Why revolution is always evil and was the very first sin (3)

This is further reinforced by the principles of just war.

As St Thomas teaches (Summa Theologica, II-II, Q.40, A.1):

'In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary.

First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged. For it is not the business of a private individual to declare war, because he can seek for redress of his rights from the tribunal of his superior. Moreover it is not the business of a private individual to summon together the people, which has to be done in wartime. And as the care of the common weal is committed to those who are in authority, it is their business to watch over the common weal of the city, kingdom or province subject to them. And just as it is lawful for them to have recourse to the sword in defending that common weal against internal disturbances, when they punish evil-doers, according to the words of the Apostle (Romans 13:4): "He beareth not the sword in vain: for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil"; so too, it is their business to have recourse to the sword of war in defending the common weal against external enemies. Hence it is said to those who are in authority (Psalm 81:4): "Rescue the poor: and deliver the needy out of the hand of the sinner"; and for this reason Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 75): "The natural order conducive to peace among mortals demands that the power to declare and counsel war should be in the hands of those who hold the supreme authority".

Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault. Wherefore Augustine says (QQ. in Hept., qu. x, super Jos.): "A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly".

Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil. Hence Augustine says (De Verb. Dom. [actualiter Can. Apud. Caus. xxiii, qu. 1]): "True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement, or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evil-doers, and of uplifting the good". For it may happen that the war is declared by the legitimate authority, and for a just cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention. Hence Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 74): "The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit, the fever of revolt, the lust of power, and such like things, all these are rightly condemned in war".'

Thus it could not be clearer:

Only the legitimate ruler has the right to declare war.

No private citizen has that right.

Edouard Manet. Execution of Emperor Maximilian. 1867.
HIRH Archduke Maximilian of Austria, brother of the Emperor Franz Josef, was invited by the people and government of Mexico to become their emperor. He agreed. But a revolution came, overthrew him and cruelly executed this most mild of men. As so often, the idle, heartless and faithless mob lean on the wall vainly watching their own sovereign being shot, too dull and stupid to realise that it also meant the death of their own peace and freedom - as indeed proved exactly so. Mexico went from bad to worse and eventually revolutionary government banned all religion and massacred Christians. It was illegal for clergy to wear clerical dress. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was only finally thrown out of government in 2002. Even now, much of Mexico is a poverty-stricken, chaotic, crime-ridden backwater ruled by inept rulers.

A private body of men do not have that right and if they usurp it then they are making themselves rulers or kings which they have no right to do . Indeed, it is a defiance of God who is the author of all authority.

If, however, a legitimate king were unlawfully exiled or deposed then he could command his subjects to make war to restore him and, if the war fulfilled the other just war criteria, then they could - and indeed probably should - do so.

Thus the following, being restorations, qualify as just (if, where appropriate, the other just war criteria are met):

• The Incarnation of Jesus Christ
• The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
• The Jacobite uprising
• The uprisings against the usurping Bonaparte
• The Carlist uprising in Spain against the usurping Isabellinist liberals
• The uprising of the Russian Whites against the Communist Reds
• The uprising of the Mexican Cristeros against the Communists
• The uprising of President Gabriel Garcia Moreno in Ecuador against the usurping Freemasons
• The uprisings in Eastern Europe against the usurping Communist regimes

The Battle of Prestonpans in which the Jacobites routed the Hanoverian forces.
The Jacobite uprising was a lawful - and very nearly successful - attempt to restore the rightful ruler. It was thus a restoration and not a revolution. The Hanoverians had no right to rule, were usurpers and there were 57 claimants (all Roman Catholic) with a better right to rule Britain than King George I.
However, by the time of King George III, proportionality, unlikelihood of success and the benevolence of the King caused the Jacobite dynasty to relinquish any claim and so an uprising would have been, by just war principles, unjust. Flora MacDonald herself supported King George III against the American revolutionaries. Modern Jacobites acknowledge and loyally obey the Queen but reserve a continuing reverence and respect for the older, senior line.

And the following were manifestly unjust rebellions against authority:

• The revolt of the Devil
• The trial, judgment and Crucifixion of Jesus Christ
• The Protestant Reformation - that great source of evil and revolution ever since
  
• The English Revolution of 1642
• The so-called "Glorious Revolution" of 1688
• The American Revolution of 1776
• The French Revolution
• The political revolutions of the 19th century against popes and monarchs
• The Italian nationalist revolution
• The Nazi revolution
• All Communist revolutions: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc
• The Irish nationalist rebellions
• The youth "revolution" of the 1960s
• The rebellions against morality that have followed ever since

The logic is quite simple:

Revolution - immoral and evil

Restoration - moral and good

Rebellion is sin and sin is rebellion.

And revolution is no more than a continuation of the Devil's arrogant claim out of which all evil began: non serviam - "I shall not serve".

Goodness, humanity and justice flow from service and thus all good men should be ever-ready to say: serviam - I shall serve.

The crest and motto of HRH the Prince of Wales - Ich Dien - I serve.
And that is what all rulers and kings must do.

...

Why revolution is always evil and was the very first sin (2)

For the traditional Christian it is even clearer.

He acknowledges, as does St Thomas, that no subject has the right to overthrow the legitimate, constitutional monarch or government.

And the monarch does not become "illegitimate" simply because some of his subjects begin to think that he is.

If it can be shown that the ruler is an usurper, who made himself king or governor without regard to the lawful constitution of the state, then he can be overthrown and the real king or governor restored.

Restoration is legitimate but revolution is always evil.

And even restoration may only be attempted if the other just war criteria are met e.g. proportionality or likelihood of success.

St Thomas says this of rebellion:

"[45] If the excess of tyranny is unbearable, some have been of the opinion that it would be an act of virtue for strong men to slay the tyrant and to expose themselves to the danger of death in order to set the multitude free (5). An example of this occurs even in the Old Testament. For a certain Aioth slew Eglon, King of Moab, who was oppressing the people of God under harsh slavery, thrusting a dagger into his thigh; and he was made a judge of the people (6).

[46] But the opinion is not in accord with apostolic teaching. For Peter admonishes us to be reverently subject to our masters, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward: “For if one who suffers unjustly bear his trouble for conscience’ sake, this is grace” (7). Wherefore when many emperors of the Romans tyrannically persecuted the faith of Christ, a great number both of the nobility and the common people were converted to the faith and were praised for patiently bearing death for Christ. They did not resist although they were armed, and this is plainly manifested in the case of the holy Theban legion (8). Aioth, then, must be considered rather as having slain a foe than assassinated a ruler, however tyrannical, of the people. Hence in the Old Testament we also read that they who killed Joas, the King of Juda, who had fallen away from the worship of God, were slain and their children spared according to the precept of the law (9).

[47] Should private persons attempt on their own private presumption to kill the rulers, even though tyrants, this would be dangerous for the multitude as well as for their rulers. This is because the wicked generally expose themselves to dangers of this kind more than the good, for the rule of a king, no less than that of tyrant, is burdensome to them, since, according to the words of Solomon: “A wise king scattereth the wicked” (10). Consequently, by presumption of this kind, danger to the people from the loss of a good king would be more probable than relief through the removal of a tyrant.

[48] Furthermore, it seems that to proceed against the cruelty of tyrants is an action to be undertaken, not through the private presumption of a few, but rather by public authority".

