Mary Elizabeth muddles history and cannot distinguish truth from drivel...

Poor Mary Elizabeth!

She replies to my missive to the Sieur de Brantigny and thinks she knows history but...

She thinks that the feudal vassal status of the Duke of Normandy undermines the later claim of King Henry V of England, established at the Treaty of Troyes of 1420 when he was made regent and heir of France.

The Dukes of Normandy, particularly William I, were somewhat nominal vassals. She overlooks this, too.

But she thinks William a "batarde" in name and in nature. She offers no proof.

But she offers plenty of prejudice and declares "who cares?" - even tho' she plainly cares enough to whinge and complain to me about it.

Then she reveals herself as a typical modern hypocrite extolling the so-called "Glorious Revolution", chiefly glorious for imposing the most savagely oppressive and brutal penal code and suppression of religious freedom ever seen in once Christian Europe.

Wonderful pharisaism, Mary Elizabeth!

Next she extols the French Revolution. Yes - that revolution that drowned the people of France, particularly and above all the peasants and ordinary humble people, in an ocean of innocent blood, savagely, brutally, mindlessly, relentlessly, grinding out death like a satanic factory of slaughter - men, women, children, the old, the sick and hundreds of thousands of innocents.

Wonderful pharisaism, Mary Elizabeth!

And, of course, she lastly extols the Easter Rising of 1916, that uprising that was loudly booed and reviled by the people of Dublin whose sons were in Belgium and France fighting the First World War in the trenches. This was the Easter Rising that led to the Irish civil war in which Irishman slaughtered Irishman for the sake of a worthless ideal that has finally left Ireland with a collection of unimpressive twerps of politicians like Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowan and saddled the people with 46 billion euros of debt.

Wonderful pharisaism, Mary Elizabeth!

And - most laughable of all - she calls these shameless disasters...wait for it..."expressions of the will of the peoples of the countries involved - with whom God is surely as concerned as with their...rulers."

Yes, folks.

Really.

Well, you could not make it up, could you?

Mary Elizabeth thinks that God and the people love a massive blood bath of innocent life, the abandonment of religion and humanity and the destruction of the country's economy and wealth.

Wonderful pharisaism, Mary Elizabeth!

Perhaps she thinks Moloch is God?

Clearly whatever satanic "god" she believes in is odious and depraved.

Sadly, folks, this is what modern education has done for some people. They have been so brain-washed that they can no longer distinguish truth from drivel.

Please pray for poor Mary Elizabeth!

...

Revolution is not the answer in the Arab world or anywhere...

No folks - revolution is not the answer.

So pray for the Arab world that is now under threat from revolutionaries.

Has anyone else noticed how the Kings have been restrained but the republics, with notable exceptions, have not?

Thus the King of Bahrain has withdrawn the police and the army but Colonel Qaddafi has already started massacring people in Libya.

And there are still some deluded people in the West who actually think this is all just part of a movement for democracy in the Middle East.

Time to wake up.

Revolution: the voice of the people or just manipulation by agitators?

Following the nearly three weeks of protests in Egypt, and the departure of President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian army council has dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution.

What does it portend?

Freedom and democracy?

Or something sinister?

The scene of the demonstrations, Tahrir Square in Cairo, is still filled with crowds and attempts by the army and police to move demonstrators has met with opposition.

Apparently, the "revolution" is continuing, at least in the minds of some demonstrators.

Some news reports have quoted demonstrators saying that this is a movement of the people without leaders and without the need for leaders.

Only a fool would believe such a thing.

There are leaders - of that one may be certain - even if they are hidden. Indeed, protest "leaders" are already planning to set up a "monitoring council" which clearly shows that there is, indeed, a leadership. But who are they?

The military government has promised to abide by all Egypt’s international treaties until parliamentary elections take place in six months time.

Extraordinarily, Switzerland has frozen assets belonging to President Mubarak and Britain and America are being urged to do the same.

