The Emperor's New Clothes - It Goes Both Ways

My earliest recollection of a children's story as a thought piece has to be of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes". For a tale, it is incredibly multifaceted and gives the edge to the clear-sighted simplicity of childhood. If you have never read the tale, well, you are missing a fundamental life lesson (here). If you know the story or once you are up to speed, here's the closing few lines:

"Well, I'm supposed to be ready," the Emperor said, and turned again for one last look in the mirror. "It is a remarkable fit, isn't it?" He seemed to regard his costume with the greatest interest.

The noblemen who were to carry his train stooped low and reached for the floor as if they were picking up his mantle. Then they pretended to lift and hold it high. They didn't dare admit they had nothing to hold.

So off went the Emperor in procession under his splendid canopy. Everyone in the streets and the windows said, "Oh, how fine are the Emperor's new clothes! Don't they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!" Nobody would confess that he couldn't see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.

"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.

"Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?" said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, "He hasn't anything on. A child says he hasn't anything on."

"But he hasn't got anything on!" the whole town cried out at last.

The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, "This procession has got to go on." So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn't there at all.

When you are small, you laugh at the silly king, so completely taken in by scoundrels and abandoned to his folly by his courtiers; that a child should know better, of course, moves our whole post-infancy crowd to righteous pride in the face of adult dissimulation. As you grow and experience something of life, attention shifts from the silly, vane king, not so much to those in criminal fashion who robbed him, but to all those around him accomplice to their crime, as well as those on the street who dared not point out the king's folly, proving themselves at least fearful if not self-interested to the point of disloyalty to their emperor so exposed to potential ridicule.

I doubt if there are many out there like Hans Christian Andersen today, who are writing things so profoundly childish and fun, yet subtle and insightful to the nth degree. The life lesson to be taught, if you will, is directed neither to the emperor nor to the smart little boy, but to this world's courtiers. Sadly, the "better-than-thou" crowd immediately find manner to point fingers at those who have managed to wiggle their way into somebody's entourage, tisk-tisking them for their self interest at the expense of the man or woman they supposedly are vowed to serve. Let's be kind and term that a first reading of the tale and express the hope for growth and maturity and a look at ourselves generally, as we go about too often giving the difficult other enough rope to hang himself.

Archbishops aren't exactly emperors, even if perhaps just as vulnerable to vanity. As a category, however, we are certainly often the target of the self-interested flattery or fawning which is akin to some people's strategy for strange dogs, out in the open, extending a hand and a gentle word in hopes of fending off a bark or a bite.

Believe it or not, the great Feast of the European Patrons, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, was what got me off on this funny track.  From the Old Slavonic Life of the Saint quoted in today's office:

"The following day, he assumed the monastic habit and took the religious name Cyril. He lived the life of a monk for fifty days.

  When the time came for him to set out from this world to the peace of his heavenly homeland, he prayed to God with his hands outstretched and his eyes filled with tears: “O Lord, my God, you have created the choirs of angels and spiritual powers; you have stretched forth the heavens and established the earth, creating all that exists from nothing. You hear those who obey your will and keep your commands in holy fear. Hear my prayer and protect your faithful people, for you have established me as their unsuitable and unworthy servant.

  “Keep them free from harm and the worldly cunning of those who blaspheme you. Build up your Church and gather all into unity. Make your people known for the unity and profession of their faith. Inspire the hearts of your people with your word and your teaching. You called us to preach the Gospel of your Christ and to encourage them to lives and works pleasing to you.

  “I now return to you, your people, your gift to me. Direct them with your powerful right hand, and protect them under the shadow of your wings. May all praise and glorify your name, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  Once he had exchanged the gift of peace with everyone, he said: “Blessed be God, who did not hand us over to our invisible enemy, but freed us from his snare and delivered us from perdition.” He then fell asleep in the Lord at the age of forty-two.

  The Patriarch commanded all those in Rome, both the Greeks and Romans, to gather for his funeral. They were to chant over him together and carry candles; they were to celebrate his funeral as if he had been a pope. This they did."

Not vanity, on the part of the emperor, not self-interest, on the part of his courtiers, but genuine humility and a complete outpouring of self to the greater honor and glory of God, distinguished young Cyril and were confirmed and exalted by papal decree at his death.