[St Thomas Aquinas, De Regimine Principum (On Kingship), quoted in Dino Bigongiari, ed., The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas, New York: Hafner Press, 1953, Book I, Ch. Six, 49-51. St Thomas cites the following sources in the extract: (5) Cf. John of Salisbury. Policraticus viii. 18, 20. (6) Judges iii. 14 ff and see Policraticus viii. 20. (7) 1 Pet ii. 18,19. (8) Acta Sanctorum Septembris, vol VI, 308 ff. (9) IV Kings xiv. 5, 6. (10) Prov xx. 26.]

St Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, rejected revolution

The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches the same:

"If we sometimes have wicked and unworthy officials it is not their faults that we revere, but the authority from God which they possess. Indeed, while it may seem strange, we are not excused from highly honouring them even when they show themselves hostile and implacable towards us. Thus David rendered great services to Saul even when the latter was his bitter foe, and to this he alludes when he says: ‘With them that hated peace I was peaceable. However, should their commands be wicked or unjust, they should not be obeyed, since in such a case they rule not according to their rightful authority, but according to injustice and perversity’ ".

[On the Fourth Commandment]

Tiziano Vecellio (Titian). Christ Crowned with Thorns. c. 1542.
The symbolism is dual: evil men claim the right to judge and condemn Christ the King of Kings, God Himself, the highest authority and, in so doing, give God the opportunity to provide an image of kingship forever new, namely, that kings wear the crown as Christ worn the thorns, as a cross, a duty, a burden, for the sake and service of his subjects. Christ becomes the supreme symbol of all those who suffer for the sake of right and justice - especially rulers who are rebelliously overthrown by their own subjects, for rebellion is sin and sin is rebellion.

...

Why revolution is always evil and was the very first sin (1)

Non serviam - "I shall not serve", said the Enemy of humankind and so fell from grace taking with him fully one third of Heaven.

Thus did Hell begin - that loathsome place where self-love and rebellion eat at the soul for all eternity.

And this spirit of rebellion has become the watchword of revolutions ever since.

It is small wonder then, that revolutions are such bloody, hateful affairs that begin badly and end worse.

By contrast, the duty of kingship is to serve. That is why the motto of the Prince of Wales is Ich Dien - "I serve".

Likewise the duty of each of us is to serve - serve God, serve our families, serve our country and that means, also, serve our governors. They, in turn, should serve us. Indeed, the highest thing man can do is to serve others. The higher you are, the more fully must you serve others.

However, we do not have the right to judge our rulers if they do not serve well enough or according to our liking.

The reason is so simple that anyone ought to be able to understand it. If the lower can sit in judgement upon the higher then authority ceases to exist.

By what right can the the lower possibly sit in judgement upon the higher? It can only be by some higher authority yet. But if the lower claims the right to judge the higher then even that yet higher authority can be judged and discarded, too.

The result is then that there is no authority at all.

And when there is no authority at all then no-one is safe, good government ends and mere anarchy becomes the norm. And when anarchy is the norm, the strong prey upon the weak and justice is at an end.

Jewish women and children herded by Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto.
When legitimate authority is overturned by revolution then no-one is safe, good government ends and mere anarchy becomes the norm. And when anarchy is the norm, the strong prey upon the weak and justice is at an end.

Many a revolutionary claims to sit in judgement upon his rightful governor by appealing to an "higher" authority in the form of "justice" or "the people" or "historical imperative" or even some spurious form of god of his own making.

But if the rightful governor can be overthrown then so can the "higher authority" of "justice" or "the people" or "historical imperative" or "god". Once you start down the path of claiming to overthrow your own ruler then there is no end in sight, every authority is then under risk and chaos is inevitable.

And so it has proved.

Every revolution ends by devouring itself and its own.

The Revolution devours its own: the execution of Maximilien Robespierre.
The murder of King Louis XVI opened the floodgates to a massive wave of blood-letting in which huge numbers perished - most of them peasants and ordinary citizens - in the "Reign of Terror" which did not slow down until Robespierre, the author of the Terror, was himself guillotined at the order of the very revolution he created. These acts were all the more rebellious and diabolical in that the executioner - as seen here - was dressed as one of the educated and ruling classes, in culottes, who should have been most loyal but, instead, defiantly holds up the head to satisfy the leering blood-lust of the lawless, abandoned mob. But this is the nature of revolution: it poisons all loyalties, it teaches the servant to betray the master, and the master the servant, the son to betray the father and the father, the son, husband and wife to betray each other and it teaches man to hate his maker, God.

As the odious St Just, Robespierre's henchman, put it: "the Revolution consists in destroying all that opposes it".

In short - non serviam.

Revolution is a self-defeating reversal of all good human values. Even an atheist ought to be opposed to it. It is a recipe for chaos. And, when chaos reigns, the strong prey upon the weak and peace and justice are at an end.

William Frederick Yeames. "And when did you last see your father?". 1878.
Puritans claimed the right to sit in judgement on their superiors and to interrogate innocent children to discover the whereabouts of their loyalist and royalist fathers who had defended the king and rightful authority. As such, the Puritans were revolutionaries and enemies of God.

...

Reprise on Just War and the American Revolution

I received quite a post-bag on this one.

Let me look at some of the questions raised.

Pedes Christi wrote:

”My question is, can such a government be considered legitimate? And if not, what is one justified in doing about it? I am not suggesting violent revolution (given your just war theory above), but how does one otherwise deal with such tyranny? I pray for the conversion of my country, but what else? With this I wrestle”.

I think you are right to wrestle with this issue. See what you think of my comments below.

Mark asks:

”Surely St. Thomas would not say that a private citizen should bear ‘any’ level of injustice imposed upon him, correct? To use an example from modernity, would a private citizen in say, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba or North Korea be justified in rebelling against the dictatorship?”.

He later asks:

”1. What relevance is it to the question of Just War when the subject is a private (Catholic) citizen rebelling against a non-Catholic government? Does it matter what form the government is (monarchy, democracy, communist, tyrant), or whether it is oppressive towards Catholicism, or Christianity in general? At what point does a secular government, tyrant or otherwise, become so oppressive to a Catholic society as to merit rebellion? I have in mind your response on 10 June at 14:51 and your comment s regarding the alleged Freemasonic affiliations of the European Prime Ministers.

2. In your reply to Ollie you offered that his view was that of a ‘tiny minority’; I wonder what relevance does this have? Did you mean that in terms of having any bearing on a contemporary public that it is not relevant because it is impractical, or because it was not widely held at the time, or only that it is so obscure as to be discarded for purposes of discussion?

3. As you have explained your understanding of the application of Just War principles to this particular conflict, I wonder whether you believe the Crusades to have been just? What about the First War of Independence by the Scots?

4. In your reply to Dion, you asked a (rhetorical?) question as to how he would conclude as to the guilt of a Mohammedan claiming justice as the motivation for a act which resulted in the death of innocents; I wonder if by this you mean to imply that combatants whose actions result in the death of other combatants in wars which you believe to have been unjust are guilty of murder? Or does the responsibility for the justice of the war rest solely on the civil authorities to whom God has granted this responsibility? Is his culpability greater because the innocents were his targets, as opposed to a combatant who knows there will be innocent lives loss by his actions but which are otherwise unintended?