The chutzpah and sheer arrogance of US President Barack Obama has been quite incredible. Considering the Democrat Party's claim to be the party of self-determination, independence and "freedom", it is frankly little short of astonishing that Obama thinks he has the right to demand that President Mubarak leave office.

Back off Obama - it's not your country!

Is this the new "Obama girl"?

Needless to say Tony Blair and those of his ilk are also claiming that the army take-over is a good thing.

In fact, the suspension of the Constitution and Parliament looks like a revolution.

What next?

The Muslim Brotherhood will not be happy with the kind of Western democracy that the media think is coming and anything less than democracy may well mean that the demonstrators are back but this time they may have to face the police and the military.

As with most revolutions, the revolutionaries now think they have the sole right to choose the rulers and therein lies the danger.

Extremists can exploit the divisions and the next stage may well be instability.

Remember what happened to Iran when the Shah fell.

Israel and other nearby nations are understandably fearful of developments.

The sad truth is that, often enough, it takes a strong leader to keep some Islamic nations stable and peaceful.

But Obama need not care - he is thousands of miles away from the danger zone!

And oh how quickly he forgets how he so often used to advance the hand of warm friendship to President Mubarak.

Now his tune seems to be: "Forget it, Hosni, you're yesterday's man and I'm Barack Obama who always backs the latest fashion!"

Presidents Obama and Mubarak warmly shake hands in former days before Obama had yet to turn a cat in the pan and dump his old friend.

...

No - the Queen did not have power to veto the Abortion Act 1967

The Queen had no power to veto the Abortion Bill 1967.

Her vetoing power, by refusing royal assent, is only permitted by law in the rarest of circumstances such as a constitutional crisis.

It is true that the Queen meticulously keeps up with the business of Parliament so that, in theory, if there ever were a constitutional crisis, she would be ready and properly advised to act, if necessary.

The Queen usually signs Letters Patent which allow the Speakers of the two Houses to announce the royal assent. However, she signs them for a whole lot of bills in one go, and is only given a list of the names of the Bills, not the texts or even the long titles.

She thus does not know the details of the Bills she is "assenting" to and is not expected to. That is because the process of assent, save in the rarest of situations such as a constitutional crisis, is now not much more than a ceremonial ritual.

The Queen is not even given a copy of the Bills and neither is the Palace. That is not just because she knows that both Houses of Parliament will already have considered the Bill very carefully but rather because she has no power to veto any of the Bills, save in constitutional emergency.

Sir Thomas Erskine May, 1st Baron Farnborough, the original author of Parliamentary Practice

The proper constitutional authorities are the courts and Parliament and the authoritative text is Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice.

The procedure is set out here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldcomp/ldctso56.htm

and here

http://www.francisbennion.com/word/fb/1981/1981-011-royal-assent-procedure.doc

You will see that Francis Bennion describes the most common procedure (i.e. by notification under the Royal Assent Act 1967) at page 5 of 11. The Queen signs a general assent for a whole series of Bills at one time.

But says, Bennion:

"It is a striking illustration of the extent to which Royal Assent has become a mere formality that Her Majesty does not have before her the texts, or even the long titles, of the Bills to which she signifies assent. Indeed these are not even communicated to officials of the Queen's Household (colloquially known as the Palace)".

Bennion also confirms what is now the law:

"There is no power to withhold a Bill from Assent, whether on the instructions of the Government or anyone else.{See Erskine May Parliamentary Practice (19th edn.) p. 562: "from that sanction they cannot be legally withheld"}. Nor, under the modern constitutional convention, may the Queen refuse Assent. {The last time Assent was refused was by Queen Anne in 1707, in relation to a Scottish militia Bill (Lords' Journals (1705 1709) p.506).}...One of the strengths of Britain's unwritten constitution is the reserve power it contains. In a near revolutionary situation the occasion might still arise for the withholding of Royal Assent, if only by way of delaying tactics". [emphasis added]

Thus, in a dire emergency, the Queen's reserve power to refuse assent is permitted by law to save the Constitution and country and in a few other very rare situations, but not otherwise.