Children can be devastating in their clear-sighted condemnation of vanity and for that reason alone they should be lovingly urged, yes, constrained, to hold their tongues, until years of innocence pass and they can see beyond the king's folly to his courtiers' self-interest, leaving him perhaps exposed out in the cold. Adults not at court should see the wisdom of holding their tongues and not damning the courtiers until they renounce their own self-interested ways and fawning approach toward whomever it is they may not know but certainly whose bark or bite they wish to avoid.

Sts. Cyril and Methodius found themselves caught up in the intrigues of the courts at Rome and Constantinople; they found themselves hounded by "interests" often cloaked in religion, especially from German lands. They gave incomparable gifts in terms of faith and culture to the Slavic peoples, while courting only the King of Heaven.

The Secrets Told to Children by the Mother of God

"During the two weeks she told me three secrets but I was not to speak about them to anyone and so far I have not." (from a letter of St. Bernadette - Office of Our Lady of Lourdes) Bernadette recounts one of the details of her Marian apparitions. 

I was talking on Skype last night to a much younger priest friend, who lives half way around the world. He was sharing the challenges facing different groups of young parents he knows in two different cities, as they struggle to band together and give their children the opportunity to study in a school which truly professes and teaches Catholic values. In one city, the public option was so thoroughly debased and permeated by relativism the parents went to work and put together a private elementary school program for 125 children. In the other, the existing so-called Catholic schools had too many teachers who were anything but role models for their children, neglecting sound fundamental moral teaching, so the parents banded together and opened their own Catholic school.

One school's parents were seeking my priest friend's advice as to how to deal with their bishop's opposition to the project, not overt but evident enough to keep potential priest chaplains away from the school. In the other case, a wealthy man in the neighborhood had brought an injunction against the school, even though it was in an area zoned commercial and not residential. Besides urging Father to exhort the parents to courage and prayer, I was able to respond to some canonical questions concerning the celebration of the sacraments on the school premises.

What came to mind as we were talking was a post I had read the other day by Anthony Esolen: More Ways to End the Vocations Crisis, where he speaks about courageously countering the "strategies of suicide", the fatalist mentality which withdraws people from standing up and resisting the spirit of the age, which is death-dealing, to say the least. Much in the same vein, I won't cite the reports of the last days about 75% parish closings in one Dutch diocese or the total disarray of the once great Catholic Church in Belgium. 

Here in Ukraine, many people experience, on top of the trauma of Russian aggression and inner division, a sense of abandonment from all around. It is hard and stirs one almost to angry rebellion against "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" or something like that.

Either Bernadette or Our Lady of Lourdes came to the rescue this morning with a happy thought about secrets told to children. Think of Bernadette! At the time of the apparitions at Lourdes, she was a basically unschooled girl from a rural village. Worlds do change, by God's love, shared in confidence to a child by the Mother of God.

Just as Esolen exhorts to determined action in the face of evil for the sake of the life of the Church, just as parents need to band together to give their children the benefits of a truly Catholic education, so each one of us and all together must do our part to resist aggression from outside and reform Ukrainian society from within. I see signs already that the propaganda edifice, the web of entangling falsehoods which holds whole peoples in thrall is beginning to crumble and unravel. We entrust ourselves to the Lord's mercy and Mary's secrets told to children.

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!

More than Casting out the Money-changers

"Una vera riforma della Curia romana e della Chiesa ha l’obiettivo di render più luminosa la missione del Papa e della Chiesa nel mondo di oggi e di domani." 

In Italian, in the L'Osservatore Romano of 7 February, Gerhard Müller, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, illustrates in close knit fashion what should be the basis of Curial or Church reform. The title translates: Purifying the Temple. My guess would be that the Cardinal did not pick the title; it fits better the media story line we've been hearing ever since the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. The Prefect is as "eminently" eloquent as he is brief in laying the premises for reform in our day and time. The Cardinal's presentation on what has and still does make a reform in the Church is clear-eyed and cool-headed; we need more of such.

