” AS TIME GOES BY “

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"Casablanca", "Four Score and Ten", Brexit, Bygones, Mars, Michael Moore, Movie "The Straight Story", Nostalgia, Religious Terrorism, U.S. elections, White House

For the last thirty years I have been conscious of, but not concerned about, the fact that the future ahead of me will be shorter than the past behind me.  Four score and ten is an attainable age, but the next decade will probably be for me a succession of slings and arrows, sicknesses and accidents, any one of which could be my coup de grâce.

At eighty you start to wonder about things you’ll never know.  How long will it take us to be able to reach, not the unreachable star but Mars, our nearest, perhaps habitable planet ?  What will be the outcome of our conflict with religious terrorism ?  What is in store for my grandchildren in the 21st century, the end of which I will never see ?  I don’t know what’s going to happen to post-Brexit Europe.  I don’t even know what is going to happen in the U.S. elections in November.  I may not even live that long.  (Michael Moore has just said that the Donald never wanted or expected to be elected, and is now doing all he can to make sure he isn’t !).

The White House.  Casa Blanca.  I think of the movie and can hear Sam playing the song again.  Time is indeed going by, and there’s not much I can do about it ?  Of course there is !  I can make the most of each day, not only for myself but for others.  I can waste the time I have left, or make it, as far as I can, enjoyable for myself and my entourage.  I won’t worry about the future, I will as far as possible avoid worrying about the past, and I will do my best to put up with the present.

The past is, of course, ever-present.  Nostalgia’s the name of the game when you hit eighty : things you’re proud of, but also things and even people you’d prefer to forget.  Time goes by and we try to let bygones be bygones.  A curious expression, but sometimes a serious challenge.  It usually means accepting (if not forgiving) injustices we have suffered, opportunities we have missed, mistakes we have made, regrets we can’t escape.  Fiction is full of stories like the movie “The Straight Story”, where an old man drives a lawnmower across the State to seek out, and to seek reconciliation with, his equally aged, estranged brother.  We all have our load of unpleasant memories, unfinished business, open sores.  Too late, very often, to do more than write them off, though we’ll never forget them.  But there are some we could face and even fix if we tried.  Many die before they get around to doing what they know they should.

But there are also the good times and the great people, family and friends, it has been our privilege and luck to have known.  It’s too late to thank some of them who made the good times possible.  Surviving family and friends deserve our gratitude and whatever generosity we can afford, as well as our efforts not to be for them, too soon, the burden many of us will become.

Some find serenity, in spite of senescence, in the religious faith they have always had, refound or discovered for the first time.  Others like me will continue to be glad they escaped their illusions and found, if not illumination, a peace that is real and not that which others pray for their loved ones in an imagined after-life.  As time goes by, we do well to accept life as it is, knowing it’s the only one we’ll ever have.  I can live with death and the nothingness that is its aftermath.  Most people can’t.  I am one of the lucky ones.

RIDENDA   RELIGIO

“WE ‘ LL ALL BE ROONED ! “

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"Around the Boree Log", "Real Politik", Brexit, John O'Brien, United Nations

Only Australians would recognize this tongue-in-cheek quotation from a gifted Aussie priest and humorist whose pen-name was John O’Brien and whose collection of verse is entitled “Around the Boree Log”.

It comes to mind after the BREXIT referendum vote for Britain to exit the E.U.  On the BBC and CNN the world’s prospects look like Apocalypse Now.  People have always been afflicted with geopolitical myopia : the current crisis will ruin us all !  But we survived the Fall of Rome.  The Catholic Church survived the Protestant Reformation.  We survived the Black Plague, the Spanish Flu and Mad-Cow Disease.  We have survived droughts, fires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.  The world survived two World Wars.  We survived the Great Depression.  It remains to be seen whether or not we will survive Islamist Terrorism, but we will survive BREXIT.  How well we survive will depend on our capacity to measure the damage done, to learn from the disaster and to decide on, and to implement, the tactics and strategy necessary to contain the catastrophe ahead of us, and then to … muddle through.  We have done it before and we can do it again.  Yes, we can !

Such optimism is cheap.  But we have no other option.  How well we succeed will depend on our ability and readiness to listen to those best qualified to suggest the way forward.  One way to begin might be a global reflection on the meaning of “real politik”.

Up till now “real politik” has meant nations giving priority to their own interests.  The dream of the League of Nations and its successor the United Nations was to attempt to go beyond that, with the limited success we all know and admit.  The dream is more necessary than ever.  Globalization has taught us at least that we are an ecosystem, dependent on one another, interdependent.  Who will be the next Gandhi, the next JFK, the next Martin Luther King, the charismatic leader who can get us to agree on the initiatives we must take to ensure our survival ?  More likely than not, there will be multiple leaders rather than a single Messiah.  It will be our task to discern the ones who deserve a hearing and then to implement the most viable solutions to this latest, but not the last, of our global challenges.

DELENDA   RELIGIO

COUNTING NOSES

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"Ex Cathedra", "Sensus Fidelium", Assumption of Mary, Brexit, Direct Democracy, Mystical Body of Christ

The previous post began with reference to the results of a referendum proposed by Britain’s P.M. concerning BREXIT – whether or not the U.K. should remain in or leave the European Union.  The current reactions to the unexpected result of the national consultation of individual voters suggests that it may be useful, in this Blog, to reflect theoretically on governance by referendum not only of countries but of the Church.

Another name for the use of referenda is direct democracy.  The Church has never claimed to be a democratic institution.  It defines itself as a divinely appointed and inspired body of believers, the Mystical Body of Christ (!), in which the Pope, successor of St Peter, has supreme authority, shared in part with Bishops united in General Councils.  The Pope can infallibly define dogma “ex cathedra”.  To do this he sometimes takes into account what is called the “sensus fidelium”.  As the faithful in general seemed to have long believed in the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, the Pope used that belief as confirmation and support – even if it was not strictly necessary for a papal definition – for his decree on the belief as dogma. This was not a referendum.

In civil government laws are defined and decisions are taken normally, after “due deliberation”, by the elected representatives of the people.  BREXIT was a rare exception to the rule (only the third referendum in British history).  Nothing similar has ever been done in the Church.

All of this makes me wonder, however, what would happen if certain beliefs of the Catholic Church were put to the vote of the faithful.  It will never happen, of course, but it may be interesting to reflect for a moment on the implications of allowing the faithful the right to decide on a given issue by referendum.

The BREXIT experience brought to light the danger of direct democracy within the body politic.  (The implicit rule seems to be : Never launch a referendum unless you are certain of the outcome . . .).  The practice is rare because it is generally recognized that most proposals to approve or disapprove a given legislative action require “due deliberation”, and not just the counting of noses.  An analysis of the recent BREXIT referendum reveals that the apparently democratic principle of “one man, one vote” permits the electors themselves to vote and therefore impose a majority opinion, without their understanding of the issue, of what is at stake, and of the consequences of both a “yes” and a “no” vote.  Random interviews across the British social strata after the referendum confirmed the superficiality, the emotivity, the prejudices and ignorance which motivated many populist voters.

If one has to wonder about the wisdom of referenda in the governance of civil affairs, it is not difficult to understand why the Church hierarchy would never conduct an opinion poll on articles of faith.  But it would be most interesting to see what would happen if they did…

RIDENDA   RELIGIO

F R E X I T ?

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"Richard 2", Brexit, David Cameron, Frexit, Hexit, National Front, Nigel Farage, Scotland, United States of Europe, Winston Churchill

This morning we all had BREXIT for Breakfast.  A historic day for the U.K., a worrisome day for Europe and a black Friday for stock markets around the world.  Britain has restated and reinstated its uniqueness and its insularity  :

“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall

Or as a moat defensive to a house

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

– (Shakespeare, Richard 2, 2:1)

 

“Every country should have its English Channel”.                                                                              – (Winston Churchill)

But among the incertitudes facing the European Union is the possible contagion of the spirit of independence.  Will BREXIT spawn in France a  FREXIT, in Holland a HEXIT, as well as the exit of Scotland from the United Kingdom ?  There is little chance that we will ever see the birth of the United States of Europe, with an elected federal government rather than an imposed bureaucracy in Bruxelles.  But it is more than likely that we will see the dissolution of the United Kingdom.  We may even witness the disintegration of the E.U. itself.

FREXIT is the dream of the National Front in France.  But its pros and cons are hardly an appropriate subject for this Blog.  The word, for me, has a totally different, personal, non-political connotation : Frank’s Exit from the Franciscan Order, from the Catholic Priesthood and from the Catholic Church itself.  (That has to be the most outrageous punchline to any of the introductions of my 470 posts !  The Devil made me do it.)

Now that you have pardonned my misleading you, I can point out a couple of similarities between a BREXIT and my personal FREXIT.  The Brits surprised all of us – David Cameron, Nigel Farage, the journos and the bookies.  My triple departure surprised and shocked many people, including family, friends, students as well as sacerdotal and academic colleagues.  BREXIT, at the time of writing this, has created worries for everyone except the seventeen million British citizens who voted for it.  My FREXIT created serious worries for many but especially for myself.  One could add that both decisions called for courage.  It remains to be seen whether BREXIT will turn out to have been a good idea.  I can assure you that my FREXIT was.

Sometimes I wonder what would have become of me had I not exited.  My colleagues, confreres, should have done as I did.  Those who did were not all as lucky as myself.  Many were; some were not.  But I’m glad I did not make the mistake of staying in the Order, the Priesthood and the Church, like the misfit colleagues who did not dare make the break.  They wasted their lives in a dead-end street, in a life of loneliness, self-pity and frustration, if not alcoholism and hypocrisy.  They never knew the joys of love, marriage and fatherhood (the reality, not just the empty title).  They never knew the satisfaction of facing and overcoming, unassisted, the challenge to survive and to succeed in the unchartered territory outside the security of a friary and the faith.

BREXIT, voters were warned, is irreversible.  I cannot imagine any former priest, or even simple believer, wanting to return to the profession, the intellectual desert or the credulity from which they had escaped.  Not only have I never had any regrets, I consider my FREXIT the best decision I ever made.

RIDENDA   RELIGIO