps God allows Satan this access for the purpose of trying His saints. Yet, if so, why is this not mentioned by spiritual writers like St. John of the Cross? We know of the dark night of the senses (or the passive purgation of the senses) and the spirit, but we hear of no "Dark Night of Demonic Possession." We could also note than even in extreme cases of demonic oppression, like that experienced by St. Anthony in the desert, we do not hear of Satan actually entering the saint and possessing them.

So, while I admit a lack of theological training on this point, I have grave reservations about Fr. Amorth's statements here. I admit that I do not know much about Father Giovanni Calabria and Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified; perhaps the possessions occurred at some point in their lives before they entered into a state of sanctity? I could be wrong on all this and would be grateful for any insight any of you could offer. In the meantime I'm going to have to answer this query in the negative.

Signum Crucis in the Mass

One of the changes made by the post-Vatican II reformers to the Mass was the elimination of many of the signs of the cross, which were seen as superfluous and repetitive. 

Now, it is the case that the Extraordinary Form of the Mass contains abundantly more signs of the cross than does the Novus Ordo - forty-eight, I have heard (I've also heard 40). But does the fact that this sacred gesture is repeated so often mean that it is superfluous? Is it a medieval "encrustation" that has been uselessly repeated and multiplied until it has lost all meaning?

Surprisingly, this is the same argument made by Protestants regarding memorized prayers and "vain repetition": that the very fact of repetition is what makes a gesture "vain." Saying 50 Hail Mary's is a vain repetition Protestants will tell us; so is making 48 signs of the cross, the liturgical reformers insisted. But just as the argument is false with regards to the Rosary and memorized prayers, so is it equally groundless with regards to the sign of the cross.

In the first place, let us turn to the writings of Msgr. Jean-Joseph Gaume, whose writings on the sign of the cross in the 1860's sparked a renewed interest in the Church's most ancient prayer and led to the establishment of an indulgence for simply making this sign of the cross, issued in July, 1863. Msgr, Gaume in dealing with this objection of vain repetitions, says:

"Behold what the Church does, when, in the person of the priest, she ascends the altar. Armed with omnipotence which has been given her, she comes to command, no longer a creature, but the Creator; no longer a man, but God. At her voice, the heavens are opened; the Word again becomes incarnate, and renews all the mysteries of His life, death, and resurrection. Is there an act which ought to be performed with more solemn gravity? An act from which should be more carefully banished everything that might be foreign or superfluous?

Now, in the course of this, the action, by excellence, the Church, more than ever, multiplies the sign of the cross; she clothes herself with the sign of the cross; she goes through it with the sign of the cross; she repeats it so frequently that the number of times would seem to be exaggerated, were it not so profoundly mysterious. Do you know how many times the priest makes the sign of the cross during Mass? He makes it forty-eight times! I am wrong; throughout the whole of the august sacrifice, the priest is himself a living sign of the cross.

And the Catholic Church, the grave teacher of nations, the great mistress of truth, does she amuse herself by repeating so frequently, in her most solemn act, a sign, useless, superstitious, or of minor importance? If your companions believe this, they are wrong to call themselves unbelievers; it is not credulity that is wanting of them (The Sign of the Cross, Loreto Publications, pp. 12-13)."

Note that Msgr. Gaume states that the very fact that the sign of the cross is so frequently utilized in the Mass is the strongest argument that it is not a useless repetition. Since the Mass is the most solemn act of worship offered by the Church, everything contained in its rites ought to be uniquely suited to the dignity of the Sacrifice that occurs therein; the fact that the sign of the cross not only appears but appears with great frequency means that its repetition is specifically suited for the Church's highest act of worship.

St. Thomas Aquinas, too, addresses this very question in the Summa when responding to the objection, "Further, the ceremonies performed in the sacraments of the Church ought not to be repeated. Consequently it is not proper for the priest to repeat the sign of the cross many times over this sacrament." Notice how Aquinas says that every sign of the cross is placed "strategically" to coincide with whenever the mystery of Christ's sacrifice is mentioned; thus there is nothing superfluous or meaningless. Aquinas says in STh III,q. 83, a. 5, ad 3:

The priest, in celebrating the mass, makes use of the sign of the cross to signify Christ's Passion which was ended upon the cross. Now, Christ's Passion was accomplished in certain stages. First of all there was Christ's betrayal, which was the work of God, of Judas, and of the Jews; and this is signified by the triple sign of the cross at the words, "These gifts, these presents, these holy unspotted sacrifices."

Secondly, there was the selling of Christ. Now he was sold to the Priests, to the Scribes, and to the Pharisees: and to signify this the threefold sign of the cross is repeated, at the words, "blessed, enrolled, ratified." Or again, to signify the price for which He was sold, viz. thirty pence. And a double cross is added at the words---"that it may become to us the Body and the Blood," etc., to signify the person of Judas the seller, and of Christ Who was sold.

Thirdly, there was the foreshadowing of the Passion at the last supper. To denote this, in the third place, two crosses are made, one in consecrating the body, the other in consecrating the blood; each time while saying, "He blessed."

Fourthly, there was Christ's Passion itself. And so in order to represent His five wounds, in the fourth place, there is a fivefold signing of the cross at the words, "a pure Victim, a holy Victim, a spotless Victim, the holy bread of eternal life, and the cup of everlasting salvation."

Fifthly, the outstretching of Christ's body, and the shedding of the blood, and the fruits of the Passion, are signified by the triple signing of the cross at the words, "as many as shall receive the body and blood, may be filled with every blessing," etc.

Sixthly, Christ's threefold prayer upon the cross is represented; one for His persecutors when He said, "Father, forgive them"; the second for deliverance from death, when He cried, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" the third referring to His entrance into glory, when He said, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit"; and in order to denote these there is a triple signing with the cross made at the words, "Thou dost sanctify, quicken, bless."

Seventhly, the three hours during which He hung upon the cross, that is, from the sixth to the ninth hour, are represented; in signification of which we make once more a triple sign of the cross at the words, "Through Him, and with Him, and in Him."

Eighthly, the separation of His soul from the body is signified by the two subsequent crosses made over the chalice.

Ninthly, the resurrection on the third day is represented by the three crosses made at the words---"May the peace of the Lord be ever with you."

In short, we may say that the consecration of this sacrament, and the acceptance of this sacrifice, and its fruits, proceed from the virtue of the cross of Christ, and therefore wherever mention is made of these, the priest makes use of the sign of the cross.

Just as is the case with Protestant objections to the Rosary being a jumble of useless repetitions, so the case of the progressives disdain for the sign of the cross: the Church does nothing that is useless or vain, especially in her most solemn acts of worship, and the frequency with which the Ave Marias of the Rosary or the Signum Crucis of the Mass are repeated are not indicators of their superfluity but rather of their immense importance in the Church's piety and worship.

Sacral Kingship: Kingship in Liturgy (part 5)

Medieval painting depicting the victory of Emperor Heraclius over the Persians

Part five of the series on Christian kingship, dealing with how royal authority was portrayed in Christian liturgies of the early middle ages, especially liturgies for battle and coronation liturgies; apologies for the footnote numbers strewn throughout the post.