Professor Vernon Bogdanor, leading constitutional expert from Oxford University

Professor Vernon Bogdanor's, The Monarchy and the Constitution, 1995, pp 131-132, gives an interesting insight into the discussions regarding the Home Rule Bill which King George V was very much opposed to:

"There is, then, no doubt that the king believed that he could veto legislation, and that he contemplated doing so in the case of Home Rule...the first parliamentary counsel, Sir Granville Ram...cited Dicey, who had declared of the refusal of assent: ‘Its repose may be the preservation of its existence, and its existence may be the means of saving the Constitution itself on an occasion worthy of bringing it forth’. The Home Rule crisis of 1914 proved that the sovereign retained the prerogative of veto, and that this prerogative might come into play on extreme occasions." [emphasis added]

The position adumbrated by Dicey is more or less the position today, as the authorities like Erskine May and Francis Bennion QC state.

We might call this "Dicey's exception".

Albert Venn Dicey (1835-1922)
was a leading constitutional lawyer
and Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford University from 1882 to 1909

Now, if the Queen were to refuse letters patent then she would be attempting to usurp to herself the power to veto a Bill - a power which the law and Constitution do not allow her.

And attempting to usurp or seize power unlawfully is a sin and we may not do evil that good may come of it, as St Paul teaches us (Rom 3:8), no matter how great the intended good may be.

It is not simply a matter of the Queen refusing to obey an unjust law. It is far more.

Any attempt by her to veto a Bill would be an attempted seizure of power by the Monarch, like the US President giving himself power to sack pro-abortion US Justices, a power he does not have under the US Constitution.

Once the US Senate confirms the nomination of a US Justice by an affirmative vote, the President must prepare and sign a commission, and have the Seal of the Department of Justice affixed to the document before the new justice can take office (see 5 USC § 2902).

The seniority of an Associate Justice is based on the date of commissioning, not the date of confirmation or swearing-in (see 28 USC § 4).

No-one would ever realistically suggest that the US President should refuse to sign the commission for any duly confirmed Justice, break the law, breach the Constitution which he is pledged to defend, and seize powers that he does not have (a coup d'etat), on the entirely spurious basis that he, the President, is morally compelled to do so in the name of over-turning Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court decision that liberalised abortion law in the USA, and to stage a revolution in the name of the pro-life cause.

The US Supreme Court

Revolution in the name of the pro-life, or any just, cause cannot be justified, and the whole weight of Catholic tradition and teaching on the subject is against it.

The position is summarised by St Thomas in De Regimine Principum, Ch. 6, 45-52, when he writes of the opinion that the unjust ruler may be overthrown by private force:

"But this opinion is not in accord with apostolic teaching, for Peter [1 Pet 2:18-19] admonishes us to be reverently subject to our masters, not only the good and gentle but also the froward...to proceed against the cruelty of tyrants is an action to be undertaken not through the private presumption of a few..."

Revolution and revolt against legitimate authority is never permissible and always wrong

In the British Constitution the true sovereign power lies with Parliament.

Even though the Queen is called the Sovereign, in truth, most of the time, she isn't, save for Dicey's exception.

To attempt to give herself the sovereign power to veto a Bill would be the act of a private citizen, Elizabeth Windsor-Mountbatten, attempting to seize power and overthrow the sovereign power of Parliament.

That would be the sin condemned by St Peter and St Thomas and one may not sin in order to achieve good, as St Paul teaches (Rom 3:8).

We should blame the real villains for the Abortion Act 1967: the politicians, not the Queen!

St Thomas Aquinas, jurist, philosopher, theologian, scholar, saint and Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church

...

Charette: a noble Catholic warrior against the evil of revolution

General Baron Athanase Charles Marie de Charette de la Contrie (born Nantes, 3 September 1832, died La Basse-Motte, Saint-Père, Ille-et-Vilaine, 9 October 1911) was a French Catholic royalist military commander.