5. I am curious if you know of any declarations since 1789 by Roman Pontiffs declaring a major conflict to have been unjust.”

Was the German invasion of Poland just? Pomerania and Silesia were both originally German and had been seized after World War I. But the German government had pledged not to invade and, moreover, its ideology was then Nazi, a grossly heretical creed.

Let me essay an answer to these.

1. The principles of a just war are matters of Natural Law and, as such, apply to all men, not just Catholics. A private citizen, Catholic or otherwise, may not, according to those principles, rebel against properly constituted authority. It matters not what form the government takes, although it may be relevant that the government is oppressing Christianity, which is a true religion, rather than a false religion. However, that does not confer upon the private citizen the right to revolt against properly constituted government. Thus, at no point does a secular government, tyrant or otherwise, become so oppressive to a Catholic society as to merit rebellion, if it is a properly constituted government. Private citizens did not have the right to rebel against the Freemasonic European Prime Ministers, for instance, if they were properly constituted. There may be some residual or other powers of the Pope, however, to depose Catholic sovereigns but it would first have to be convincingly demonstrated that they derived their authority from the Pope. In general, according to Dante and St Thomas, Catholic monarchs derived their authority direct from God and not the Pope, although that varies. For instance, the Pope had the right to refuse to accept the Prince-electors nominee for Roman Emperor.

2. In my reply to Ollie I meant that his view is so obscure as to be discarded for purposes of discussion.

3. Not all of the Crusades were unjust – although they were not always justly conducted – because the Holy Land belonged to Christendom and the Eastern Empire in particular and it was a war of restoration and defence, expressly sanctioned by the Church as restorative and defensive against the ever-encroaching advance of Islam. I am not sure about the First War of Independence by the Scots. I would need to study the causes in more detail. Does anyone else have a view on it?

4. In my reply to Dion, I did not mean that combatants whose actions result in the death of other combatants in wars which are unjust are necessarily guilty of murder, although their leaders might be depending upon the usual criteria of intentionality. It is a standard application of the principle of “double effect” that a combatant who knows there will be innocent lives loss by his actions but which are otherwise unintended Is not guilty of moral crime. The culpability of the terrorist who deliberately targets the innocent is plainly evident. None of this was my primary point which was that no man can plead his disagreement with the Natural Law as an excuse for his crimes because every man has the Natural Law “written in his heart” and so cannot claim ignorance of it or exemption from it. If he could then Al Capone could say that he was innocent of murder because he did not believe that killing those who got in his way was murder.

5. There have been plenty of papal condemnations of conflicts as unjust since 1789. Pope Pius VI and Pius VII both declared the French Revolutionary wars unjust as well as the Bonapartist wars. Leo XII also did so and Gregory XVI declared the Italian revolutions unjust as did Bl Pius IX. He also condemned the Irish rebellions and excommunicated the Fenians on 12 January 1870. Of course, he also did the same to the Italian rebels. The Polish rebels were also – very significantly since they were rebelling against an heretic Tsar – condemned. The First World War was variously condemned and so were the Fascist and Nazi wars. The Spanish rebels were condemned (as were some actions by the Nationalists), Paul VI condemned the anti-terrorist war against ETA and John Paul II condemned the British invasion of the Falkland Islands, albeit not formally (and, in my view, on questionable grounds) as well as the Iraq war.

St Thomas Aquinas, leading theologian of just war principles

St. Thomas would not say that a private citizen should bear ‘any’ level of injustice imposed upon him, however bad, because he expressly allows the principle of self-defence. One may defend oneself, one’s family and others, together with property. If this requires what may become a war against the government then that is justified on the principle of “double effect” provided that there is no intention to overthrow the government or to prosecute a war against it.

If, however, the government was never a legitimate one then a war might be prosecuted against it (subject to all the usual just war criteria) in order to restore the legitimate government.

This was the purpose behind the Jacobite and Carlist wars and – arguably – the US War between the States. The South were seeking to restore the original Constitution as against the effectively new and unauthorised Constitution imposed by Lincoln and the Northern Yankees.

The governments of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and North Korea were all illegitimate governments imposed by revolution and force of arms against legitimate governments. So long as they continued to be illegitimate in that sense it would be open to anyone (subject to all the other just war criteria) to rise up against them to restore the true and legitimate government (if there was one).

"Manifest Destiny" was just a re-run of the old Puritan and Cromwellian cry that the Protestant white man was pre-destined by an apparently arbitrary God to rule over all other men as a "chosen people" of Biblical stature who would be enriched in a new republic designed chiefly for their benefit. It is, of course, unbiblical nonsense.

I agree that “Manifest Destiny” is really an outgrowth of the theology of certain Protestant groups (often Calvinists) who beleive in the “God is on our (America's) side” school of thinking and I agree that this theology – like that of the Cromwellian Puritans and the Afrikaner Boer Vortrekker people – tends to give the impression of a status of “chosen people” based upon the nation of Israel as a chosen people.

That is one of the reasons why I am opposed to such Americanist Yankee nonsense. It does no good to America nor to the rest of the world.

But you cannot persuade Americanists of this view. They simply stick their fingers in their ears and shout pro-Americanist slogans.

...

An essay in morals and logic regarding the American Revolution

This is the old chestnut that will not die.

Let me first invite all those Americanists reading this article to do their best, if they can, to put aside their particular prejudices and try to view this issue objectively.

I realise that for some that is simply mission impossible.

Well, I am sorry for them but I believe that there will be some who - with a bit of effort - can do it.

It is to them - and not the blinkered bigots - that I address the argument that follows.

All men feel a strong affinity to and for their own country - and so it should be - but that should not ever blind them to their country's particular faults. Indeed, if they really love their own country then they would be at pains to discover its faults, admit them and try to do something to overcome them.

The man who says "my country, right or wrong" does not truly love his country.

In the case of America the problem is trebly exacerbated by the false myth that so many Americans naively believe that their own society and system of government is the best that the world has ever seen and ought to be aspired to by all peoples throughout the world. This blinkers their capacity to view their own country objectively more than the people of most other countries.

The Americanist idea that America is the acme of civilisation and that it has the right to spread its own culture and form of government to the rest of the world is part of the purely exploitative myth of so-called "manifest destiny".

It was devised by the Founding Fathers to give themselves an excuse to invade and annex territory that belonged to Spain and to the native American Indians and, later, to control Latin America for the benefit of rich Yankees rather than the common good.

The Americanist doctrine of "manifest destiny" was a self-fulfilling, circular argument of zero logical weight invented by Yankee revolutionaries and supremacists as a convenient philosophical veil to cover the gross and grotesque rape of the native American Indians, and of the Spanish territory upon which they mostly dwelt, solely for the private profit of Yankee Americans. That is the truth about "how the West was won".

It was little more than a cloak for greed and exploitation - exploitation that even continues to this day, in new and different forms.

There is very little that is just in such a viewpoint and much that is very unjust. Blind bigotry and false loyalty to such a view is not a virtue but rather a species of sin.

On the other hand, honest and decent Americans are fine people, many some of the finest, who have given the world much and can do yet more for the world in the future. They are the Americans who are able to distinguish the virtue of love of country from bigotry and America from the error of Americanism.

Since America is now the world's policeman, it is all the more important that its citizens understand their own history and understand the flaws as well as the triumphs.

Failure to do so has already cost lives and the prospect of peace in a number of countries.