The light in which the Christian ruler of the late empire and early Middle Ages was viewed by the Church and people is best seen through the ecclesiastical liturgies of the period. Treatises on government, epistles of clergymen and individual actions of emperors and bishops are valuable in giving examples of how the relation between Church and government was worked out at various times, but a look at the liturgies of the Roman, Byzantine and early Germanic kingdoms reveal what image of kingship was put before the people on a daily basis. Liturgy reveals the way people lived and thought on a daily basis, and it is by examining these ancient liturgies that an insight can be gained into the basic understanding that the Christians of the early Middle Ages were developing about temporal authority. Lex credendi, lex orandi.

Records of the prayers of regular, daily masses have not been preserved as well as the records of masses for special occasions, such as thanksgiving masses and processions for a military victory, celebrations for the anniversary of an emperor’s reign, coronation liturgies and so on; yet even in the daily liturgies there are invocations for the protections and justice governance of the civil rulers. Ever since apostolic times Christians had accustomed themselves to offering prayers for the rulers, “our ancestral custom,” says Eusebius.1 Once a Christian ruler came to the throne, this aspect of the liturgy took on much more importance. As the Middle Ages progressed, the Church and State grew to be mutual supports for each other. When the two were on good terms, the system worked relatively well.

This section will look at late Roman and early Byzantine liturgies, but will also turn for the first time to the Germanic peoples of the west who were founding the first kingdoms in the lands of the former Western Roman Empire. Here only the early Germanic liturgies themselves will be looked at; discussions about the German influence on the institution of kingship itself will be addressed in the following chapter.

Liturgies for Battle

This era, from about 390 to 565, is the truly formative period of the integration of Church ritual and civil power. During this period the Christianity of the Europe was established beyond doubt, the threat of Arianism was abolished and the Catholicity of the faith ensured, and the first kingdoms of Western Europe were established. For the first time we see the emergence of states that had no pagan background, as did Rome, Greece and the nations of the east.

Not surprisingly, the earliest recorded ecclesiastical liturgies for civic functions center on warfare and battle. The connection of Christian piety with victory allowed for the first real emergence of an integration of civil and ecclesiastical roles. Liturgies were offered on the army field before battle, thanksgiving masses in nearby basilicas after the battle was over (if it was a victory, that is), and masses of petition and supplication, coupled with processions, when a city was under siege. The message to Constantine, In hoc signo vinces, was taken very seriously by Christian clergymen, rulers and common laity alike in the early Middle Ages.

One of the first records of a thanksgiving mass offered after a victorious battle comes from a remarkable letter of St. Ambrose to Theodosius I, in the year 394, after the Emperor had put down a revolt by the usurper Eugenius in the west, who had been acting a de facto ruler of Italy for the previous six years. The Emperor Theodosius had just beaten his rival at the Battle of Cold River and sent a message to St. Ambrose in Milan to notify the bishop of his imperial victory. Ambrose records in a letter to Theodosius how he responded to the news and how he offered what appears to be a novel form of thanksgiving Mass for the victorious Emperor:

"Even though I am unworthy and unequal to such a duty and to the solemnity of such prayers (vota), yet I will write you what I did. I carried your Piety’s letter with me to the altar, I placed it on the altar, I held it in my hand when I offered the sacrifice, so that your faith spoke with my voice and the letter of the emperor discharged the function of the bishop’s offering."2

This extraordinary passage from Ambrose seems to indicate a primitive method of the practice of offering up intentions with the sacrifice of the Mass, in a very literal manner. It is uncertain what he meant when he says, “the letter of the emperor discharged the function of the bishop’s offering,” but it seems to imply a very early development of the ideal of sacerdotal monarchy. The Emperor is clearly not an ecclesiastical figure, but he possesses some vague, undefined priestly power by virtue of his office as head of the temporal order. This allows him to participate in offering the sacrifice of Mass by proxy as it were, through the hands of the bishop. The holding of the Emperor’s letter by Ambrose is a symbolic gesture, but is at the same time a quasi-sacramental one that says symbolically what was only at the time an implied belief: that the ruler of the Christian world could act as both priest and king.

The victory of Theodosius at Cold River also marks another first in the history of ecclesiastical-civic functions: the first recorded instance of a liturgical procession done in celebration of an imperial military victory. Almost nothing is known about the procession itself except that it happened and that it was at the behest of Theodosius.3 Whether or not the Emperor himself took place in the procession, whether it was at the capitol or at the scene of the battle, whether or not there was the use of icons are all things shrouded in uncertainty. Yet within the coming decades, liturgical processions as thanksgiving for imperial victories become more and more common, perhaps the most splendid on record being the great victory procession and triumph given to Belisarius by Justinian upon the conquest of Africa.4 Within the Byzantine sphere, the procession will usually be lead by a bishop bearing an icon of some sort. The special protectrix of Constantinople was the Mother of God. Herakleios would bear this icon on his ship when he came to dispatch the usurper Phokas in 602. Later in the Byzantine Empire, when imperial victories became increasingly rare, the victory procession was replaced by the supplication procession. A city besieged by hostile Arabs or Turks would perform a ritual procession around the walls of the city bearing the icon of that place’s particular patron saint, invoking their protection over the city. Processions would become an integral part of the civic liturgies of the Middle Ages in both the east and the west.

By the era of Justinian, the celebration of a liturgy before a military engagement was a regular facet of the Byzantine military regimen. An example of such a military prayer survives from the Justinianic era. A Mass was celebrated at the army camp or at the site where battle was expected to take place. During the supplications, the commanding officer got down on his knees before the altar and prayed:

"Look upon the Romans at last, look, O highest God…with your power, I beseech you, smash the proud pagans. Let the peoples recognize you alone as Lord and powerful, while you crush the enemy and save your own kind by battle!"5

Then the entire officer corps and all the troops joined in tearful supplications imploring God’s assistance. By this time, the mid-6th century, the association between liturgical ceremony and loyalty to the Christian emperor were firmly fixed. The liturgies were able to unite the community and collectively call out for God’s assistance against the foes of the Empire, while the government got “free advertising” from the Church, which always stressed obedience to the divinely ordained emperors. Surviving Byzantine texts from late 5th and early 6th century liturgies beg God to assist “the princes of the Roman realm that, by thy tranquility and power they might ever be victors with clemency.”6 A similar text uses the form, “Let us also pray for our most Christian emperor, that our God and Lord may subjugate to him all barbarian peoples, for our lasting peace.” 7 Prayers for the protection of the emperors were always included in the Mass somehow. Thus the civic liturgies done by the Church came to provide “an enduring and frequent forum in which the average Roman subject voiced his loyalty to the emperor.”8

Though such liturgies are most popular in the east where imperial strength was felt more keenly, they appear in the west as well where the need for military victory against the barbarians was more pressing. Maximus, the Bishop of Turin, implored God to “defend the city’s ramparts” in a special liturgy when the Ostrogoths threatened the city in the late 5th century. Certain German tribes eventually began to adopt these liturgical occasions for their own military endeavors, and barbarian copies of Byzantine style liturgies begin appearing in the west around the late 6th century, perhaps brought there by the armies of Justinian. A Visigothic liturgy before battle dating from the 7th century fused Christ’s triumph over death with the king’s victory over his enemies in battle. The ceremony seemed to center around the king accepting a blessed standard from a priest. Once the king took the standard, the chorus broke out into antiphons: “Take up the invincible shield of justice! For vengeance! For your power was given to you by the Lord and your strength from the Most High. For vengeance.”9 Even in times of peace, the emphasis on victory was always present in the prayers of the liturgy. A prayer for the king’s victory at the Council of Saragossa in 691 reads:

"May He consolidate his [the king’s] reign in peace through many cycles of years and may He preserve both the race (gentem) and the entire fatherland in tranquility and may Christ’s victorious right hand make him ever victor against the opposing host."10

These examples demonstrate how the Roman ideals of the Christian ruler as Pius and Victor made their way west and found their way into the liturgies of the farthest extent of Christendom. As the last vestiges of antiquity passed away, the emphasis in the west would focus more and more and the Christian king and less on the Byzantine emperor, who by the 7th and 8th centuries was becoming a very remote player in the larger scheme of western European politics.