His father was a nephew of the famous Vendean General François Athanase de Charette de la Contrie who was the most famous of the commanders of the Grand Catholic and Royal Army which rose in the Vendee and Brittany to oppose the French revolutionaries. He was the last great royalist commander to be captured in the Vendee and was shot at Nantes on 29 March 1795 after a show trial.

His great nephew followed in the same great and glorious tradition of French Catholic royalism. The Baron's mother, Louise, Countess de Vierzon, was the daughter of the Duc de Berry and Amy Brown Freeman. The Duc de Berry was a cousin to the King and a source of loyalty to French royalism.

As the Duchesse de Berry was at that time in hiding at Nantes, and Charette's father was being sought by the police, the child's birth was concealed; he was secretly taken from Nantes on 17 September and was registered in the commune of Sainte-Reine as born on 18 September 1832.

Unwilling, by reason of his legitimist antecedents and beliefs, to serve in France under Louis Philippe I, usurping Orleanist King of the French, young Charette, in 1846, entered the Military Academy of Turin, the capital city of the ancient Savoyard monarchy.

General the Chevalier François Athanase de Charette de la Contrie, famous Vendean commander-in-chief, and great uncle to General Baron de Charette

However, the Savoyard kingdom of Piedmont was soon to become a tool in the hands of anti-Catholic revolutionaries and, in 1848, the revolutionary policy of that kingdom quickly becoming evident to him, Charette left so as to avoid serving in a revolutionary army.

In 1852 the Habsburg-Este Duke of Modena, Francesco (Francis) V, the brother-in-law of HRH the Comte de Chambord, the true Bourbon successor to the throne of France, appointed Charette a sub-lieutenant in an Austrian regiment stationed in the duchy.

Duke Francis V of Modena, Archduke of Austria-Este and Jacobite successor to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland, he gave Charette a command in an Austrian regiment in Modena

Duke Francis V was not only ruler of Modena but was also an Austrian archduke and the Jacobite successor to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Duke Francis was a most exemplary ruler who served the victims of cholera in his duchy with his own hands (there is a plaque to that effect in one of the main churches in the duchy). His duchy, too, was later toppled by the Piedmontese revolutionaries and incorporated into the new, anti-Catholic Italy.

Charette was thereby compelled to relinquish regimental service as, once again, he did not wish to serve in the new revolutionary Italian national army.

However, in May 1860, when two of his brothers, like him eager to fight the Italian revolutionaries, offered their services to the King of Naples, Charette went to Rome and placed himself at the service of Blessed Pope Pius IX, who had commissioned Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière to organize an army for the defence of the Papal States from attack by the red-shirted revolutionaries.

Charette was appointed captain of the first company of the Franco-Belgian Volunteers, known after 1861 as the Pontifical Zouaves, and was wounded at the battle of Castelfidardo (September 1860) when the Papal Army suffered a defeat at the hands of a huge Piedmontese revolutionary army.

A party of Canadian Pontifical Zouaves

After the taking of Rome by the Piedmontese, Charette negotiated with the French republican political leader, Léon Gambetta, then in power, for the employment of the French Zouaves in the service of France against Germany; he was permitted to organize them as "Volunteers of the West".

Wounded at Loigny, Charette was made prisoner but he escaped, and on 14 January 1871, the Provisional Government of France made him a general.

He was thereafter elected as a monarchist deputy to the National Assembly by the Department of Bouches-du-Rhône, but resigned without taking his seat as he was not willing to serve a revolutionary republican regime.

Louis-Adolphe Thiers, then French Head of State (and provisional President), proposed his entering the French army with his Zouaves, but Charette declared his intention of remaining at the pope's disposal.

On 15 August 1871, his Zouaves were mustered out of the French army.

Retiring into private life, Charette passed his last thirty years serving the cause of religion and hoping for the restoration of the French monarchy.

He was a brave, loyal and true Catholic hero of France.

General de Charette with Zouave comrades with an image of his great uncle in the background

...

Restoration NOT revolution

In short, then:

Revolution is always wrong

but

Restoration is generally right

The Restoration of King Charles II was not perfect because it was not a fully Catholic restoration but it was right to the extent that it restored the English Constitution that had been so mutinously overthrown by Cromwell and his Puritan revolutionaries.

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 restored much of old Christian Europe - but not all.

A better example of Restoration was the restoration of the Habsburgs to their throne after the Congress of Vienna - but even that was flawed since the Congress did not restore all Catholic lands to their rightful owners.

Better yet is the restoration in 1273 of the Emperor after the Great Interregnum (1250-1273) following the death and reign of the ex-communicate Frederick II and his son Conrad, the last of the Hohenstaufen. The new Emperor was the first Habsburg, Rudolf I.

The cenotaph of the tomb of Emperor Rudolf I in Speyer in the Rhineland-Palatinate.

The best example of restoration was the restoration to life of JESUS CHRIST after his crucifixion and entombment.

Peter Paul Rubens. Christ Risen.
1616. Oil on canvas. Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina, Florence, Italy.


...

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.

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The Wind That Shakes the Barley: a sorry tale.

The Wind That Shakes The Barley is, I think, a very good film.

Readers of Roman Christendom may find this a surprising comment.

I saw it recently for the first time.

The reason I think it good is because I think it is probably highly accurate historically - an unusual thing for many a modern film (although, be warned, there is an unnecessary amount of unpleasant bad language).

I put off seeing it because I thought it would just be Fenian propaganda, especially as the producer is, apparently, an Irish Communist.

However, the real horror of the war comes out in the film in all its brutality and terror.

It ought to be enough to persuade anyone that both sides in the war were utterly reprehensible and a disgrace to humanity.

The IRA are shown to be a mixture of Marxian Socialists and non-Marxist Nationalists which is exactly what they largely were.

The Black and Tans are shown as a pack of brutal scoundrels and portrayed exactly as I suspect they were - brutalised thugs with no sense of morality or decency, every bit as blameworthy as their IRA antagonists.

Both sides in that tragic war readily betray common morality, commit murders and kill the innocent with no regard, seemingly, for common humanity or their own souls.

Hero/anti-hero Damien O'Donovan asks "I hope the Ireland we are fighting for is worth it" as he murders Anglo-Irish landlord, Sir John Hamilton, and, even more horribly, his own childhood friend, Chris Riley, an innocent simpleton caught up in a drama beyond his control.

Damien quite rightly finds his conscience troubled, especially when the boy's mother - entirely rightly - says "Take me to my child" and then later says to Damien: "I never want to see your face again".

For what sort of Ireland were they committing these grotesque sins, crying to Heaven for vengeance? For an Ireland that ended up being ruled by the usual parcel of corrupt politicians who are now busily abandoning their Faith as fast as they can. In other words, all that horrible bloodshed and murder was not even worth it, even if it had not already been horribly sinful.

This is the grave evil of revolution: it is willing to sin and sin horribly, to murder brutally and send any number of innocents to the next world for purely worldly gains which turn out to be no lasting gains at all since they are purely worldly.

Next, of course, the Revolution devours its own. Soon an end must come to the senseless and brutal murders. Both sides agree to sit at table and cut a deal. The deal is never quite what either side wants but then that is the nature of a deal, isn't it? And the extremists will not agree to the deal and so start a war against the dealers. So it happened.

Indeed, in Ireland it was even worse: the deal was brokered by accredited representatives of Dail Eireann and the Dail approved it by a majority. But still the Republican extremists would not accept it.

The Free Staters knew that they had only to wait for an opportune moment and they could declare independence. And they were right. The Free Staters won the Civil War. Then, sure enough, independence eventually came without any help from Sinn Fein/IRA bombs.

As always happens, the bombers and assassins were of no use whatsoever. The constitutional way was the only right way but the revolutionaries wanted to be in charge and no amount of innocent bloodshed would stop them. The Sinn Fein/IRA murderers weren't going to be happy with any deal but their own, were they? Thus the cold-hearted, bloody murders of innocents like Chris Riley were continued.

Worst of all, these sinners are now regarded by many Irish Republicans as heroes. It is pathological. It is nothing less than re-crucifying Christ.

A telling moment is when the Catholic Parish Priest quite rightly pleads for peace, in a Sunday sermon, and excoriates the Free State military courts, on the one hand, and the IRA anti-Treatyites, pillaging and murdering, on the other hand. How right he is to do so!

Anti-hero Damien then stands up and makes a typically unjust outburst against the Catholic Church accusing it - and he lies horribly in so doing - of siding with the rich against the poor, a grotesque falsehood if ever there were one. How many schools, clinics, welfare agencies, and churches did Damien and his like ever build for the poor? Yet everyone knows that the Catholic Church is second to none in such provision. Nevertheless, Damien does not hesitate to frame his lie.

His own brother, Teddy, who had fought in the IRA with him and is now a Free State Officer, tries to reason with him and quite rightly tells him that if he will only wait then they will secure an independent Ireland by constitutional means in time. Damien won't wait. He's a hot-head who wants it all now, whatever the cost in human misery, blood and tragedy. His ideological hatred is remarkably well portrayed in the film.

He scorns his brother's sensible warnings and is determined to spill more innocent blood. But he is captured whilst attacking a Free State police station and taken to his brother for questioning. He is obdurate. He will tell nothing.

He is condemned to die as a terrorist and - terribly and tragically - his own brother, Teddy, commands the firing squad with tears in his eyes.

This is the true picture: the ultimate horror of revolution and rebellion. Brother kills brother, who, in turn, has killed an innocent child like Chris Riley.

Truly, it is a vision of Hell. It is blood-curdling and made all the more so by these same people claiming to be Catholics of a sort. It shows all too well how even the Devil can pretend to be a Catholic.

The whole war was a major tragedy for Ireland given the native charm and decency of most Irishmen and women.

Home Rule could have come to Ireland as far back as the 1860s or even earlier but for the bombers. Gladstone was ready to give it but the Fenian bombers assassinated policemen in Manchester and set back the cause of Home Rule for another 50 years.

Eventually, thanks to peaceful constitutionalists like John Redmond and John Dillon, the Home Rule Act was passed in 1914 but the First World War intervened. After the war the bombers took over and the blood-letting began.

Yes, this is a film that tells it like it was. And, sadly, it is not a pretty picture.


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Flora MacDonald: "Who shall find a valiant woman? Her price is of the uttermost."

Flora Macdonald (1722-90) (Fionnghal NicDhòmhnaill) was born in Milton, South Uist.

Flora (or Fiona) MacDonald was the daughter of Ronald Macdonald, a tacksman (gentleman freeholder of a grant of clan land) but he left her an orphan when only a year old.

Flora MacDonald's mother married a Macdonald of Annadale, in Skye, who, at the time of the Jacobite uprising, commanded one of the militia companies raised on the island by Sir Alexander Macdonald for the services of the government.

While visiting her brother at Milton in June 1746, to drive his cattle to their summer pasture, she was awoken one night to be told that she must leave the cattle-tending and assist a prince in distress.

Her encounter in Ormaclett, South Uist, on 20 June 1746 with Prince Charles Edward Stuart, then fleeing from the consequences of his defeat at the battle of Culloden, was to make her immortal in Scottish history.

Flora decided to take the prince to safety - disguised as her maid "Betty Burke'"- on Skye. On 28 June the party set out from Rossinish in Benbecula and journeyed for 15 hours under threat of capture by government troops to Mugstot House, from where she guided the prince to Kingsburgh House, the home, as it turned out, of her future husband; he said goodbye to his saviour on 1 July at Portree. As a gift Charles gave Flora a gold locket with his portrait.

The Bonnie Prince takes leave of the loyal and courageous Flora MacDonald

After further adventures the prince escaped to France, but Flora was arrested for her part in the escape plan and was held on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Furnace. Afterwards, Flora was a prisoner in Dunstaffnage Castle. After being conveyed from place to place, she was eventually transferred to London, where she remained in confinement for eight months (she was discharged at the special request of Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of King George III, without a single question having been put to her).

The Bonnie Prince with Cameron of Lochiel and MacDonald of Clanranald

In 1750 Flora married Alan Macdonald of Kingsburgh and produced a family of seven children. At the age of 51 she emigrated with her family to the then British territory of North Carolina and was active in recruiting Highlanders to fight for the British in the American War of Independence, in which her husband was taken prisoner. Flora returned to Britain via Nova Scotia in 1778. Two years after her husband's release, they returned together to settle once more at Kingsburgh.

Some ask: how could she support the British government in America?

Simply this: she recognised that the rebellious American War of Tax Evasion (for such it was) had no legitimacy whatever.

She was not a believer in revolution or rebellion; she was not a revolutionary, nor a nationalist nor a Socialist nor a Marxist but was a believer in lawful and legitimate government.

She supported Bonnie Prince Charlie because he and his father, James Francis Edward Stuart, were the rightful king and heir and James was the rightful head of the British government, excluded by rebellious Whigs simply because he was a Roman Catholic.

Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, King James III and VIII, excluded from his rightful throne because he was a Catholic and for no other reason

She did not believe that the restoration of the Stuarts was a rebellion at all. Like the Catholic Church, like St Thomas Aquinas, she utterly rejected rebellion - and the English Whigs were rebels against the lawful Crown and authority and had placed an usurper upon the throne.

The American rebels were also Whigs but they were worse Whigs and were now rebelling against the English Whigs. Flora MacDonald could see that this was going out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Flora MacDonald, like all good Jacobites, was a Crown Unionist (i.e. she believed in separate kingdoms but under one Stuart Crown) and was not a separatist or nationalist, still less did she believe that any part of the Union or Empire had the right to rebel, least of all the secularising American Whig rebels who wanted to evade their due taxes and seize power from the British government to satisfy their own power-hungry ambitions.

Her position was entirely consistent and was in no way a capitulation to the British Whigs (as some Whig historians falsely and mendaciously pretend).

The American rebels were akin to the Jacobins of the French Revolution and entirely opposite to the Jacobites who were no rebels but rather the loyal supporters of the legitimate Stuart dynasty. The Jacobites were, in fact, opposed to the Whig rebellion and the Whig usurper dynasty and government - a very different thing.

Flora MacDonald and her family returned to Skye, where she died, March 4th, 1790, leaving a son, Lieutenant Colonel Macdonald of the Royal Clan Alpin Regiment, an able writer on military tactics and telegraphy; and a daughter, married to Macleod of Skye. She retained her Jacobite beliefs to the last hour of her existence, contrary to the Whig claptrap put about in some historical journals.

The first meeting: Flora MacDonald is introduced to the Prince

Gaelic-speaking and educated at home, she met Dr Samuel Johnson while on his tour of the Western Islands with James Boswell in 1773 and sang to him of her Highland heritage. Of her, Dr Johnson wrote: “Her name will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour”.

In 1773, despite the ban on the wearing of the kilt (the short kilt, the philibeg, or the great kilt, the philimore) in 1747, which was not to be repealed until 1782, it was worn by MacDonald of Kingsburgh, Flora’s husband, when Dr Johnson and Boswell visited in 1773.

Boswell, himself Boswell of Auchinleck, younger, and the son of the Laird of Auchinleck, wrote:

"I was highly pleased to see Dr Johnson safely arrived at Kingsburgh, and received by the hospitable Mr Macdonald. He had his tartan plaid thrown about him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a cockade, a brown short coat of a kind of duffil. A Tartan waistcoat with gold buttons and gold button holes, a bluish philibeg, and tartan hose"
(from Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, James Boswell, page 184)

Tartan: MacDonald of Kingsburgh

...

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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