Why then does so much of what you read on the topic of curial reform and the upcoming synod of bishops read like a culture wars narrative? It may not be the stuff of an adventure movie or a political expose about some corrupt congressman, but in point of fact Church reform is not about cleaning out anybody's long neglected stable but about something organic, cued by our Lord and Savior Jesus Himself and the millennial tradition of the Church He is not about to leave orphaned. Other than attentiveness to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, I think it would be a good counsel to avoid "salti mortali" which smack of reinventing the wheel.

These days we celebrated St. Agnes and a new policy for the conferral of the pallium on metropolitan archbishops was announced. Probably for filler, somebody republished the pictures of that "new" pallium copied out of images from the early Church, which Pope Benedict XVI after politely trying for a while abandoned in favor of one much like the traditional one, only with red crosses instead of black. Pope Francis has come full circle back to where we were ten years ago and everybody is pleased. In small matters and in great, much of the will to change or "improve" is born of unrest, of some sort of "itch" not attributable to the promptings of the Spirit.

No doubt the press will have a field day from now until the Holy Father and the Curia go off on their annual Lenten retreat. We must just endure and hope that cooler heads in Rome will prefer the promptings coming from the Lord Who will not leave His flock untended. And so we pray.....

Yalta, The Place of the Skull?

Depending on your Catholic upbringing and whether you were exposed to classic Crucifixion iconography, you may or may not be conscious of the skull buried at the foot of the Cross and bathed in the Precious Blood of Jesus, Our Savior and Our God. The skull is that of the first Adam, now washed clean of his sin in the Blood of his Descendant, the second Adam, the Christ. The imagery is part of the reason why pilgrims to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, when they reach the top of Calvary there, are told that this is the axis, the center point of our world and our history, this, the Place of the Skull. This is the place in history, in time and space, of our salvation.

Naturally, the godless and sophisticated pseudo-scientists scoff at such meditations; these offspring of the so-called Enlightenment are too sterile and enamored of death to embrace the poetry of God's great symphony, our hymn to the mystery of God's love and how through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son He chose us from all times to share in the everlasting life and light of His Presence. The earth-bound and destined to die seem more enthralled by other axes or delimiters (think of the neo-pagan attraction to Stone Hendge in England). I think Yalta in Crimea, for Europe at least, is another one of these delimiters, an axis around which much has turned and not just since the infamous conference, starring Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, held there in February 1945.

Chance and geography have divided Europe since time immemorial, setting off or into motion certain mechanisms, which are far from reasoned but jealously defended as determinate by these so-called champions of reason and secular values against the Jerusalem axis. Yalta becomes in a way the European axis, if you will. Beyond the realm of the Roman Empire, Crimea was the place of exile and testimony to the martyrdom of two early popes: St. Clement and St. Martin. It played the frontier again in the senseless slaughter of the Crimean War. Perhaps not quite so ancient a demarcation line would be the Elbe River, which St. Norbert of Xanten (1080-1134) looked upon from its west bank at Magdeburg as marking off the Christian west from the pagan east. Interestingly enough, centuries later his brethren would save his bones from desecration by German protestant iconoclasts by carrying them east to Prague.

Certainly from the time of Sts. Cyril and Methodius (c. 815-885) western Catholicism from Germany was pushing east of the Elbe and attempting to impede efforts of the saintly brothers of Saloniki to extend Byzantium's sphere of interest through evangelization into these regions. Constantinople, not that many years later, was successful in pushing north from Crimea to Kyiv and beyond when St. Volodymyr presented the people of the Rus' for Baptism. Centuries later, Muscovy attempted to bring territory west and south under its control, fighting time and again to try and hold Crimea and repeatedly pushing west toward the Elbe. Stalin got what he wished and more in February of 1945 and strong men without warrant divided Europe into spheres of influence, seemingly guided by arbitrary delimiters almost as old as time. The whole thing, I am sorry, smacks of Stone Hendge and shows little or no concern for the populations involved and their dignity.

Most people have some awareness of how burdensome this has been for Catholic Poland but less so for the people of Ukraine. Historians are wont to say of the peace Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, that it actually set the stage for World War II, because of its injustice. The same can be said of the Yalta Conference, which held many peoples bound until 1989 and beyond. It would seem that for some reason Russia today is again pushing to control all within the "mystical" delimiters of Yalta and the Elbe. It would seem that the strong men of the world are also obsessed with respecting those delimiters, as if they were not arbitrary but somehow written in the stars. Calvary denotes the axis of the world's salvation, freeing all for eternity through the Blood of the Cross, and Yalta marks the epicenter of the killing fields, Europe's death-dealing place of the skull.