Coronation Liturgies

As Christianity became a permanent part of European culture, the coronation of a Christian ruler took on increasing significance as a civic and an ecclesiastical ceremony. In pre-Christian times the succession to the Roman emperorship was always filled by the last man standing, who usually had to dispose of several rival generals in a series of draining civil wars. This had put the Empire in bad straits by the 3rd century, and even the ascension of the Christian emperors failed to solve this dilemma. Indeed, it may be said that failure to find a stable method of imperial succession was a decisive factor in the weakening of the Roman Empire, from the time when Julius Caesar was stabbed at the foot of Pompey’s statue right down into the numbing series of overthrows and ceremonial blindings that characterized the transfer of power in the Byzantine Empire.

It took the influx of German elements into the world of late antiquity and the notion of prima geniture to stabilize what was an otherwise chaotic line of succession. Gradually, kings and emperors were no longer proclaimed on the battlefield but acclaimed in churches and crowned in elaborate ecclesiastical ceremonials. Many texts from these liturgies survive to this day and are of pivotal importance for the topic of this work. The coronation of a new monarch was where the ideologies of Church and State merged most powerfully, and it is in these texts that the development, rise and fall of the idea of theocratic kingship can be traced.

Before Constantine, there really was no such thing as a coronation. New emperors took the throne by assuming the imperial purple (paladamentum) and laurel wreath. Constantine was the first to implement a regal diadem. He wore the diadem habitually throughout his life and even ordered it placed on the head of his corpse after death. Thus, from Constantine throughout the Christian period, the diadem came to replace the purple as the primary symbol of sovereignty.11 The identification of the authority of the ruler with the authority of God was accomplished by a ceremonial adoration of the monarch by prostration. This seems to be a novelty introduced by Constantine himself. After the placing of the diadem upon the head of the emperor, the emperor received the Sacred Host, at which point everyone present fell down in adoration, ostensibly in worship of the sacramental Presence, though conveniently in the presence of the emperor as well. It seems that the emperor chose this moment, when he had just received the Host, as a prudent one for the act of adoration by prostration, lest some complain about performing a proskynesis in the presence of merely the emperor’s person.12

This idea of the adoration of God being synonymous with the adoration of His chosen ruler runs deep in Byzantine political and religious thought.13 Devotion to God could be gauged by one’s devotion to the God-appointed emperor. Just as there was only one God, so there was only one Empire and one ruler of that Empire.14 An example of this thought is found in the transcripts of the trial of Maximus from the late 7th century. Maximus, a Greek bishop, was accused of heresy and treason and was brought to trail before an assembly of senators and clergy in Constantinople. An excerpt from this transcript reveals how patriotism and orthodoxy were connected in the Byzantine mind:

They made him [Maximus] stand in the middle of the seated senators, and the bursar said to him with much anger and passion, “Are you a Christian?” He replied, “By the grace of Christ the God of the universe I am a Christian.” The former said, “That is not true!” The servant of God answered, “You say I am not, but God says I am and will remain a Christian.” “But how,” he said, “if you are a Christian, can you hate the emperor?” [italics mine]15

One of the charges of which Maximus was accused was denying that the Christian emperor was also a priest. At his trial, he recalled for his judges a dispute he had with one of them, an ecclesiastic named Gregory:

It is for priests to inquire into and define what concerns the saving dogmas of the Catholic Church.”’ And you said, “What, then, is not every Christian emperor also a priest?’ And I said, ‘He is not, for neither does he stand at the altar….Nor does he baptize, or anoint, or lay on hands and make bishops and priests and deacons….While he [Maximus] was saying this, Menas cried, “In saying these things you split the Church!16

What was implicit and undefined in the time of Ambrose had become by the late 7th century a widely held assumption: that the Christian ruler participated in the priesthood. Maximus, in arguing against sacerdotal monarchy, was fighting against the spirit of the times: he was condemned to exile and had his tongue torn out and his blessing hand cut off. He died four years later in 666.

The coronation rite used in Byzantium from the 5th century onwards reflects this development in political and sacred ideology. The first emperor crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople was Marcian in 450, although at first this seems to be because of the Patriarch’s capacity as a civil official and the coronation ceremony seems to have not been a religious one.17 However, by the time of Emperor Leo II in 473 the ceremony includes prayers by the Patriarch; at the coronation of Anastasius in 490 the prayers of the Patriarch and presentation of the Gospels are prominent. The Patriarch then administers an oral and written oath to the emperor-elect, making him swear that he will “keep the faith entire and introduce no novelty into the Church.”18

The first emperor crowned in a Church is the usurper Phokas, in 602. This seems to have been originally a propaganda method by Phokas, who as a usurper, wanted to do all in his power to bolster his image. Though it did not help him much (he was captured and burnt to death by Herakleios in 610, who became Emperor in his place), by that time the entire imperial coronation ceremony assumed a “formal and religious character.”19 The anointed emperors were compared to biblical kings like David  and his Christian subjects to the new Israel. 20 The ritual became no longer a transfer of political office, but a divine ordination; no longer the proclamation of a de facto ruler, but the creation of a de jure monarch. In some ways, the Byzantine emperor was viewed as some type of ecclesiastic; in the example above taken from the trial of Maximus, the judge Gregory clearly views the emperor as some sort of priest. This is reflected in the coronation liturgy, when the emperor is invested with a mandyas, or cope, and seems to exercise the function of a minor order in the Eucharistic liturgy that followed.21 This tendency toward sacerdotal monarchy was strongest in Byzantium, where there was a long and established tradition of Caesaropapism.