The Serbs were able to throw back in the face of the American negotiators the simple fact that America had staged its own revolution, that it had believed in its own "manifest destiny", that it had "ethnically cleansed" the country of native American Indians and that it still believed in its own intrinsic superiority over other nations.

Madeleine Albright's typically Americanist negotiating stance was to say to the Serbs that they had 2 choices: hand over their country now or else America would invade and take it over. What kind of preposterously arrogant negotiating position was that for any responsible country to take?

Moreover, the decision to invade Iraq for a second time might have been viewed more circumspectly if the American leaders had understood a bit more about their own history and its particular flaws.

Just War

What makes a war just?

The traditional teaching is set out in the writings of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas particularly.

It can be summarised as follows.

Jus ad bellum (the morality of going to war) requires all of the following 6 conditions to be fulfilled:

1. A just cause - e.g. righting a wrong, protecting the innocent or restoring rights wrongfully denied or taken away. Vengeance or reprisals or the prestige of the sovereign are not sufficient reasons.

2. Proportionate cause - the cause must be sufficiently weighty to justify the very serious step of waging war with all its attendant evils.

3. Right intention - we must have a good intention, as with all moral acts e.g. to create a better situation than the situation pertaining before the war.

4. Right authority - only those with the proper, sovereign, legislative authority to declare war may do so. War may not be declared by private citizens.

5. Reasonable prospect of success - quixotic gestures are not appropriate in going to war.

6. Last resort - every reasonable way of avoiding war must first be exhausted. Jaw, jaw is better than war, war.

St Augustine of Hippo: the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church, first codified teaching on a just war

Jus in bello (morality in waging war) requires the following conditions to be met:

1. Discrimination - we must not deliberately attack the innocent and the non-combatant.

2. Proportionality - we must not take action which might cause disproportionate harm relative to the likely benefit of the war. This is similar to the doctrine of "minimum force" necessary to achieve one's military aim.

Was the American revolution a just war?

American children are taught from an early age that it is axiomatic that the American Revolution was a just war.

It has become a dogma of the Americanist faith and American children are not permitted even to question it, let alone challenge it.

Any objective person (which rules out most Americanists) must, however, consider the case on its merits. A fortiori, a Catholic must do so, too.

All 6 of the reasons are considered by many authors to be lacking in the American revolutionary war but I will consider but one which I think sufficient to call into question the morality of the whole enterprise.

It is this: the lack of right authority.

By what authority did the American rebel colonists claim the right to rebel against their sovereign?

The simple fact is that they had no such authority. Neither did they claim it. Instead they simply adopted the view of the English Whigs, going back to Oliver Cromwell, in claiming the right to decide if and when the sovereign was ruling unjustly and on that basis gave themselves the "right" to rebel.

This, of course, is not only completely contradictory to Christian and Catholic doctrine and principle but is, also, a recipe for anarchy.

Imitating but exceeding the Americans, the French liberals went on to stage a disgustingly savage revolution of their own. The result was that the revolutionary leaders themselves later went to the guillotine, like Maximilien Robespierre, the leader during the "Great Terror" but later himself executed (above).

If any group of citizens can give themselves the right to overthrow the sovereign state whenever they consider that ruler to be unjust then no society is safe.

It is true that no-one is morally obliged to obey an unjust law and that they may refuse to obey it but that is a very different thing from going on to the much further stage of actually overthrowing the maker of the law.

It is also true that if the sovereign state attacks the individual or the group unjustly that the individual or group may take reasonable and proportionate means to defend themselves from such attack but, again, that is a far cry from intentionally plotting to overthrow the sovereign state.

The principle of double effect would allow an intentional defence against the attacks of the sovereign state even if that foreseeably, but not intentionally, opened up the possibility of the state falling but, again, that is a far cry from intentionally plotting to overthrow the sovereign state.

St Thomas puts the matter thus (De Regimine Principum, Cap 6, 45-6):

"If the excess of tyranny is unbearable some have been of the opinion that it would be an act of virtue for strong men to slay the tyrant and to expose themselves to the danger of death in order to set the multitude free... but this opinion is not in accord with apostolic teaching."

There you have it.

St Thomas Aquinas, greatest of all Catholic theologians, condemned revolution as "not in accord with apostolic teaching"

St Thomas explains that this is because St Peter admonishes us to be reverent and obedient to our masters both good and bad (1 Pet 2:12-20) and that we cannot overthrow our masters.

A sovereign person or body may only be overthrown by that which is higher, teaches St Thomas. For example where a king is chosen by a senate or a popular assembly then either of those bodies may depose the king since they are prior to the king but if the king is chosen through birth then he cannot be deposed by any of his subjects since they are not, then, prior to him.

The American rebel colonists simply and wholly rejected this teaching of St Thomas, just as the rebellious Protestants did at the Protestant Reformation, just as Cromwell did and just as the English Whigs did. Indeed, the American rebel colonists expressly and openly averred that they were following the English Whigs in overthrowing King George III, just as the English Whigs had overthrown King James II, our last Catholic king.

There is simply no escaping this. Americanist Catholics must simply just get used to it.

The suggestion that the American rebels were not rebelling because the Hanoverians had no right to rule is contradicted by the American rebel colonists themselves. The American rebel colonists were certainly not seeking to restore the Stuarts. On the contrary, they were even more anti-Stuart than the English Whigs.

In any case, one rebellion does not legitimate another because two wrongs do not make a right and one may not do evil that good may come of it, as St Paul teaches us (Rom 3:8).

King George III in coronation robes

King George III had the right to ratify legislation. The American rebel colonists did not. The de facto government has all the authority of a real government unless it is open to realistic challenge. The alternative would simply be anarchy which is always wrong. By the reign of King George III no-one was really challenging his right to rule in place of the Stuarts.

Moreover, Henry Benedict, Cardinal Duke of York and the Stuart successor, recognised King George III. By the time of King George III the rule of the Hanoverians had become legitimate, recognised by pope, emperor and pretender alike.

One of the most loyal of Stuart loyalists and the very person who had hidden, nursed and nurtured Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") after the Battle of Culloden in 1745 was Flora MacDonald.

Flora MacDonald receiving Prince Charles Edward Stuart when he was on the run from the English and Scottish Whig rebels after the Battle of Culloden. She later went to America and was there a Loyalist, rejecting the American Whigs just as she had the British Whigs.

She later went to America and there she and her husband were active loyalists, supporters of King George III as King of America and strongly opposed the rebel colonists whom she regarded as unnatural rebels against proper authority, just as she had earlier regarded the English Whigs as rebels against the proper authority of the Stuarts.

That is, I think, precisely illustrative of the true Catholic position and shows the sound Catholic sense of Flora MacDonald.

Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York and the head of the House of Stuart after his brother's death. He recognised the rule of King George III during his life (despite leaving the matter ambiguous in his will). He sent the Scottish coronation heirlooms to King George and received a pension from the King.

What I would ask is this: how can anyone defend the rebellious Yankees, if they reject as rebellious the Hanoverians?

The American War of Independence was not made just by British injustice. As St Thomas teaches, private citizens do not have the right to pass judgment on their own sovereign and to overthrow him, even if that sovereign is passing unjust laws and acting unjustly.

In any case, it was the American rebels who behaved unjustly, at least as much as the British government. A mere "feeling" that one can "no longer bear British rule" does not even begin to satisfy the traditional tenets for a just war.