Rationalists ought to scoff at such determinism, now shouldn't they? Me thinks there is a demon that needs to be expelled. What else indeed could be at work in a Western world unwilling to defend the integrity of today Ukraine, tomorrow the Baltic countries and Poland... all the way to the Elbe?

Yalta, the place of the skull? Not hardly! It is sacrilegious even to think it. Free men turn only around the center point of Calvary, The Place of the Skull, the place in time where God in His love freed us from sin and death, and for the sake of something much better, greater than spheres on influence delimited maybe by Crimea and the Elbe.

Jesus, Asleep in the Boat?

Yesterday I happened to watch a video interview done here for UKRAINE TODAY with a man from Germany who works for a children's aid agency and knows the country from before what he called, without hedging words, "Russian aggression". He said that he'd be going home with the message that, regardless of how ignoble the motivation, Germany, Europe, the World must react to support Ukraine in its fight for survival or face the flow of refugees, homeless, injured, starving and dying, who will perforce be thrown upon them. I have heard this before, months ago, from representatives of the European Union, UNDP and more, but somehow this video seemed even more poignant. In my prayer all I could think of was a supplication to Jesus, the Lord, asleep in the boat, to wake and by His power as God save us, save the Ukrainian people, on these stormy seas.

I ask for prayers from friends and a change of heart for those bent on the destruction of Ukraine. Emotions apart, in an ordered world, we must stand on the fundamental principle enshrined by international law that pacts are to be respected: the world has committed itself since 1991 and many of the big powers again in 1994 to upholding Ukraine's sovereignty within well defined borders which include Crimea. Russia, first and foremost, owes it to itself and to civilization to back off, close the border and protect its neighbor from all who would harm her from outside. Other countries need to come to the aid of Ukraine, perhaps foundering, and gift her with the means of charting a future marked by justice and peace, in truth.

O Mother of God, Cover this People in Your Bright and Protective Mantle!

At the Heart of Vatican Diplomacy

Over at EPPC, George Weigel has published a fine article entitled "Evangelical Challenges for Vatican Diplomacy". He establishes his premise with a worthy first paragraph and goes on to draw some conclusions and make some suggestions, also regarding problematic relations with certain countries.

"The bilateral diplomacy of the Holy See is unique in world affairs, in that it has little or nothing to do with the things with which diplomats typically occupy their time: trade issues, security matters, visas. Rather, the reason why the Vatican engages in bilateral diplomacy is to secure the freedom of the Catholic Church to be itself in the countries with which the Holy See has, or wishes to have, diplomatic relations. To be sure, in crisis situations, the Holy See’s representative in a crumbling or violence-ridden state can also serve as an honest broker amidst contending local parties, or a voice for persecuted Catholic communities, or a channel for humanitarian assistance. But whatever the situation, the first task of the pope’s representative to another sovereignty is to help maintain free space for the Church’s evangelical, sacramental, educational, and charitable missions, all of which are essential to what it means to be “the Catholic Church” in any human situation."

Far be it from me to challenge George on anything and certainly not on his basic premise regarding why the Holy See has sought to obtain and establish bilateral relations with 180 nations and has a comparable number of resident ambassadors (150) to those maintained around the world by the big powers, like the USA and China. But neither compulsion nor the Weigel premise, that "...the first task of the pope’s representative to another sovereignty is to help maintain free space for the Church’s evangelical, sacramental, educational, and charitable missions, all of which are essential to what it means to be “the Catholic Church” in any human situation.", explains how this investment in personnel and material (buildings and operational expenses), which amounts to much more than most countries are willing to spend to further cultural, commercial and geopolitical aims, serves the designated purpose. In a couple words, if evangelization is your goal, there are better ways to spend your money.