It is in the west that the practice of anointing a king with oil appears. This seems to arise first in Visigothic Spain, seemingly in imitation of the manner in which King Solomon was anointed in the Old Testament. This unction seems to replace the crowning with the diadem as the main feature of the ceremony. The unction was performed by the Bishop of Toledo or another high ranking ecclesiastic after the king made a profession of faith. The best preserved transcript of a Visigothic coronation comes from the coronation of King Wamba in 672, but like the record of the baptism of Clovis, it is shrouded with a miracle story of uncertain origin.22

The English coronation orders provide an especially telling insight into the way the image of the king changed over the course of time. The earliest coronation ceremony, called the Egbertine Order and associated with Archbishp Egbert of York (732-766), contains many elements of sacerdotal kingship. The king is anointed with oil from a horn while the antiphon “Unexerunt Salomonem” (“Thus they anointed Solomon”) is sung. A staff of some sort is presented to the king, with allusions to the bringing of the olive branch to the ark by the dove, but more importantly, to the selection of Aaron as High Priest over Israel when God made his rod blossom. Thus the biblical figures of Solomon, the archetypal king, and Aaron, the archetypal priest, are combined in the coronation of the English king.23 Another instance of sacerdotal imagery comes when the king is presented with three naked swords, one with the end cut off.24 The first two corresponded to the swords of temporal and religious power, representing the king’s promises to govern the state justly and be the defender of the Church. The third was the sword of mercy, cut short to symbolize that the justice of the monarch should be tempered with clemency.25

This implied bend towards theocratic kingship was strengthened after the Norman invasions to give divine sanction to their conquest and was not changed until the after the English investiture struggle. At that time a new order of service was adopted with a much less theocratic emphasis, the Anselm Order, named after the famous Archbishop of Canterbury who struggled against King William II Rufus is the English investiture controversy.

Very significant is the coronation liturgy of the Carolingian rulers, for it is among the Carolingians that the idea of theocratic monarchy was most popular. This is because of the direct correlation in the Carolingian monarchy between kingship and divine sanction. From the very beginning of the Carolingian dynasty, coronation was done by the Pope. It could be argued that it was the Pope who created the Carolingian dynasty by first giving sanction to Pepin to oust the Merovingians in 752 and then by proclaiming and crowning Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day, 800. As with the example of the eastern Emperor Phokas being crowned inside St. Sophia’s, this precedent of papal crowning seems to be a historical accident. If what Einhard and Charlemagne himself asserted is true, that Charles would have never agreed to accept the imperial title at the hands of the Pope had he known about it beforehand, then it is probable that Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as an attempt to both keep the Franks accountable to papal authority as well as counter the claims of the Byzantine emperors to be lords over the papacy.26 Future Carolingian (and later German) imperial coronations retained their link to the papacy: the emperor-elect was always crowned in Rome, took a coronation oath after kissing the pope’s foot, and swore fealty to the reigning pope, as well had an unction performed by the Bishop of Ostia.27 The crowning of Charlemagne created a precedent of imperial authority coming from the papacy.

At first, Charles seemed to have been upset by the coronation, but quickly realized how it could work to his authority. If he received his imperial title from the hands of the Pope, this meant that his authority ultimately came not from himself but from the Church. This could cause problems by making actions of the Frankish kings beholden to papal approval. However, it also meant that Charlemagne was endowed with an authority that no one else in the west was: the authority of God Himself, given through the Pope. Other coronation ceremonies only invoked God’s blessing on the king, but Charles had actually been selected by God and crowned by the Pope, giving him a much broader authority that his contemporary kings. This authority would come back to haunt the papacy; several centuries later, the Holy Roman Emperors would attempt to exalt their authority above that of the popes and constantly plagued the papacy, especially during the years from the Investiture Controversy (1072-1122) until the final victory of the papacy with the concessions granted it by Frederick II in 1215 and 1245. No one could have foreseen this on that Christmas Day in the year 800; but before long, the Carolingians, and later the Ottonians, would use their sacral authority to wreak much havoc in the Church.

In the formative years between the fall of the Roman Empire in the west and the rise of the Carolingians, there is much development in the ideals of what Christian kingship meant. Following the precedent set by Constantine and the late Roman emperors, the first place where the civil and ecclesiastical elements of the Empire came together was before of after a battle, where prayers for victory and thanksgiving celebrations were the way the Church sanctified the imperial war effort. Soon the crowning of the emperor himself became an ecclesiastical function; first Marcian was crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople in 450, then the usurper Phokas had his coronation done in the Church of Hagia Sophia in 602, hoping the cement his shaky claim to the purple. These actions became precedents in subsequent coronations and did much to contribute to the idea that the Christian ruler was both a layman and an ecclesiastic of some sort. It was for denying this connection that Maximus the Confessor had his tongue pulled out and hand cut off in 662.

Coronations in the west followed loosely on the imperial models, though the unction, in imitation of David and Solomon, replaced the assuming of the purple (paludamentum) as the central act of the ceremony. Kings were generally crowned and anointed after swearing to uphold the rights of the Church and rule justly, the idea being that the regal authority was being conferred by God, mediated through the Church, to the king in order that the ruler might partake in God’s governance of the temporal order through his office. There were always implications of some sort of vague ecclesial authority on the part of the king, such as the symbolism of the swords used in the Egbertine Order and the allusion to the anointing of Aaron; in the Carolingian ceremonies, it is more defined since the connection between Church and State was stronger.

During this period, 476-800, Europe clearly moved from the Roman sphere into the Germanic sphere of influence. The next section will briefly examine how the transformation of Europe into a German entity altered ideas about kingship and how the Germans contributed to both the rise and fall of theocratic monarchy in the Middle Ages.

Footnotes
1 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History,10.8

2 Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1986), 107-108

3Ibid.,106-107

4 Procopius, Bella, 4, 9, 3

5 McCormick, 246

6 Ibid., 240

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid., 237

9 Ibid., 309

10 Ibid., 321

11 Herbert Thurston, “Coronation,” In “The Catholic Encyclopedia”, vol. 4, ed. Charles G. Herbermann (Robert Appleton Co.: New York, 1908), 380

12 Ibid., 382

13 This ideal is very prominent in the coronation ceremony of the Russian czars as well, which was influenced greatly by Byzantine coronation orders. The metropolitan bishop prays as he presents the crown to the czar: “Most God-fearing, absolute and mighty Lord, Emperor of all the Russians, this visible and tangible adornment of thy head is an eloquent symbol that thou as the head of the whole Russian people art invisibly crowned by the King of Kings, Christ, with a most ample blessing, seeing that He bestows upon thee entire authority over His people” (ibid., 386).

14Another example of Byzantine Caesaropapism comes from the “Life of St. Euthymios”, a 10th century Patriacrh of Constantinople. Euthymios says to the emperor: “It is right, sire, to obey your orders and receive your decisions as emanating from the will and providence of God. For the king’s heart is in the hand of God.” Vita S. Euthymii, 1

15 Maximus Confessor, “Selected Writings”, Translated by George C. Berthold, (Paulist Press: Mahwah, N.J., 1985), 17

16Ibid., 21

17Herbert Thurston, “Coronation,” In “The Catholic Encyclopedia”, vol. 4, ed. Charles G. Herbermann (Robert Appleton Co.: New York, 1908), 381

18 Ibid.

19Ibid, 382

20The imagery of the Christian emperor as a new David goes back to Ambrose, who compared the military victories of Theodosius I to the triumphs of Joshua, Samuel and David, “by the outpouring of heavenly grace.” ( St. Ambrose, Letter 62) Coins and inscriptions from the reign of Herakleios depict him as a new David.

21Herbert Thurston, “Coronation,” In “The Catholic Encyclopedia”, vol. 4, ed. Charles G. Herbermann (Robert Appleton Co.: New York, 1908), 382

22 The legend is that a miraculous vapor arose from the head of the king after he was anointed with oil, which those present took as a supernatural portent (ibid.).

23Ibid., 383

24This may be a take on the popular “Two Sword” theory of the Middle Ages, which will be expounded on later.

25The king took three oaths as he was presented with the three swords. After each oath, the people present responded with a hearty “Amen.” The oaths corresponded to rule of the state, defense of the Church and extension of mercy, as the swords symbolized. “First, that the Church of God and all Christian folk should keep true peace at all times. Amen. The second is that he should forbid all robbery and all unrighteous things to all orders. Amen. The third is that he should enjoin in all his dooms justice and mercy, that the gracious and merciful God, of His everlasting mercy, may show pardon to us all. Amen.” (ibid.)

26“It was then that he [Charlemagne] received the titles of Emperor and Augustus, to which he at first had such an aversion that he declared that he would not have set foot in the Church the day that they were conferred, although it was a great feast-day, if he could have foreseen the design of the Pope.” Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, 28

27Herbert Thurston, “Coronation,” In “The Catholic Encyclopedia”, vol. 4, ed. Charles G. Herbermann (Robert Appleton Co.: New York, 1908), 385

Did St. Augustine believe in Sola Scriptura?

Anyone who has read any scholarly works by Protestant apologists knows how readily they turn to the venerable St. Augustine of Hippo to find support for their doctrines. Many Protestants, from Martin Luther to Adolf Harnack, held Augustine in great esteem and saw in him a pre-Reformation reformer. The Protestant Confession of Augsburg (1530) in Article 20 cites Augustine as a supporter of the Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide: “Augustine, in many volumes, defends grace and the righteousness of faith, over against the merits of works.” Calvin quoted Augustine more than any other theologian. Indeed, Augustine is almost universally praised by the intellectual Protestant world as a type of proto-Protestant. No such Protestant love is showed for saints like Cyprian, Athanasius or Gregory the Great. From whence comes this Protestant affection for St. Augustine?

To a Catholic, this must seem especially confusing, since we venerate Augustine as one of the Four Western Doctors of the Church and one of the greatest defenders of Catholic orthodoxy in Church history. Why then do Protestants make such use of him? Two reasons, mainly: first, because of Augustine’s tremendously imposing corpus of writing, it is difficult for the layman to comprehend the whole of Augustine’s work and get a balanced view on his beliefs on issues such as faith, grace, and biblical inspiration. It is worth pointing out that a few other heretical groups (notably the Jansenists) also misquoted Augustine in support of their heterodox teachings. This is compounded by the fact that Augustine modified some of his beliefs over time, as we see in his Retractions.

Second, we could cite the fact that even within this body of work, Augustine’s thought on these issues is so much more developed than any of the Fathers who came before him that, as Peter said of St. Paul’s writings, “there are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3:16). This means that one cannot do adequate justice to Augustine’s thought by pulling out little snippets and proof-texts to make a point. This is especially true of all the Fathers, but especially of Augustine.

Unfortunately, out-of-context citation and off the cuff “proof-texting” are usually what Protestants do when working with St. Augustine. This article deals particularly with this issue in regards to the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura. The examples in Protestant literature are manifold: some of the usual suspects are On the Good of Widowhood (c. 413) and On the Unity of the Church (c.405), in which quotes from Augustine are vacuumed out of their original context to suggest support for the Protestant belief that the Bible alone is the sole source of authority in doctrine and morals.

In this article, we will look at just one example of this, a text pulled from Letter 82 of St. Augustine to St. Jerome (c. 405) dealing with some questions about St. Pauls’ keeping of some ritual traditions of the Jewish law. In Chapter 1:3 of this letter, Augustine says, “For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error.” Later in the letter, St. Augustine reiterates this point and adds that he is “bound to yield such implicit subjection as to follow [the Scriptures’] teaching, without admitting the slightest suspicion that in them any mistake or any statement intended to mislead could find a place.” These quotations have been used frequently by Protestant commentators against Catholics as alleged “proof” that Augustine taught Sola Scriptura. But do they really prove this?

As is usually the case with instances of Protestants attempting to quote the Fathers against the Church, this example is one of a text being pulled out of context. St. Augustine certainly does not believe in Sola Scriptura; this can be proved easily by several other citations from Augustine in which he upholds the authority of Tradition. For example: 

"But in regard to those observances which we carefully attend and which the whole world keeps, and which derive not from Scripture but from Tradition, we are given to understand that they are recommended and ordained to be kept, either by the apostles themselves or by plenary [ecumenical] councils, the authority of which is quite vital in the Church" (Letter to Januarius (54) 1,1). 

In his reply to the Donatists on infant baptism, Augustine says:

"The apostles, indeed, gave no injunctions on the point; but the custom [of infant baptism]… may be supposed to have had its origin in apostolic tradition, just as there are many things which are observed by the whole Church, and therefore are fairly held to have been enjoined by the apostles, which yet are not mentioned in their writings” (Baptism, 5,23). 

There are literally scores of quotes from Augustine that demonstrate beyond doubt that he firmly believed in the authoritative Tradition of the Church and did not hold anything close to a Protestant belief in Sola Scriptura.

Such quotations from St. Augustine’s other works allow us to get a more well-rounded look at his teaching and establish firmly that Augustine did not believe that the the Bible alone is the sole source of authority for a Christian. However, we have not dealt with the original quote from his 82nd letter where St. Augustine says, “For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error.” If Augustine does not teach Sola Scriptura in this passage, then what exactly is he getting at?

In the paragraph immediately preceding the cited text, St. Augustine is discussing with St. Jerome the fittingness of using the word ludamus (“let us amuse ourselves”) in their debate over the interpretation of Scripture. Augustine says that it is good that they keep their debate in a friendly tone, so that there is no fear of offending one other by harsh words. But he goes on to say that he would not be offended if Jerome argued against him, for it is not to Jerome the man but to the Scriptures that Augustine yields authority in these matters. The complete quotation reads:

“You ask, or rather you give a command with the confiding boldness of charity, that we should amuse ourselves in the field of Scripture without wounding each other…On such terms we might amuse ourselves without fear of offending each other in the field of Scripture, but I might well wonder if the amusement was not at my expense. For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error” (1, 2-3).

So we see, Augustine is not setting up an opposition between Church Tradition and Sacred Scripture; he is merely saying that if it comes down to taking the word of Jerome, another bishop just as himself, or the Scriptures, he will yield to the Scriptures instead of to the opinions of a private theologian. This is still the Church’s position today: Church dogma, whether it is found in Scripture or Tradition, trumps the views of private theologians.

As is often the case, the problem is one of context. When we read the entirety of St. Augustine’s letter, we see that he is saying nothing at all about the authority of Scriptures over Church Tradition or Church authority. He merely asserts that the Bible is to be preferred to the opinions of a private individual, which the Church would agree with. The problem is that the Protestant who attempts to use this to debunk the Catholic position does not really care what Augustine is getting at; they have no intention of understanding the subtelties of Augsutine’s thought, only of attacking the Catholic position. A verse that seems to support the Protestant position is found and then wrenched out of context to be used against the unknowing Catholic.

Furthermore, if Protestants do decide to insist that St. Augustine was really a proto-reformer, then they picked a very bad choice, because it was this same Augustine who said of the Roman Catholic Church,

“This same is the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the catholic Church, fighting against all heresies: fight, it can: be fought down, it cannot. As for heresies, they went all out of it, like as unprofitable branches pruned from the vine: but itself abides in its root, in its Vine, in its charity. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (On the Creed: Sermon to Catechumens (14) c. 395)

When one really takes the time to dig into the works of Augustine, or any of the Church Fathers, it becomes easily apparent that they did not believe in anything even close to the Protestant notion Sola Scriptura. So don’t be taken in by the novel idea that Augustine, Athanasius or any of the Church Fathers believed in the doctrines of Luther and Calvin. It simply isn’t so.

Out of the mouths of babes...

Among the critics of a further return to the Church's traditional language in the liturgy, there are always those who say that an expansion of Latin would be impractical because nobody would be able to learn or understand it. It is too difficult, they say, to take people who only know English and try to educate them in the meaning and pronunciation of a different language. Nobody would understand what they were saying and, even if they were willing to try to pick up the Latin, it would take way too much time for them to master the phrases. Latin might be fine for those who have taken years of it in college, the say, but for the vast bulk of the laity who have not, this is just a kind of liturgical elitism, a practice that is beyond the ability of most people to find any meaning in. The laity simply does not have the endurance or competency for such an undertaking (a rehash of the old "ignorant laity" argument).

 At my parish we recently did an experiment that blew this argument out of the water. Last week we had about 60 kids from many surrounding parishes participate in our yearly Catholic Vacation Bible School program. Instead of singing a lot of insipid, Protestant-inspired songs, the music director decided to teach the kids to sing the Our Father in Latin. The majority of the kids (I'd say 80%) had never heard it before; I know this because we took a "show of hands" poll to see who had prior exposure to the Pater Noster - very, very few did.

 The student guinea pigs were from grades 3 to 6 and spent 45 minutes with the music director each day (though perhaps only ten or fifteen minutes were devoted to the Our Father specifically). On day one they were introduced to the prayer, were taught why we use Latin, were taught the prayer in its entirety, worked on pronunciation and had an opportunity to listen to the director singing the melody. At the end of the class, they fuddled their way through it once, too.

On day two they practiced singing through the song themselves, working out bumps in the timing and tweaked the pronounciation a little more. 

On the third day they were able to sing through the whole thing, guided by the Music Director, and sounded pretty good. By this time a good number of the phrases were committed to memory.

On day four they rehearsed the whole thing several times - I also reviewed it with them in class, explaining little points about the Latin and how it related to English words they already knew. On the evening of day four, they performed a concert for their parents and sung the entire Pater Noster, reading music off of provided sheets. Was it as perfect as it could have been? Not at all - it could always be better. But the success story here is that we took a group of 7 to 11 year olds who had by and large never heard the Our Father sung in Latin and in the span of four days taught it to them with enough proficiency so that they were able to perform it at a concert.

Our excellent Music Director hit it on the head when, in a little talk to the kids, she said, "You guys are amazing. A lot of adults think what you are doing is too hard, but it's not is it?" The kids laughed and jested at the idea that adults could not do what they themselves were doing with relative ease.

So, are adults too stupid to learn Latin? Are they too busy? Will it take too long to get them proficient? I'd say my Music Director invested maybe two or three hours total time with these kids on this particular song over four days and that was plenty good enough. Next time somebody tells you that a switch to Latin would be too laborious and time consuming, remember that a group of 3rd-6th graders did it in four days. It's really not that big a deal. The obstacles are ideological, not practical.

"From the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise" (Matt. 21:16).

Agricultural Reform

I don't know how many of you are Distributists; I consider myself in the Distributist camp, although I can't say I fully agree with the whole Distributist program, not so much because I have positive disagreements as because what I have read on Distributism is somewhat scant.

Of course, not knowing what I am writing about has never stopped me from writing about it. Case in point: my new article up at The Distributist Review on five practical ways to reform agriculture in this country for the following three ends:

(1) Restoring agricultural production to its pride of place in the economy

(2) Weaning Americans off of cheap, foreign produce

(3) Enabling Americans to enter the agricultural vocation with greater ease

Basically, I just wrote on what I thought was common sense and found out it was Distributism. Anyhow, if you are a Distributist or are interested in things economical, check out my article here.

Milton the Catholic

No, not famous poet John Milton, but his brother, Christopher.

I have actually been reading a lot of Milton's prose work lately and have been quite enjoying it, despite the fact that I heartily disagree with the famous luminary of the Puritans. His prose is easy, full of wit and humor and well constructed; also, it's just nice to read something written that is unambiguously trying to win an argument, as opposed to so much modern junk which is just trying to have a dialogue. 

Anyhow, in reading Milton's prose I have came across John's brother Sir Christopher. While John Milton sought to work for the kingdom through religion and writing, Christopher sought to do so through the legal profession. Though not distinguished as a lawyer, he won admiration from the Stuarts for his support of Charles I during the Civil War, for which his house was confiscated during Cromwell's time.

Christopher, like John, was born Anglican and remained so Anglican throughout Cromwell's years. After the Restoration he drifted towards Catholicism, along with many other eminent statesmen of the Restoration period, and was received into the Roman Catholic Church later in life, probably around 1680. Historians as well as contemporary writers suggested that Christopher may have converted for political motives; indeed shortly after his conversion, in 1686, he was invested with the coif, knighted and raised to the Exchequer Bench by his fellow catholic, King James II, in late April 1686. However, this may not be the case, for his eminent brother John, in his personal writings, made mention of the Catholicizing tendencies of his brother years before the latter's conversion and indicated that the two had heated debates in the years leading up to John's death (1674) and the reception of Christopher into the Catholic Church. Clearly if the two brothers had argued heatedly about the subject for years, as John's writings seem to suggest, it would be more probable that Christopher was converting sincerely, though he could not have been blind to the potential benefits of embracing Catholicism during the brief reign of the Catholic James II.

Sir Christopher died in March  1693, and was buried, on 22nd of that month, in the church of St. Nicholas in Ipswich.

It's nice to learn about the Catholics that are always "hiding in the shadows" behind the personages of their more eminent Protestant kinsmen.

"Personal Relationship with Jesus"

How I used to use this phrase when I was going through my Protestant phase and a young man! "Personal relationship with Jesus." This was a good way to trip up Catholics; "Yes, you profess belief in God, but do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?" Chances are a poorly catechized Catholic would not know what the heck you were talking about. A good Catholic should of course realize that this is a canard; all practicing Catholics have a relationship with Jesus (what do you think happens when we receive Holy Communion anyway?); just because we might not use this language, we ought never to let non-Catholics trip us up and get us thinking that we don't have a relationship with Jesus.

So even though it's been a while since I have head this phrase bandied about, and even though this is a no-brainer to most of you, it is good to revisit this issue occasionally and remind ourselves, and Protestants, that, yes, Catholics do have a "personal relationship with Jesus" and that this friendship with Christ is in fact the source of the spiritual life so recommended to us by all of the contemplatives saints.

There are a great many places we could go to to prove this, but let's look at an excerpt from the famous Imitation of Christ of Thomas A'Kempis. I choose this work because it was written during that awful 15th century, the hundred years before Luther when (allegedly) the corruption of the Church was at its height and Catholic spirituality was (allegedly) both superficial and superstitious. This is a good place to point to if a Protestant alleges that the Church's tradition or spirituality dissuade one from having a personal friendship with Christ our Lord. A' Kempis writes:

On The Intimate Friendship of Jesus (Book 2, Chapter 8)

WHEN Jesus is near, all is well and nothing seems difficult. When He is absent, all is hard. When Jesus does not speak within, all other comfort is empty, but if He says only a word, it brings great consolation. Did not Mary Magdalen rise at once from her weeping when Martha said to her: "The Master is come, and calleth for thee"? Happy is the hour when Jesus calls one from tears to joy of spirit. How dry and hard you are without Jesus! How foolish and vain if you desire anything but Him! Is it not a greater loss than losing the whole world? For what, without Jesus, can the world give you? Life without Him is a relentless hell, but living with Him is a sweet paradise. 

If Jesus be with you, no enemy can harm you. He who finds Jesus finds a rare treasure, indeed, a good above every good, whereas he who loses Him loses more than the whole world. The man who lives without Jesus is the poorest of the poor, whereas no one is so rich as the man who lives in His grace. It is a great art to know how to converse with Jesus, and great wisdom to know how to keep Him. Be humble and peaceful, and Jesus will be with you. Be devout and calm, and He will remain with you. You may quickly drive Him away and lose His grace, if you turn back to the outside world. And, if you drive Him away and lose Him, to whom will you go and whom will you then seek as a friend? You cannot live well without a friend, and if Jesus be not your friend above all else, you will be very sad and desolate. Thus, you are acting foolishly if you trust or rejoice in any other. Choose the opposition of the whole world rather than offend Jesus.

Of all those who are dear to you, let Him be your special love. Let all things be loved for the sake of Jesus, but Jesus for His own sake. Jesus Christ must be loved alone with a special love for He alone, of all friends, is good and faithful. For Him and in Him you must love friends and foes alike, and pray to Him that all may know and love Him. Never desire special praise or love, for that belongs to God alone Who has no equal. Never wish that anyone's affection be centered in you, nor let yourself be taken up with the love of anyone, but let Jesus be in you and in every good man. Be pure and free within, unentangled with any creature. You must bring to God a clean and open heart if you wish to attend and see how sweet the Lord is. 

Truly you will never attain this happiness unless His grace prepares you and draws you on so that you may forsake all things to be united with Him alone. When the grace of God comes to a man he can do all things, but when it leaves him he becomes poor and weak, abandoned, as it were, to affliction. Yet, in this condition he should not become dejected or despair. On the contrary, he should calmly await the will of God and bear whatever befalls him in praise of Jesus Christ, for after winter comes summer, after night, the day, and after the storm, a great calm.

Of course the Catholic "friendship" with Jesus Christ, though truly a communion of love and a friendship in the truest sense, does not become soured by a base familiarity (or at least it should not). Jesus is truly our friend, saviour, intercessor and companion, but He is also Lord, God, King of Kings; He who will break the nations with a rod or iron (Ps. 2). Thus our friendship with Him must never lose sight of our true stature in relation to Him; we draw near to Him, but with awe, and without giving in to the kind of sappy emotionalism which is found in so much modern worship music, where people sing about Jesus as if He is their boyfriend (this, in part, is one of the issues with modern Catholic liturgical translations - an over-familiarity that does not adequately communicate God's majesty).

"Wherefore, my dearly beloved...with fear and trembling work out your salvation" (Php. 2:12).

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CCC on Armed Resistance

A while back some friends and I were discussing the conditions that must be met in a hypothetical scenario for armed resistance against the government to be justified according to Catholic social teaching (don't worry - it was really only hypothetical). We used the guidelines laid down in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2243) as our norm. As we discussed various hypothetical scenarios, using the CCC as our guiding light, I began to see that this question is not nearly as easy to parse out as I thought and that the CCC's "guidelines" for when we can have recourse to armed resistance are practically useless when you attempt to apply them concretely.

Let's review what the CCC says on the issue of armed resistance. Here is paragraph 2243:

Armed resistance to oppression by political authority is not legitimate, unless all the following conditions are met: 1) there is certain, grave, and prolonged violation of fundamental rights; 2) all other means of redress have been exhausted; 3) such resistance will not provoke worse disorders; 4) there is well-founded hope of success; and 5) it is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution. 

These will be our five criteria in examining when, in a given situation, it is just for persons to resort to armed resistance against their government. In this strictly hypothetical scenario, the government in question will be our own government and the conditions will be our current conditions or future ones that are reasonably able to be deduced as the outcome or logical end of our current condition.

1)  There is certain, grave, and prolonged violation of fundamental rights.

My first question upon reading this is what is a "fundamental right?" Usually the phrase "fundamental rights" is used to denote life issues and abuses relating to human dignity, the fundamental right to life, etc. But is this narrow interpretation of "fundamental rights" really justified? If we look to another part of the CCC, the section on sin, we find a listing of the traditional "sins that cry to heaven for vengeance." They are:

The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are "sins that cry to heaven": the blood of Abel [murder], the sin of the Sodomites [homosexual acts], the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt [political oppression], the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner (CCC 1867).

May we reasonably conclude that any of these "sins that cry to heaven" could be said to be violations of "fundamental rights" if done on an institutional level by some government? I think this is reasonable; it is hard to see how a sin that is so horrendous that it "cries to heaven" would not be a violation of a "fundamental right." In fact, we could make the connection that these sins cry to heaven precisely because they violate some fundamental right.

If this is so, then we have to take into account not only offenses against life (abortion, euthanasia, etc.) but also social ills like the widespread acceptance of homosexuality and even economic factors (defrauding workers of their wages). But in order for the presence of these evils to be relevant to our discussion of armed resistance, it seems that they would to be not only present in society, but actively tolerated and even supported by the government.

Obviously one could (and many have) had this discussion in the context of government sponsored abortion. But what about laws that grant homosexuals a privileged legal status by extending "civil rights" to their lifestyle? More intriguingly, what about excessive federal, state and local taxation? A worker has a right to his wages. While some taxation is just, is it just to take up to 32% of a man's income in fees, federal, state and local axes and witholdings in order fund excessive government waste, abortion, and a bloated bureaucracy that has a legendary reputation for inefficiency and corruption?

Another question - whose "fundamental rights" have to be violated for resistance to be just? For example, what if the rights of only a small minority are being violated (e.g., the unborn)? Are the vast majority of those whose rights are perfectly secure justified in revolt on behalf of the small minority whose rights are not safeguarded? Or does the CCC envision an oppression that is more broad and general?

One could of course say that if the rights of a minority are not secure, then really nobody's rights are, since it is conceivable that a government that can't respect the right to life of a baby will not respect the right to life of anyone else. However, the CCC says that the violations need to be certain (not hypothetical); they need also be grave and prolonged (i.e., not occurring once in awhile but on a constant, institutional scale).

Taking all of this information together,we can see that this first guideline leaves a lot of things up in the air: How grave is grave? Does "fundamental rights" apply strictly to life issues or to broader things, such as institutional support of "sins that cry to heaven?" How much of the population has to be deprived of these rights before recourse to arms is just? Also not addressed is whether a non-oppressed segment of the populace can have recourse to arms on the part of the oppressed element, who may be incapable of aiding themselves. If so, when and who makes this judgment?

One last thing - it is interesting to look back at history and various rebellions Catholics have been engaged in and see how violations of "fundamental rights" were interpreted in the past. The German Catholics of the 11th century felt justified in open revolt against Emperor Henry IV based solely on the fact that he had been excommunicated; the Catholic of England during the Pilgrimage of Grace had their justification in Henry VIII's closure of the monasteries and the promulgation of the Book of Common Prayer. Do the authors of the CCC envision these scenarios as just revolts?

2) All other means of redress have been exhausted.

This one leads to the most problems - no matter what one does to try to secure peace, one could always conceivably suggest that more could have been done. How is anyone to tell with certainty when "all" other means of redress have been "exhausted?" Perhaps negotiations have failed, but it could always be said that more negotiations may have produced a different result, or perhaps trying with different people involved, or at a more fortuitous time, etc. In short, one can always make the claim that there are still more "means of redress" that have not been exhausted before one resorts to armed resistance. It is a very ambiguous and practically meaningless guideline if one is trying to use it to make concrete, prudential decisions. I suppose it has value in a very generic way: try everything first before resorting to violence. That's a helpful platitude, but it breaks down as soon as you attempt to apply it to your situation - okay, have we really tried everything else?

For example, when, practically speaking, do pro-life Americans decide that "every effort" short of violence has been made to stop abortion? Some could argue of the great gains that the pro-life cause has made in recent decades, successful state bans of partial birth abortion, etc. But others could argue that, after 37 years, if abortions are still happening at a rate of about 4,000 per day, then clearly our strategy is lacking and perhaps every other "means of redress" has been exhausted.

This brings up another problem - who decides when every means of redress has been exhausted? Does the CCC envision some sort of organized "Committees of Correspondence" type delegation making these decisions, or is it something left to the conscience of the individual? For example, back in February of this year, a man furious with the IRS committed suicide by crashing his plane into an IRS office building in Texas (story). The guy was a raving madman and of course suicide is never condoned, but here is an interesting thing to think about: every means of redress had been exhausted, for him. When Scott Roeder shot abortionist George Tiller in 2009, clearly Roeder felt every other means of redress had been exhausted in this case. In both of these situations, individuals were motivated to commit acts of violence on the personal belief that they had exhausted all other avenues.

Now, many will jump up and say, "But that's not for them to judge!" Then whose job is it? When the CCC says that armed resistance to the government is not legitimate unless all other means of redress have been exhausted, does this mean every individual makes this judgment in their conscience? Or does it refer to perhaps some organized "revolutionary" body making these judgments? And, since the CCC views all armed revolts as almost always unjustified, how can a revolutionary organization make such a judgment with any legitimacy?

3) Such resistance will not provoke worse disorders.

Like the second point about all means of redress being exhausted, this guidelines suffers from the fact that nobody can know if and how it will ever be met.

First, what constitutes a "disorder?" Violence is obviously a disorder. Is economic collapse a disorder? Is, say, 1/4 of Americans losing their homes a disorder? What about an environmental disaster? What about corruption at high levels, etc. We really can have no way of knowing what sorts of disorders, other than violence, the CCC is speaking of here.

Which leads to the following question: if armed resistance cannot provoke "worse disorders", how do we objectively measure which disorder is worse than another, especially if they are of two different types? Is the displacement of 100,000 people a worse disorder than the killing of 100? Is an economic collapse a worse disorder than rampant abuse of power? Is the subversion of the Constitution by a powerful elite a worse disorder than a Constitutional crisis in the wake of some sort of uprising? How can we even begin to measure these sorts of things against one another and determine when "worse disorders" will be provoked?

Even if we were talking strictly about violence, are we to automatically take a mathematical approach, for example, "Well, if we resort to armed resistance, we can kill about 50 of their guys, but they might kill 51 of ours, so 51 is worse than 50 and therefore we can't have recourse to arms"? Nobody makes judgments based on that sort of thinking in real life; besides, even if numbers were equivalent, this approach does not take into account what types of casualties are being incurred. For example, is 100 men killed in combat "better" than 25 innocent civilians killed? Even though 100 is four times the amount, many would make the argument that, if anybody has to risk their life, its better than people be killed in battle, armed, than that even a small amount perish who are unarmed.

My point with all this is, as with the second criteria, there is no meaningful way to measure when a "worse disorder" will occur as a result of ones actions, especially when there can be no certainty of how the other side will react.

Furthermore, even supposing the government being revolted against would employ harsh measures against a revolt, provoking "worse disorders", is this really a sign that the people should not have recourse to armed resistance, or is it perhaps evidence that they should? For example, suppose the government said (and this is purely hypothetical), "In the case of an armed revolt from the citizens of Texas, we will immediately apprehend, detain and deport every single inhabitant of the state of Texas to concentration camps for an indeterminate amount of time." This would be an obviously draconian measure, and certainly could qualify as a "worse disorder." Yet, would not the fact that the government would make this kind of threat (in this scenario) constitute a greater reason for revolt against it rather than a reason to submit?

4) There is well-founded hope of success.

How on earth can anybody know that ahead of time? Sometimes even the best-planned revolts/coups fail (consider Hitler's "miraculous" escape from the Stauffenberg bomb plot) while revolts that nobody would bet on succeeding end up gaining momentum - would anyone who saw the rag-tag Lexington militia flee before the British on April 19th, 1775 imagine that the colonists would ultimately win their independence from the mightiest empire on earth?

Furthermore, it depends on what success is defined by. Is it independence, as in our own revolt against Great Britain? Is it secession? Whole scale revolution and the dismantling of the previous system? Is it the simple recognition of previously unrecognized rights, as occurred in ancient Rome in the struggles of the plebeians against the patricians? I can see that there should be some potentially attainable end - it makes little sense to resort to violence if the case is absolutely and utterly futile. But going back to my above point, sometimes it is only in retrospect that one can determine whether or not a cause was futile. The Pilgrimage of Grace was futile, but it didn't seem that way to those involved in it.

And, as with all of these criteria, who makes the judgment of whether the cause has a well-founded chance of success?


5) It is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution.


This seems like a restating of point two about "exhausting"other means of redress, but a few things:

"Impossible" - very strong word. How do we know when something is not only unlikely but downright "impossible"? Especially when we are not talking about an outcome but just aour ability to "foresee" a better outcome. When is it impossible to "foresee" something?

"Reasonably" -who decides?

"Better solution" - See my above comments on "worse disorders" and means of redress being "exhausted."

What's the conclusion here? Even if you into account everything the CCC gives us on when it is just to have recourse to armed resistance, there are so many variables and questions still left to be resolved that it basically seems to devolve upon the individual to make this judgment for themselves - or at least to acknowledge that there is really no certain way to make this judgment based on the CCC's criteria. Obviously all of Catholic Tradition and history militates against the idea of revolution or rebellion as noble ideas - but there are times when it is justified and it is important to know when. Unfortunately, the CCC does not seem to help.