George Washington, leader of the rebel colonists

The rebel colonists were, in truth, a parcel of Whigs and they had imbibed the false and treacherous teachings of the English Whigs and men like Cromwell and had persuaded themselves that they could make out a case for overthrowing the relatively mild rule of King George III, make themselves the rulers and so profit handsomely from a revolution.

In short, it was they who were unjust far more than King George. Indeed, the rule of King George III and his government was milder than that of the rebel colonists and it was during his reign that the unjust penalties against Catholics and dissenters had begun to be withdrawn or not enforced.

Though it must be admitted that King George still retained prejudices against Catholics, his reign was a vast improvement on that of his odious predecessors and it was during his reign that the first Catholic chapel was built. This was on the Lulworth Castle estate of Sir Joseph Weld, Bt, in Dorset.

Indeed, King George's government had passed the Quebec Act which recognised Catholicism as the religion of the French Canadians. How did the American rebel colonists react to this? They called it an "intolerable Act" and cited it as an example of the "tyranny" of King George!

Thus one can readily see the extent of the anti-Catholic bigotry of the American rebel colonists.

The rebel colonists also saw a huge financial advantage to themselves personally from the revolt and the example of the Boston tea party is a good case in point.

Far from there being expensive tea imported, the British government had allowed tea imports to provide cheaper tea to the colonists. The rebel leaders, however, stood to lose the considerable profit they were making on their own expensive tea by these cheaper imports and so they staged the "Boston tea party" to oust the competition against their own tea monopoly.

They were, in short, not only anti-Catholic bigots but also greedy profiteers at the expense of their fellow American colonials.

Tom Paine: atheist radical and model for many of the American revolutionists

They then tried to turn their greed and selfish profiteering into a principle by pretending that the whole colony was being oppressed by the British government when, in fact, the opposite was true. It was they who were oppressing their fellow colonials.

They also oppressed the non-white minorities and kept slaves for their own benefit and profit. It was of these rebel colonists that Dr Johnson so rightly said:

"Why is it that the yelps for liberty come loudest from the drivers of slaves?"

The American revolution was illegitimate from the beginning and was a war by, and for the benefit of, a small group of colonial oligarchs who sought to enrich themselves by overthrowing the legitimate government and putting themselves at the head of a new, oligarchic government which was thereafter run chiefly for their own benefit and profit.

Thomas Jefferson: Dr Johnson had him in mind when he wrote "Why is it that the yelps for liberty come loudest from the drivers of slaves?"

A government that is run for the profit and benefit of the few and not chiefly for the common weal is called a tyranny (or unjust oligarchy), as St Thomas teaches.

Such were the American rebel colonists. Moreover, their revolution was not a just war.

Generations of American children have been taught the opposite. They have, however, been taught wrongly and falsely. An objective person can see this. A prejudiced person - as most Americanists unfortunately are - cannot.

The real absurdity is that so many modern Americans have been duped into thinking that their own society which, even now, is not run for the benefit of all but chiefly for the benefit of the few rich, is the very acme of freedom.

They have so much imbibed the myth and the propaganda that they can no longer even recognise what freedom really is.

They slave away for employers who exploit them and give them only 2 weeks "vacation" and they honestly think this is the very pinnacle of freedom.

The new slaves have persuaded themselves to love their own enslavement, even though it is often far more oppressive than the conditions of most slaves in the old South.

Does this mean that America should now be forced to recognise the Queen (or even the Duke of Bavaria) as their head of state?

I only pose this question because I am sure that some dumb bunny will try to raise it (whether stupidly or sarcastically) in order to try and make a cheap point.

The answer, of course, is no.

No - no more than should the British Crown be forcibly handed back to the Duke of Bavaria, even though he is undoubtedly the true head of the legitimate House of Stuart.

Why?

Because to do so would once again require an insurrection or, at the very least, a coup d'etat both of which actions would fail miserably to satisfy the criteria for a just war, almost as much as did the American revolutionary war fail to satisfy the same just war criteria.

HRH Francis, the Duke of Bavaria, with his niece, HRH Princess Elizabeth, who is expecting a child. The Duke remains the head of the excluded Catholic House of Stuart.

Of course, if the Duke could become King (assuming that he was willing which is at best doubtful) by voluntary means, by the consent of Parliament and people, then, of course, there could be no objection.

But is that likely? No.

Jacobites (like myself) can entertain the just and pious hope that the legitimate Stuart king might one day be restored to the throne of Britain but we cannot for one moment ever seriously entertain the entirely fanciful notion that any such restoration should today be imposed by force of arms or by coup d'etat.

The time for that sort of action - right though it may have been in 1715 and 1745 - is now long, long gone and it would be the height of immorality, unconstitutionality and folly to attempt such a criminal enterprise with any degree of seriousness. In attempting such, we would be no better than the terrorists of Al Qaeda or the IRA.

The issues are currently under discussion, however, due to the proposal by Gordon Brown to scrap the Act of Settlement 1701 which excludes all Catholics from the British Crown. See this report:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584184/Act-repeal-could-make-Franz-Herzog-von-Bayern-new-King-of-England-and-Scotland.html

It is even less likely that the Congress and the people of the USA would ever consent to a return to the Queen as head of state.

Indeed, the issue is irrelevant to the point of this essay.

My aim was to examine the conditions for a just war and see if they applied to the original American revolutionary war and then to see how the continued "dogma" of faith in the recititude of the American revolution influences and affects modern US cultural and political discourse and policy.

...

Roundheads, queens and the immorality of revolutions

Apologies to "SubjectofRome" whose post I seem to have lost. Can you send it again? Midlander need not bother unless he comes up with some arguments rather than simply barracking. Sorry, Midlander.

Others have written and some still do not quite get the point that I was making.

Last try, then, folks. Here goes.

Some make a common mistake and assume that a different set of rules must apply to a head of state who is called king or queen than to one who is called by some other name.

The name of the head of state makes no difference: he cannot seize powers that are not lawfully his (or hers) and thus do not belong to him under the Constitution.

Dictators of unstable countries all too often seize such powers for themselves. This is merely a coup d'etat. It is illegal and immoral.

Some seem to think that merely swapping a monarch for some other kind of head of state with a different name solves the moral problem of signing immoral laws. How could it?

I don’t quite know why this relatively simple idea seems so hard for some to grasp.

The evil consists in requiring a head of state to seize powers he does not have and thus overthrow a constitution.

Again I do not know why this should be so difficult an idea to grasp.

I suspect that some have but one idea or concept of monarchy in their heads and that is monarchy with wide power. But the British monarch is not such a monarch.

Some call this a "charade". It is no more of a charade than a republican constitution that requires the president to do the same thing. How is it any less of a charade to call a president “head of state” when he or she has virtually no power, either?

The fact is that most jurisdictions have a head of state, even if only for ceremonial reasons. There is a need for such a figure. It is not a charade. There is a job to be done. Most constitutions give that head of state some final and residual power to prevent the Constitution being ultimately subverted.

It really amounts to not much less than a kind of blind prejudice and bigotry to think that this system must be abolished if it is exercised by a person called a monarch or "king" or "queen" but is fine if it is exercised by some other sort of head of state with a different title like, say, "president".

This bigotry is simply not logical. It is perhaps cultural or psychological. For instance, some Americans and many Irishmen seem to have a kind of cultural and psychological aversion to the mere word "king" or "queen", partly perhaps for understandable historical reasons. Many Irishmen, for instance, understandably associate monarchy with oppression by successive English governments but end by having an irrational aversion to the word and idea as such.

Perhaps some other people have been brought up on fairy tales about kings and queens and princes in castles who order subjects about with largely untrammelled power. Thus they think this is how all monarchs should be and can’t get their heads round the idea of a restricted constitutional monarchy.

Or perhaps some have a romantic notion about revolution which, in their mind’s eye, requires some supposed villainous monarch to rebel against.

I don’t know what else causes this kind of bigotry but it is profoundly anti-rational.

The Queen does not do evil when she signs a law because, in signing that law, she is not exercising any freedom to endorse or reject that law. She has no such freedom.

Her signing is not a free act on her part but merely an acknowledgement that Parliament has passed a law. It is rather like signing a receipt.

The only exceptions are the extreme situations to which I referred in my earlier posts (deadlock in Parliament which cannot be resolved by the courts, or a rogue government seeking to abolish the Constitution or, say, elections) and these now represent her only real power and discretion to act.

The fact that her signing is called “Royal Assent” is now a legal fiction, save in those extreme cases. Then, and only then, does the Queen retain any discretionary power.

Other than those extreme situations her signature is now no more than a “Royal Acknowledgement” or a “Royal Receipt” rather like signing a DHL receipt to say that you have received a DHL-delivered parcel.

No-one would suggest that the act of signing a DHL receipt for a parcel means that you were responsible for sending the parcel in the first place!

So, also, with the Queen. She is not morally or legally responsible for the legislation enacted by Parliament.

Now, it might be very nice and good if the Queen had more power than that and exercised it to block an abortion bill. But she doesn’t.

And no amount of calls for her to resign will give her, or her replacement, that power.

The royal power was radically attenuated by the Civil War, the so-called "Glorious" Revolution and the Bill of Rights of 1689 and further inroads continued to be made thereafter by a now powerful Parliament.

However much one may regret the Roundhead rebellion and the Whig Revolution, they won and the Royalists lost and it is now too late to reverse the constitutional situation. Indeed, even to try would now, if done by unconstitutional means, be a revolution of its own and thus sinful.

Now try as you might, you simply cannot blame Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for this situation!

Moreover, because Parliament passes an immoral law, this does not give either the Queen or a subject the right to overthrow Parliament.

I repeat, yet again, that this is what St Thomas Aquinas teaches in his De Regimine Principum ("On the Rule of Princes"), as does the Church itself.

St Thomas makes it quite clear that, whilst an unjust law is no law, morally speaking, and so it cannot bind morally and one should not obey it, that does not give us the right to overthrow the state or the prince (or the Parliament) which produced such an immoral law. It only gives us the right to refuse to obey such a “law”. We are not then disobeying the law because this “law” is, in fact, no law at all, morally speaking.

Likewise, the Queen, whilst she should certainly regard the abortion law as no law at all – morally speaking – she cannot break the legitimate laws (i.e. those which forbid her to exercise the Royal Assent as she pleases) in order to nullify the immoral “law”. That would be doing evil that good may come of it, which is strictly forbidden by the moral law.

The abortion law remains a human positive law but, in the sight of God and good men, it is really no law at all, morally speaking.

One must not, therefore, obey that law if it requires one to participate in an abortion, or connive at an abortion, but the existence of such an immoral law does not give the subject the right to overthrow the state or the Constitution.

For the same reason the Queen does not have that power, either.

The blame for these immoral laws lies with those who frame and pass them - not the Queen.

Some say, well, what about Hitler and the Nuremberg Laws. Well, what about them? They were laws passed by the Nazi-dominated Reichstag, not by President Hindenburg.

If there were laws passed to put Jews into concentration camps then those laws should be resisted and not obeyed but the Queen would still not magically get powers she does not have to block Parliamentary Bills. If, however, these laws were forced through illegally (as, of course, they would have to be since no-one would now pass such laws) and the courts refused to act, then the Queen would be facing the very extreme situation which I adumbrated and might then have a discretionary power.

I hope this, at last, makes the position clear.

On the Queen and revolution: he who has ears, let him hear...

In response to my last post, I have a message from a correspondent called Viator Catholicus, who says:

"It is lamentable that you are so protective of the Queen of England on a site devoted to 'Roman Christendom'.

Of course, she is a figurehead with no power. But, then, what purpose does she serve? Should she not at least assert some moral authority?

Can she not refuse to sign the abortion bill to avoid any appearance of cooperation? You also made some points about the illegitimacy of Revolution.

However, the pope can certainly call for Revolution against a regime which he by his authority declares unlawful. By the way, was not the legitimate English monarch overthrown in 1688 by a the invasion of a Dutch king in alliance with certain English traitors?"

The last two questions seem to me perfectly good and fair ones and I shall try to answer them later.

Sorry to say, however, the Queen-related question is precisely an example of the very kind of parroting and re-parroting about which I complained in my previous post.

It is also self-contradictory. How can one say "the Queen has no power" and then, in the same post, say she should exercise her (non-existent!) power to refuse to sign legislation?

One cannot have it both ways.

I have VERY FULLY answered the Queen-related questions numerous times over.

How is asking and re-asking and re-re-asking and re-re-re-asking the same question that has been answered several times over, helping to resolve the issue or even explain an alternative position?

If anyone disagrees with my answers, ah, well, that's quite another thing. But then they must tell me WHY they disagree and WHAT their REASONS are.

Simply repeating the question that has already been answered several times over just looks, I'm afraid, like mindless barracking - even of the "4 legs good, 2 legs bad" variety that George Orwell lampoons so effectively in Animal Farm.

I can but say to Viator: go and read my earlier replies to people who have asked the self-same question. They can be found under "comments" at the end of each post.

In short, no, the Queen is not just a figurehead and, no, she is not devoid of all power. She has very limited but still very important power to act against a rogue government (e.g. one that banned elections) or, perhaps, to resolve a deadlock that the courts did not otherwise have the jurisdiction to resolve.

I am open to persuasion that I am wrong about that or have got the law wrong but challengers will need to point to some counter-authorities since this is the view accepted by, for example, Erskine-May on Parliamentary Procedure.

These are vitally important powers protecting us from tyranny and dictatorship. But they are very limited, "port of last resort" powers.

If this is right, then the Queen simply does not have the power to refuse other legislation. If she tried to do so she would be acting illegally and when a head of state acts illegally this is called a coup d'etat or palace revolution.

In Roman Catholic theology no-one has the right to instigate a revolution or rebellion against a superior, unless the same has been legitimately and lawfully authorised by someone more superior still.

Now the Queen is not above the law or the Constitution. The law and the Constitution are above her and she must obey them both.

As the late Lord Denning, former Master of the Rolls and former Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, put it "Be ye never so high, the law is above you".

One may not like that situation and may prefer that she be a Monarch in the old mould with much wider powers but that is not our current Constitution.

And neither we, nor the Queen, have the right to overthrow that Constitution by unilateral illegal acts or a coup d'etat.

She could not, therefore, "refuse to sign the Abortion Bill just to avoid any appearance of co-operation". If she did so she would be overthrowing the Constitution and would thereby be sinning. And one may not do evil that good may come of it, as St Paul says (Rom 3:8).

We may use legitimate constitutional means to change the Constitution such as campaigning for a change but we cannot use illegitimate, unconstitutional means. That is sin.

It is Roman Catholic teaching that Catholics may not rebel against their superiors and overthrow their legitimate governance, even if that governance is oppressive or immoral.

Some Catholics have got it into their heads that Catholic teaching permits such rebellion. It does not.

The reasoning is simple enough: a subject does not have the right to sit in judgment upon his superior, for if he did have, then there would be no authority at all since any subject could, at any time, aver that the authority was being exercised oppressively and so overthrow it at his own discretion.

In short, that would be an anarchist's charter.

As I have now said, I think, 3 times this is all very clearly explained in De Regimine Principum (On the Rule of Kings) by St Thomas Aquinas, citing proper authorities.

I am open to persuasion that the Queen DOES still have more residual prerogative powers than I have stated but, to be persuasive, I think it would be necessary to point to some recognised legal or constitutional authority that says so e.g. Erskine-May on Parliamentary Procedure or Dicey or perhaps Professor Vernon Bogdanor of Oxford or, of course, some decision of the higher courts.

To answer the remainder of Viator's questions, which I believe are good and fair ones, I say this: yes, the Pope, if it can still be said that he is superior to the Queen, could authorise her overthrow or that of the Constitution.

But does he still have that superior power?

I rather fear that he does not. If any superior power now exists it might exist in international law but I suspect not in the Pope. Indeed, the Pope claims no such power any more.

I am open to persuasion on that point, however.

As for the Dutch invasion yes, that was certainly illegitimate, indeed, a very good example of an unjust rebellion against a legitimate and lawful authority - treason or treachery, in short.

That new government was illegal and could legitimately be opposed and overthrown by anyone, not least Catholics. That, indeed, is what Jacobites tried to do by the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745, which were legitimate uprisings against an usurped authority and undertaken with the aim of restoring the legitimate king and constitution.

Such a restoration is expressly permitted by Catholic teaching since the subject is not judging its own legitimate government for the very simple reason that the government is not legitimate since it usurped power, itself, by a revolution. An usurped power has already judged itself, just as a robber has put himself in the wrong and may then be lawfully apprehended, preferably by the Police but, if necessary, by any citizen.

The Jacobite uprisings failed, sadly.

Eventually, the Jacobite pretenders ceased to press their claim and the Cardinal Duke of York eventually transferred the royal heirlooms to King George III.

For the other reasons why the Jacobite claims can no longer be seriously pressed, albeit their memory and principles ought still to be honoured and upheld, see my earlier and first post on the subject, To Lochaber No More...

This being so, from the time of King George III, the Hanoverians became the legitimate British royal dynasty. Moreover, the popes began to recognise them from around that time.

For this reason, among others, the American Revolution of 1776 was also an illegitimate one. It did not seek to restore the legitimate Stuart dynasty but, instead, basing themselves upon heterodox Protestant and secularist ideas, subjects of the King expressly claimed to sit in judgment on their lawful superior, the King himself, just as Cromwell had earlier illegally done.

Such rebellions are expressly forbidden by Catholic teaching.

However, once again, the legitimate dynasty ceased to press its claims to rule America and against the American revolutionary government, so that, eventually, that government, too, gained legitimacy and, after a time, it would have been disproportionate, and therefore a sin, to rebel or make war against it.

So much is no more than Roman Catholic teaching on the subject of just or unjust war and just or unjust uprising.

In the same way that a just war is no violence, so a just uprising is no rebellion. Rebellion and violence are sins. Legitimate restoration by proper, reasonable and proportionate force is neither violence nor rebellion but, as its name implies, a just and lawful restoring of the true and legitimate constitution - a bit like the Police apprehending a terrorist by minimum and proportionate force.

This is our faith.

...

Queen rules OK

The Queen debate seems to have died down so either the antis have given up or perhaps have been pacified.

One person wrote in - despite the lengthy explanations already given - and asked why the Queen couldn't just refuse to sign the legislation, saying she should be condemned for not doing so. One person even likened her to Hitler for not doing so - as if she, herself, had ordered the setting up of death camps to exterminate people!

Sigh.

How do you debate with people who refuse to debate and can only repeat themselves like parrots?

I won't rehearse the arguments all over again since those who think and understand will already have the point and those that don't, won't be persuaded by any argument from me, however cogent or good.

But in simple terms the answer is this: she can't; it would be illegal. It would be an illegal act against the constitution and the state, a coup d'etat, a revolution from the top.

What can one say to an alleged democrat who would be outraged if the Queen suddenly refused a law passed by the democratically-elected Parliament because she thought it wrong, but, because he thinks a law wrong, is just as outraged when she doesn't refuse it?

When he wants it, the Queen must be an autocrat. When he doesn't want it, she must not interfere with the democratically-elected Parliament.

That is no more than total chaos, anarchy and arbitrary government. Indeed, it is not government at all.

Yes, it would be much better if we had a constitution that followed God's law but the fact that we do not does not mean we - or the Queen - have the right to overthrow it.

So much is simply Catholic doctrine. It is lamentable that - seemingly - there are some Catholics who do not realise it.

We are bound to obey the law and the constitution, save where it orders us - personally - to do something immoral. That we must refuse, whatever the consequences. But we have no right to overthrow a legitimate constitution nor to insist that others do so, even the Queen.

The present constitutional convention is that the Queen is a protection of last resort against a rogue government that, say, refuses to hold a General Election or where there is a constitutional deadlock that cannot be resolved by the courts.

That is a vitally important power. The Queen has that power. But that is all. She has no other - or virtually no other - real power beyond that. That is our current constitution, for good or ill. We have no right to insist that it be overthrown. We may campaign for it to be changed by legitimate, constitutional means - but we do not have the right to overthrow it.

Nevertheless, your inconsistent and illogical democrat blames her for the Abortion Act and a host of other rotten laws besides. The mover of the Bill, Lord Steel, does not get the blame. The Wilson government who pushed it through do not get the blame. Those who voted for the Act do not get the blame. Oh, no. Only the one person who could do nothing about it gets the blame.

Well, it's a point of view!

Just not a well-informed one.

The real reason we have such laws as the Abortion Act is because we - the people as a nation - have lost our moral bearings. We have capitulated to the spirit of immoralism. If we want to blame anyone for our evil laws, we should start with ourselves.

Who voted in the governments that passed these laws? Was it the Queen? Oh, no. It was ourselves. WE voted them in! The Queen does not even get a vote!

Therefore the blame undoubtedly lies with ourselves.

And we cannot off-load it onto others. Particularly not if we ever voted for a member of a government that actually passed these odious laws. Blaming the Queen will not obviate our own blame.

No, it is us, ourselves, who have done it.

...

To those who think the Queen should become a revolutionary and overthrow the state...

The postbag contains some hot complaints about our dear Queen, some a bit offensive, to the effect that she is not legitimate because she didn't refuse to sign certain immoral laws, classically the abortion laws.

These are ill thought out complaints.

But why, exactly?

I shall repeat here the points I made in one answer as I can see that they may be of interest to a wider audience.

I speak as a lawyer as well as a theologian and so hope that I can speak without complete ignorance on the subject.

The Queen has some few not well defined residual powers which probably include the final power to resolve a complete constitutional deadlock or impasse, or to restrain a rogue government that breaks the law in a way that the Courts and Judges cannot otherwise rectify, but, in truth, her powers do not really extend much beyond that. Indeed, that is probably about the sum total of her real political powers today.

That her powers arise from an unwritten Constitution and are necessarily therefore not so well defined does not obliterate them but it does make determining their extent rather less clear. It means that the scope of our Constitution is defined by what lawyers call "conventions" rather than by a written instrument like, say, the US, Canadian or Australian Constitutions. It also means that the Queen will be much more hesitant about exercising any residual prerogative or reserved powers, as they are called, than is the case with her representatives in countries with a written constitution.

That is why the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, in 1975 felt able, after taking advice from the Chief Justice of the High Court, Sir Garfield Barwick, to dismiss the Prime Minister and compel a "caretaker" government to call a General Election.

Sir David Smith, the Australian Governor-General's official secretary, reading the Governor-General's proclamation dissolving both Houses of Parliament (under s.57 of the Constitution) on the steps of Parliament House, Canberra, 11 November 1975, with the sacked ex-Prime Minister, Mr Edward Gough Whitlam, and 2 be-wigged clerks of the House, standing behind him. In front of Sir David, a large crowd of Whitlam supporters was baying and chanting in an attempt to drown out the words of the proclamation. Mr Whitlam grins at their efforts but, in fact, a month later, he was defeated at the polls by the biggest landslide defeat in Australian political history. He and his Party (the Australian Labour Party) have never forgiven or forgotten what they see as a "betrayal" by Sir John Kerr who was himself a Labour Party appointee as Governor-General. Others consider that Mr Whitlam got what was coming to him because he had, they say, begun to govern unconstitutionally. Either way, these events have had a dramatic and lasting effect upon Australian politics.

His power to do so, as the Queen's representative, was clearly defined in section 57 of the Australian Constitution, as can be seen here:

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution/par5cha1.htm

Even then there was a massive and intense reaction to his using that power and a political upheaval that is still being felt with all sorts of continuing ramifications including a huge campaign, supported by large funding, to replace the Monarchy with a republican President.

Thus those who think that the exercise of similar powers by the Queen would not be de-stablising or create immense upheaval are simply not looking at the facts.

In fact, however, compared with the powers of the Australian Governor-General, her representative in Australia, and even, in theory, her own powers in Australia under section 59 of the Australian Constitution, her powers in the United Kingdom are very narrow powers.

Nonetheless they remain very important ones. We must honestly hope and pray that they will never have to be exercised but it is, nevertheless, necessary that she retains them – for all our sakes and for the safety and security of the nation.

As a matter of law and constitutional convention and practice, the Queen does NOT have the power to refuse legislation beyond this extremely narrow compass of powers and she certainly has no power to pick and choose what legislation she wishes to approve.

In the UK Constitution, conventions form the very constitution. That is what the UK Constitution consists in. They determine the scope of the UK Constitution. That is how an unwritten constitution works.

Under these constitutional conventions, the Queen retains a purely nominal or ceremonial "power" to refuse legislation but it is not a real power save in the very rare and highly extreme situation of a deadlock or rogue government, as stated above. That is the current reality as regards her real political powers.

Thus, if she tried to take any more powers than this narrow compass then she would, in effect, have instigated an illegal coup d’etat against the democratically elected government of the day and would not then be acting as a responsible head of state but rather a criminal revolutionary.

Moreover, if she did so in order to prevent certain immoral laws from becoming law (e.g. the abortion laws) then her actions would not only be illegal and revolutionary but they would also not succeed in over-turning the abortion laws (or any other immoral laws) and so would, in any case, be pointless and disproportionate.

She would succeed in nothing much more than ending the Monarchy and de-stabilising the Constitution and therefore the whole country.

She simply does not have that right – morally, legally or politically.

The last Monarch actually to refuse assent to legislation was Queen Anne back in the 18th century. Queen Victoria possibly still had the power, at least in theory, but she never used it.

The present Queen no longer has those powers - rightly or wrongly.

Nevertheless some people, in ignorance perhaps innocent, still think the Queen has the powers of Queen Anne or Queen Victoria. As a matter of legal and constitutional practice and convention, she simply does not have those powers any more.

If, on the other hand, she really DID have the power to refuse any legislation i.e. as Queen Anne truly did or as Queen Victoria still theoretically did, then she might legitimately be held morally culpable for not exercising them to reject immoral laws.

But she does not have that power.

For her to take that power would be as illegal as you or I trying to take such powers. She would, in short, have become a revolutionary bent upon over-throwing the state.

Unless critics of the Queen wish to argue that we all, as Christians, have the obligation to start a revolution and overthrow the state because of an objection to immoral laws, then they cannot expect the Queen to do so any more than the rest of us.

Ignorance of the legal and constitutional postion of the Monarch is excusable in those who know but little of such things or who are simple folk of little learning but for the intelligent and educated to argue so is lamentable.

The idea that the Queen should become a revolutionary and stage a coup d'etat against her own government may perhaps have its origins in the kind of spurious liberation theology that more resembles Marxism than Catholic theology. It is the sort of entirely fallacious theology that encourages Catholics to support revolutionary movements around the world and to support revolutionaries closer to home such as the bloody, murderous and diabolical IRA.

This spirit of revolution is not a clean spirit. It is a spirit that refuses to serve and says, with Satan, "I will not serve".

It should be obvious that no Catholic can ever even begin to endorse such a creed.

It is not now the place to explore the idea of just war but suffice to say that no subject has the right to rebel against his legitimate sovereign or government and still less the right to declare such a sovereign or government illegitimate. Only a legitimate superior may declare a lesser sovereign power illegitimate and the subject, by definition, is not a superior.

The idea that a group of subjects may club together and declare their own sovereign government illegitimate and so claim the right to overthrow it is a concept entirely condemned by the Catholic Church.

It has, however, been welcomed by some Protestant sects and by many secularists.

The anti-Catholic founders of the American revolution claimed the right to judge their government and rebel and were roundly condemned by the Catholic Church for so claiming.

The only time a Catholic may fight against his own government or sovereign is if that sovereign is illegitimate by its own admission or by the proper judgment of a superior. The Pope, for instance, might be such a superior in some cases, or perhaps international law, depending upon the particulars of each case.

A clear usurpation or seizure of power from the legitimate sovereign government, or an illegal invasion, may be rightly resisted by a Catholic by force of arms but even then the invasion must have been declared illegal by some superior power (e.g. by recognised international law) and, moreover, a Catholic may only do so if resistance is proportionate and there is the real prospect of winning. Otherwise, he acts immorally and sins.

On the other hand, if a foreign power seeks to overthrow an illegal or usurped government, a Catholic may be justified in assisting that foreign power to restore the legal government but, again, only proportionately and with a reasonable prospect of success.

The idea that there is a general right for any group of citizens to band together to overthrow a government that they, and they alone, have judged to be oppressive or wicked is utterly spurious and has no basis whatsoever in Catholic doctrine or, in all honesty, in right reason. It is simply a recipe for chaos and anarchy.

Revolution is an anti-Catholic creed - by definition.

Those who doubt this should read De Regimine Principum ("On the Rule of Princes") by St Thomas Aquinas.

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