Without wishing to scoff at my own trade or sell my colleagues all over the world short, I wish to question whether furthering the spread of the Gospel, in the strict sense, by freeing space for the mission of the Church, is indeed the primary goal of Vatican diplomacy. The ancient roots of my trade are tied to papal legation as exercised first at the court of the emperor in Constantinople and then at the courts of western emperors, various kings and queens across Europe. The first residential or permanent legations, of which remain today only Madrid and Vienna, functioned basically as branch offices of the Roman Curia, as was the case for Apostolic Delegates in Latin America and Africa right up until Vatican II. The enduring trait of Vatican diplomacy, however, which explains why now in the post-Conciliar period, despite the radical reduction of bureaucratic work on behalf of Rome for the Church in a given country or continent, is the drive to be present and acting in the public square, in the midst of the nations.

The unification of Italy in 1870, depriving the Pope of the Papal States and confining him to the Vatican for almost sixty years, was a terrible trauma, even if most church historians love to rate it a godsend for the Papacy. Despite what we learned in the Academy about the sovereignty of the Holy See, without territorial hegemony, based on custom/international law as illustrated by the continuous sending and receiving of ambassadors over the course of those years, I believe the case can be made for a concerted will on the part of the Vatican not to be excluded from the public square, aka world diplomatic community. This way of reading it speaks better to the reciprocity of it all, most nations being flattered by this attention from (you choose): the world's oldest monarchy, the central government of world Catholicism, an entity which stands for peace, justice, and doesn't look to improve its balance of trade with the other.

By rights, I owe both George and the reader some thoughts on the other important chapter of international accords, concordats and the like. Highly touted by some, they generally serve the contracting state more than they ever have the Holy See and the cause of the spread of the Gospel. More on that at another time!

It sounds too harsh to say that Blessed Pius IX somehow managed to get his grief institutionalized but that is sort of what I am trying to say. Perhaps the debate some of the Council Fathers demanded on the issue was premature, but the real question is not the one of diplomacy. Since Blessed Paul VI, it has been clear that Papal Representatives in the bilateral sphere have as their first duty to foster the Petrine Ministry, to help the Holy Father strengthen the brethren, bind Christ's Church together in love. Maybe now is the time to look again to see just how we are doing on that account?

Passing the Torch in Battle

My Battle Against Hitler: 

Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich

Von Hildebrand, Dietrich; Crosby, John Henry

The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. 

Kindle Edition.  (2014-10-21).

"God is offended regardless of whether the victim of a murder 

is a Jew, a Socialist, or a bishop. Innocent blood cries out to heaven." 

— DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND 

"We know from the memoirs that the main instrument by which Dietrich von Hildebrand fought against Nazism and for the independence of Austria was the journal he founded in Vienna, Der christliche Ständestaat. He fought as a philosopher; he fought at the level of first principles." (p. 245).

As I am discovering, there are lots of enthusiastic reviews of this book to be read. It is absolutely great both for the account of those years of struggle against Nazism and Anti-Semitism, as well as for the English quotes from articles which appeared in his famous journal and thereafter from New York. So much of von Hildebrand in his fight against National Socialism and its associated errors, against the background of the tired old world of his day, could serve as a mirror to challenge the feckless in our own day and time, perhaps even more doped and duped by post-Enlightenment relativism than was his world of the mid-20th Century. The struggle for objective truth, in defense of the primacy of the human person within community, under the Kingship of Christ, continues.

One of the questions which I kept asking myself throughout the book was whether a true Catholic Christian, a thinker, a writer, a lecturer, could be sensed as such a threat to its very existence by a lying regime today:

"The meeting was also very gratifying for me. Fr. Alois told me that, among other things, the conversation touched upon me and my journal. Papen said, “That damned Hildebrand is the greatest obstacle for National Socialism in Austria. No one causes more harm.” This made me very happy because it meant that my work and my battle in Austria had not been for naught." (p. 227).

Von Hildebrand and his family fled Austria just ahead of Hitler's troops and the Anschluss. Though he himself would not revel in such a distinction, the Gestapo had him at the top of their wanted list after Austria's government leaders; von Hildebrand with his pen seemed to have been enemy N.1 of the Third Reich.

None of us can aspire to such worth in the face of evil, but we can certainly pray that the Lord in our day and time would raise up such warriors in the defense of righteousness.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI