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.

...

To Lochaber no more: do we support HM Queen Elizabeth II or the direct successor of the Stuarts, HRH Francis, Duke of Bavaria?

The short answer is this:

Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, is the legitimate monarch of the United Kingdom and all the Commonwealth Realms.

Why?

The best argument is this: common sense.

The true threat to legitimate Catholic monarchy today is most certainly NOT Queen Elizabeth II.

If you don't agree then stop reading now because nothing I nor anyone else says - even God himself - will persuade you.

However, there are many other very good arguments for her legitimacy.

Here are a few:

First, the Stuart line has not made any claim to the throne since the death of HRH the Cardinal Duke of York in 1807. That, on its own, puts an end to the matter.

Secondly, the popes since that time, and even before, recognised the Hanoverians for reasons of state policy and for the safety and security of Europe and what was left of Christendom.

Thirdly, the Cardinal Duke of York himself returned the "Honours of Scotland", the Scottish royal heirlooms which always revert to the Sovereign legally, to King George III which was a tacit recognition of him as his legal successor according to the ancient Scottish (and Gaelic) principle of the Taniste (pronounced "Tawnister") meaning "successor". Under this principle, which was a dynastic principle in most if not all of the Celtic monarchies and principalities, the king could choose a successor from amongst his near kin and his eldest son would only succeed if the king had failed to make such a choice. This law, of course, did not apply to England.

However, in England, Parliament claimed the right to make the king (at least since 1688/9). That law was wholly illegal and Parliament had no right to claim it, especially as it was imposed by foreign occupation when the Dutch invaded us and overthrew the rightful king, but, after remaining in place for over 100 years that was a principle that could not now be overthrown without disproportionate harm and so has had to be endured as a part of the British Constitution ever since. Thus it would now be wrong to seek to overthrow the Hanoverian dynasty, nor its heirs or successors.

Fourthly, the Catholic Church teaches that a war, to be just, must be declared by the right authority and no-one now has the right to declare the present dynasty overthrown nor to wage war against it, except, perhaps residually and only in Catholic law not international law, the Pope and he would not now do it as it would be grossly immoral so to disturb a peaceful state and constitution which works, and is working, perfectly well enough for the safety and security of the nation and the people (leaving aside the wicked machinations of some of our more odious politicians).

Fifthly, the Catholic Church also teaches that a war, to be just, must be proportionate and any such attempted overthrow would be utterly disproportionate and thus monstrously unjust and wicked. Indeed, it would be every bit as wicked as the attempt by the evil and Marxist Irish Republican Army to overthrow the state. It was for that reason, among others, that the IRA was several times condemned and its members ex-communicated by the Pope and the Irish bishops.

Sixthly, the Catholic Church favours stability of government - that, after all, is what "peace" is - and that is why it has always favoured legitimate monarchy which, as St Thomas Aquinas and St Robert Bellarmine say, is the best form of government. Now it would be a complete reversal of that principle if one were, at a time when another dynasty has become well-established, to champion the cause of a dynasty that has no prospect of removing the present occupants, does not wish to, and which, if attempted, would be to disturb the peace, safety and security so radically as to threaten the very foundations of the Constitution, the law and monarchy itself.

It would, in short, now be a revolutionary act and the Church utterly opposes revolution which is the greatest threat to any nation's safety and security and which inevitably leads to the persecution, oppression and murder of the innocent. The Church will always ally itself with those governments that are the most peaceful and just, even if that means some sacrifice in terms of legitimacy of monarchy. Peace and Justice are higher goals than legitimacy since legitimacy is seen as a means to the end of attaining such peace and justice because it is more stable than other forms of government. Legitimacy is not purely an end in itself. To choose legitimacy above peace and justice is thus to reverse right order and to sin since, as St Thomas teaches, sin is to desire a good inordinately i.e. outside its right order.

Seventhly, whatever is wrong with our current constitution it cannot be laid at the feet of the Windsor dynasty. Indeed, our Queen has been one of the most exemplary of monarchs that we have ever had the good fortune to see upon the British throne. She has dedicated and devoted herself to the service of her people, the Commonwealth, the Constitution and the best interests of all, without stinting and with much self-sacrifice.

To shew her the kind of ingratitude that is implied in the rejection of her right to sit upon the throne would be an act of the greatest iniquity and baseness and would rightly be viewed as cowardly and deeply criminal. It is the kind of evil ingratitude that utterly false and evil organisations like the IRA demonstrate and is odious in the extreme to all Catholic Christians of good conscience - and, I may add, that excludes all those so-called "Catholics" who think that the IRA have a right to bomb, main, slaughter and destroy innocent men, women and children in open and devilish defiance of the Commandment that says "Thou shalt do no murder". As Bishop Moriarity of County Kerry in Ireland said of their predecessors, the Fenians, "Hell is not hot enough, nor long enough, for such as them".

So, then, you will ask, why do we bother to remember and extol the Stuart dynasty?

That, too, is readily answered.

It is because the dynasty stands not only for legitimate monarchy but also for Catholic monarchy, for Catholic government, for Christian government in accordance with the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for stability, for peace, for justice, for loyalty, for honour, for truth and for a period in our history that is not only deeply romantic but also sets an example for us today and sets the right tone, human weakness notwithstanding, for what Christian monarchy is really about.

Attempts are repeatedly made - alas, not least in Scotland - to besmirch and dishonour the name of the Stuarts and to pretend that they were weak, venal, dishonest, power-hungry, corrupt, villainous, self-serving, incompetent, vain, bigoted, conwardly and so on. But the smears are so ludicrously excessive that they do not reach their mark just as the false accusations against the Templars and the Jesuits were so absurdly excessive that no-one believed them, not even those who might have been disposed to detest the Templars or Jesuits. It is the same with the wildly excessive accusations against the Stuarts.

Part of the reason for these attempts is that the Jacobites, i.e. those who supported the Catholic Stuarts, were largely exiled from Scotland were sent to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, America and other colonies or else escaped to Europe. That left in Scotland largely those dour, bleak, Calvinists, the Presbyterians, who have a vested interest in besmirching the name of the Stuarts and all they stand for.

The Scottish Episcopalians, among the most loyal of Jacobites, were heavily out-numbered and had to keep a low profile. Many went to America and founded the Episcopalian Church there. Now, they both have simply become yet another of the many liberal Protestant sects who do not really believe in anything much at all and have largely abandoned the historic creeds of Christianity and certainly have abandoned its morality.

In fact, as history reveals, it was the Whigs and Hanoverians who were bigoted and weak and whose government was corrupt. England was never so badly governed as it was by them, as the Protestant William Cobbett, who lived at the time, so graphically reveals.

It was they and their evil example that lost the American Colonies; they who tolerated the supremacy of the "jobbers" in the City of London that led to the South Sea Bubble, and the placemen in government who let corruption and anarchy reign in so many places so that the poor were never so destitute. They, too, were those who introduced transportation to the Colonies and over 200 capital offences, including death for stealing 6d or a sheep; they who widened and extended the most vicious and offensive Penal Code against Catholics ever to be seen so that English and Irish Catholics were reduced to the status of starved slaves in their own country.

The Stuarts stood for everything opposed to such monstrous corruption. The Catholic King James II and VII was even in favour of religious toleration within reasonable bounds. Indeed, it was for THAT reason and no other than he was treacherously betrayed by those who should have been most loyal to him and who sided with the Durch invader, William of Orange, and, indeed, actually INVITED the Duchman to invade, the most open and clear act of High Treason imaginable. Yet these same bare-faced, hypocritical pharisees falsely and unjustly dared to call Catholics by the odious and shameful name of "traitors" and to hang, draw and quarter them with the most savage and brutal torture imaginable - all simply to preserve the ill-gotten plunder of the Whigs!

James II ordered his Declaration of Indulgence to be read from every pulpit in the land (which was the "media" of its day) but the refusal of 7 Anglican Whig bishops so to do, and their subsequent trial, precipitated the plotting of High Treason against the King. In the Declaration, Catholics and dissenters were freed from the savage penalties against them and allowed to participate in the professions, the Armed Forces and the public life of the state, to some degree.

Read the Declaration here and judge for yourself:

http://www.jacobite.ca/documents/16870404.htm

The Whig Anglicans, whose ancestors had enriched themselves from the plunder of the monasteries, the system of welfare for the poor, feared that even this small measure of toleration might lead to them having to account for their ill-gotten gains and - absurdly and irrationally - they feared that it might lead to a Catholic government which might make them give back some of their plunder and robbery to the Church. They feared this even though the Catholic Queen Mary (Tudor) had found it impractical to order more than a small part of the plunder restored. But even this very little the villainous Whigs feared!

This was the REAL fear of those worthless scoundrels, the Whigs.

They feared for their grotesquely bloated wallets, their chests of booty, their fabulous houses and wealth, their sacks of gold. These Whigs were the original fat, bloated Capitalist exploiters and, like all thieves and robbers, they fought hardest and most energetically against those who would require them to disgorge their ill-gotten gains and return some to the public purse and to relieve the poor.

Instead, they conspired to oust the legitimate government, to which they owed allegiance, and, through the agency of the Parliament which they so totally controlled, they set up a puppet government with a king - William of Orange - who was entirely in thrall to them, so that they could secure to themselves fabulous wealth and riches, undisturbed by the famished cry of the starving children of the poor.

Was there ever men so evil as these?!

We remember the Stuarts as being the dynasty that set itself against these plundering rogues, the Whigs, and sought to govern for the good of the people as a whole, and not for one small section of the people.

The Whigs will tell you that the opposite is true but one need but read history to see what liars they are.

The Whigs claim that their revolution of 1688/9 was for "liberty" - but liberty for whom? It was liberty for them to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor, in truth.

Even as late as 1988, the late Quintin Hogg, Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, a former Lord Chancellor, sought to celebrate 300 years of that Whig revolution as a celebration of our "ancient liberties". It was no such thing. It was the very opposite. It was a denial of our ancient liberties and the settlement of liberty upon the rich to exploit the poor.

The years after 1688 were the years which Hogarth so aptly illustrates with his paintings and drawings of the idle corruption of the rich, the sloth of government and the complete destitution of the poor. One such has a caption "Drunk 1d, dead drunk 2d". This was the time when rich and poor alike went to Tyburn to see many hanged and half-hanged and turned the whole ghastly event into a kind of Christmas fair!

This was why the Whigs felt the need to promote "No Popery" riots whenever there was public discontent with the government. It was a devious, cynical means of deflecting attention from the true source of corruption, i.e. themselves, onto entirely innocent but convenient scapegoats, the Catholics.

The evidence for this is Cobbett himself - a Protestant but a very fair and honest one. Read his book The History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland to see all revealed. And Cobbett was an MP and journalist whop suffered unjust imprisonment for telling the truth about the corruption in British society of his time.

When the Whigs, and their predecessors the Cromwellite Roundheads, speak of "the people" they mean themsleves only. When they speak of "the consent of the governed" they mean only the consent of themselves. When they speak of liberty, they mean liberty only for themselves. And when they speak of "arbitrary government" and "Popish government" they mean a government that will stop them from exploiting, oppressing, persecuting, starving and slaughtering the people and which will stop them enriching and bloating themselves with wealth that once was used to succour the poor and sick.

As Dr Johnson once aptly wrote: "The Devil was the first Whig".

We remember the Stuarts as the dynasty that stood apart and above these evils and, instead, stood to defend the true liberties of the people from the depradations of a parcel of Whig plutocrats and exploiters who cared not a whit for the liberties of the ordinary people.

And we remember that these same Stuarts were, from James II onward, loyal and devout Catholics who looked to the principles of the Gospel to guide their government and to honour, loyalty, chivalry and protection of the weak, and all the virtues as the things at which kings must aim, not mere filthy lucre and self-aggrandisement.

And we remember that they were the legitimate monarchs against whom the treacherous Whigs disloyally and shamefully refused allegiance and, instead, declared treasonous war.

For this reason, too, we honour their descendants, the Wittelsbachs and Liechtensteins, also fine examples of good, modern, Catholic monarchy and dynastic rule.

His Serene Highness, Hereditary Prince Alois of Liechtenstein and his wife, Her Royal Highness, Princess Sophie of Liechtenstein and Duchess in Bavaria, through whom the Stuart line now passes.

We remember the motto of the Stuarts for the same reason:

Aymez Loyaute - love loyalty.

All true Christians love loyalty and hate disloyalty just as they hunger and thirst after justice, peace and mercy and hate injustice, war and the hard-hearted mercilessness of corrupt and selfish men.

...

Remember, remember the Gunpowder Plot: treason or lies?

5 November 1605 is the date of the Gunpowder Plot. It is said that some Catholics, most famously Guy Fawkes, plotted to blow up King James I, the first of the Stuart kings of England.

The story is remembered each 5 November when "guys" are burned on "Bonfire Night" and - in times past but not now - the Church of England celebrated a service in remembrance of the "deliverance" of Parliament from gunpowder.

Catholics in England had expected James to be more tolerant of them. In fact, he had proved to be the opposite and had renewed the orders that all Catholic priests leave England and the Penal Laws be enforced with hanging, drawing and quartering used against priests and faithful Catholics. It is said that this led to a plot to kill not only King James but also Parliament at its state opening.

It is said that the conspirators were:

Guy Fawkes,
Robert and Thomas Wintour,
Thomas Percy,
Christopher and John Wright,
Francis Tresham,
Everard Digby,
Ambrose Rookwood,
Thomas Bates,
Robert Keyes,
Hugh Owen,
John Grant, and the man who is said to have organised the whole plot
Robert Catesby.

In celebration of his survival, James ordered that the people of England should have a great bonfire in the night on 5 November each year. This fire was traditionally topped off with an effigy of the pope rather than Guy Fawkes. In Lewes, East Sussex, an effigy of the pope is still burned alongside one of Guy Fawkes.

But is there more to the whole plot than meets the eye? Some believe so.

There is evidence that the whole plot was a government conspiracy to convince James that Catholics could not be trusted and had t be persecuted.

There are a number of curious factors.

Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury, and effectively Prime Minister, hated Catholics. Cecil also feared that King James might soften the anti-Catholic penal laws.

The government had a monopoly on gunpowder and it was stored in places like the Tower of London. How, then, did the conspirators get hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder without drawing attention to themselves? Did they, in fact, get help from the government?

How was the gunpowder moved across London from the Tower of London to Westminster (at least two miles distant) without anyone seeing it? The River Thames would not have been used as it could have lead to the gunpowder becoming damp and useless. 36 barrels would have been a sizeable quantity to move without causing suspicion.

Why were men who were known to be Catholics allowed to rent out a house so near to the Houses of Parliament? How did they move 36 barrels from that house to the cellar of the Houses of Parliament without anyone noticing?

Why, for the first time in history, was there a search of Parliament's cellars that conveniently found "John Johnson" (Guy Fawkes’ nom de guerre) before he lit the fuse?

Why was the soldier who killed Catesby and Percy at Holbeech House in the Midlands, to where the “conspirators” had escaped, given such a large pension for life when the names of other conspirators had yet to be disclosed?

Some historians have pointed out these issues and claimed that the plotters were pawns in the hands of Robert Cecil and that he orchestrated the whole affair in his bid to get James to expel all Catholics altogether.

Two other issues are also odd.

The first is the so-called Monteagle Letter.

One of the plotters was a man called Francis Tresham. Lord Monteagle was his cousin.

On the evening of 26 October, a mysterious man brought a letter to Monteagle’s home just outside of London. The letter was a clear warning for Monteagle not to turn up at the Houses of Parliament on the 5 November. The letter stated that Parliament would receive a terrible blow on that day and that those killed would not see who had done it to them. The letter was addressed to Monteagle but it was read out aloud by his servant. Why? Was Monteagle looking for a witness that he had received this letter?

Monteagle went straight to Robert Cecil and informed him of what had happened. Cecil ordered a search of the cellars of Parliament on the night of 4 November. The guards found Guy Fawkes. A second search the next day, ordered by King James I himself, also found the gunpowder and Fawkes who was found to be in possession of matches. He was arrested.

The other issue also involves Tresham.

Here was important and could know much about the other conspirators who had yet to be apprehended. Once arrested, he was locked in the Tower of London but he was locked in a cell by himself. He died on 23 December 1605 having been poisoned. How did he get the poison? Did he knowingly take it? Or did someone want to silence him before he talked? Catholics have a horror of suicide because, for the sound of mind with no mitigating circumstances, it can be a path to damnation. Someone else may have had access to him and introduced poison into his food. Such a person could only have been of high rank and position as no-one else would have had access to this valuable prisoner.

Was the so-called Gunpowder Plot in fact a cunningly laid trap set to fool the king and the country into thinking that Catholics were seeking to murder the king and hence were dangerous people who should all be expelled, imprisoned or executed?
There is no doubt but that the government of both Cecil and his father were certainly capable of such deviousness and there are a stream of examples of such mischief.

The reign of Elizabeth I – the ill-named “Gloriana” – was a time of tyranny, evil, devilish cunning, treachery, murder, villainy, heresy and infamy of the most notorious and unprecedented kind. The country was permanently marked by this time of great evil which enured into the reign of King James I and well after.

It therefore need not surprise us that such a cunning plot might well have been laid by the government and by Cecil, himself.

...

The Church Suffering: the Feast of All Souls

In Fest. omnibus animis

On the Feast of All Souls

"It is a holy and wholesome thing to pray for the dead"

The prophet Job testified of the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and the guarantee of a resurrection—He asks: If a man die, shall he live again?—He answers that he will await the Lord’s call to come forth from the grave.

The tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, like the Greek Catholic and Oriental Catholic Churches, is to dress in black for remembrance of the dead. This is right and proper. It is a sign of mourning and a reminder that the wearer is in mourning and a reminder to pray for the dead.

This is vitally important because not only is it necessary to pray for the dead but, concomitantly, God has made our nature such that we have a psychological need to mourn and sorrow for our dead loved ones. This is natural, right and good.

Our Lord Himself did the same. When told of the death of Lazarus, as Holy Writ shews, our Lord wept for the passing of His friend. It is, on the other hand, wholly unnatural to suppress all desire to mourn. Thus the modern idea that we should not vest in black for funerals, requiems and on solemn days of remembrance of the dead, is an entirely false one and is, moreover, psychologically contrary to our nature as God made it.

It is curious, is it not, that the very moderns who chatter so much about psychology and bereavement and bereavement counselling and all the rest of the jargon that they overflow with, should reject or omit such an obviously sound, traditional, workable and practical manner of mourning and coping with bereavement as that of wearing black as a sign to oneself and to others to pray and condole.

As these same people would say in another context: let them mourn; allow them space to mourn and weep for their lost loved ones! Well, then, we reply: do not press them to wear white and to pretend that all is well when, in fact, it is a time of deep sadness and sorrow.

Remember, too, the Beatitude that tells us: "Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted".

So you modern liturgists: away with your whites and purples, your misplaced and ill-timed cheeriness and forced joviality. Spare us your inane chatter and impertinent invasion of our personal grieving.

Leave us to mourn, to wear black, and to pray for our loved ones who have died. Leave us space to grieve and sorrow as is only natural and as God intended. And do not think our ancestors such fools that they did not know what they were doing when they donned mourning clothes for the remembrance of their lost loved ones. In former times, when a close relative died, it was customary to mourn even for as long as 12 months, wearing black to remind all to pray for the deceased. This is profoundly Catholic and in keeping with human nature. One need not carry it as far as did Queen Victoria who wore black for the rest of her days, but nonetheless one should mourn for a decent space of time.

Nowadays death is regarded as a social faux pas, bad manners to speak of, something to be hidden and done behind closed doors. This is bizarre and inhuman. It merely stores up great anxieties and neuroses, or worse, for those who are thus not permitted space to mourn and to sorrow and to grieve. It also leads to attempts to hasten death so as to get it out of the way and out of our so easily offended gaze. This, in turn, can lead even to grotesque evils like euthanasia.

Why do priests, nuns and monks often wear black? Have you ever considered that? It is because they are making a public statement that they are dead to the world, and especially to the world of sin. They are publicly witnessing to the fact that they live a life of prayer for the living and the dead; and this is a "holy and wholesome thing".

"1 Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.

2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth like a shadow, and continueth not.

3 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?

4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;

6 Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.

7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;

9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.

10 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:

12 So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

13 O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!

14 If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

15 Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands."

[Job 14]

"25 For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth.

26 And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I will see my God.

27 Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom."

[Job 19:20-27]

These are among some of the striking lessons that are sung upon the Feast of All Souls by chapters, convents and abbeys at the austerely beautiful and solemnly awesome Matins of the Dead.

Parts of the Office of the Dead were retained by Cranmer in the Anglican Funeral service. They have become familiar lines often heard in old films as the mourners and clergyman gather round the grave of the recently deceased, the latter beginning "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live..."

So beautiful were these lines from the prophet Job that Cranmer and the Protestant reformers could not suffer them to be excised from the new service books as so much else was.

Memorials of our Catholic past abound even today in modern, neo-pagan, secular Britain, and have not yet been effaced by the new generation of unclean heathens that rule us, oppress us and threaten our very way of life. In truth they are simply too ignorant of their own history. So much so that they are unaware of these continuing memorials and so have not yet formed the idea of destroying them as they have so much else of our Christian past and identity - that which gave us all the things that we enjoy today.

One example of such a persisting remnant of our Catholic past is All Souls College, Oxford (pictured below).

Strictly, its name should have changed because the Protestant Reformers did not believe in praying for the dead because they did not believe in Purgatory despite Scripture's clear references to such a middle state of souls after death and to the even clearer mandate that it is a "holy and wholesome thing to pray for the dead" (2 Machab 12:46).

The naturally conservative and latently Catholic spirit of the English people caused them to adopt the Protestant Reform only grudgingly in an attenuated way - there over 150 uprisings against the new religion and the new service books. This is not surprising given that England had been, in the Middle Ages, regarded as one of the most Catholic countries in Europe. The result was the keeping of a great many ancient memorials of the Catholic past. One such was All Souls, Oxford.

All Souls, Langham Place, next to the BBC, is another. Ironically, it is a very Evangelical Protestant Church whose members would not believe in Purgatory and so would not pray for the souls of the dead. They are good folk but ironically they do not know that the name of their own church signifies the tradition of praying for the dead.

All Souls College, Oxford

De Profundis (Psalm 131)

Out of the depths I have cried unto Thee, O Lord - Lord hear my voice! Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.

If Thou, O Lord, shalt mark our iniquities, O Lord, who can abide it? For with Thee there is mercy, and by reason of Thy law I have waited for Thee, O Lord.

My soul hath hoped in the Lord. From morning watch even unto night, let Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plentiful redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

V. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.

R. And let perpetual light shine upon them.

V. Let us pray.

O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of Thy departed servants the full remission of all their sins, that through our pious supplications they may obtain that pardon which they have always desired. Thou who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.

...

The Church Triumphant: the Eve of All Saints - the real Hallowe'en

In vigil. fest. omnibus Sanctis

The Eve of All Hallows

(Hallowe'en)

After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count,
from every nation, race, people, and tongue.
They stood before the throne and before the Lamb,
wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb"

Forget "trick or treat"!

This the real meaning of All Hallow's Eve or Hallowe'en. Hallows is an old English word meaning "saints". Hence we speak of something being "hallowed" i.e. made holy.

This tableau is a powerful representation of the Church militant, here on earth, and the Church triumphant, in heaven.

On earth we see the Pope, clergy and religious on the left and the Emperor, nobility and people on the right.

Above them we see the Holy Trinity, with our Lady and the martyrs on the left and St Joseph and the other saints on the right, above them both are the holy angels, all adoring the Trinity.

It demonstrates, too, the essentially familiar and Trinitarian heart of the Church: the Holy Family is a reflection of the Holy Trinity and the charity that must obtain within a family is a reflection of the charity that obtains within the Holy Family and the Holy Trinity and is the foundation of heaven.

The Church, then, is a society founded upon the family and upon familiar principles which, in turn, are Trinitarian and incarnational principles, incarnating the love of God for men and the filial duty of men, in turn, to love and adore God the Father of all.

This the saints have done and do now to perfection, setting an example for us all to imitate.

All ye holy apostles, saints and martyrs, pray for us!

...

Dios, Fueros, Patria y Rey! The Spanish Carlists and Christ the King

Carlism began as a dynastic struggle for the Spanish throne which emerged within the Bourbon dynasty when King Ferdinand VII on 29 March 1830, dissolved the Salic Law, permitting his only child to become Queen Isabel II, rather than the monarchy pass only through the male line to his brother Don Carlos Maria Isidro (pictured), Infante of Spain.

This change of law was not only to cast away the traditional dynastic law of the Spanish Royal house but, more importantly, was to give a chance to Spanish anti-clericals, inspired by the French Revolution, to adopt the cause of Queen Isabel as a means of gaining power and so over-throwing both Church and Monarchy and so bring in a secular state in imitation of the French revolutionaries.

The Spanish traditional Catholics flocked to the standard of Don Carlos and so the Carlist Party was born to fight against the secularisers and anti-clericals. They were determined to protect and defend the traditions of Catholic Spain and its regions from Galicia to Valencia, from Granada to Aragon.

The anti-clerical "liberals" were equally determined to fight against the Catholic traditions of Spain although they were careful to couch their language in terms of liberty and supposed pragmatism. In reality they intended to bring in a bourgeois monarchy, such as was to obtain in France, so that they, the anti-clerical bourgeois revolutionaries, could then assume key positions in the state and so enrich themselves fabulously at the expense of the ordinary people.

The people had remained staunchly Catholic and so, where they had not been suborned by the lies of the revolutionaries, they followed the Church and Don Carlos. The divisions between conservative Catholics and liberal revolutionaries led to a series of wars throughout the 19th century which weakened Spain, already economically weak from the loss of her Empire during the Napoleonic occupation. Bonaparte's occupation of Spain allowed the anti-clerical, Freemasonic revolutionaries in Latin America to seize power and break the power of the Church and Monarchy, re-introducing slavery and enriching the revolutionary leaders at the expense of the poor.

Throughout three Carlist Wars (the last in 1893), numerous coup plots, and wedding schemes - almost all of which took on international political overtones - the Carlists made some headway but were headed off by an international revolutionary alliance supporting the Isabellinist "liberals".

The fourth Carlist War was called off in 1936, when, faced with a much greater threat from Communism and the corruptly elected "Popular Front" government, the Carlist pretender, Alfonso Carlos I, decided he had to back General Francisco Franco, the leader of the Nationalist revolt.

The Carlists had an uneasy relationship with Franco who attempted to force them into a merger with the much more Right Wing Falange (literally "Phalanx"), founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, so as to present a united front against the revolutionary "Popular Front" government who had set about murdering clergy and religious.

The motto of Carlism was "Dios, Patria, Fueros, Rey" ("God, Country, our ancient customs, and our King").

Carlists preserved the Catholic ideals of the Spanish Empire, fighting both by military and political means to restore Catholic rule to Spain as it had existed for centuries. "Throne and Altar" was their guide just as it was for Catholic legitimists all over Europe.

With this vision came all the principles and liberties associated with Catholic Social teaching including a respect for local autonomy and subsidiarity, the principle of de-centralising power save where it was otherwise necessary to do otherwise.

This was what sometimes set them at odds with the Falangists and with Franco, both of whom saw a need for one, united Spain to fight the evil of Communism. This the Carlist leaders agreed with up to a point but they wanted the old local autonomies - and their fueros or local customary rights - restored as soon as possible.

The Carlist concept of fueros attracted many U.S. conservatives, who realised it was akin to the concept of "states' rights" which the US Constitution was supposed to preserve (but failed to do during and after the American civil war).

Under this system, when Carlists ruled certain regions of Spain during one of their wars, they gave maximum "community control" to ethnic provinces.

The flag of the Carlists was that of the Spanish Empire, itself brought to Spain from Burgundy by the Spanish Habsburgs. It is the red serrated saltire cross of Burgundy.

After the Spanish civil war was over, the Carlists were somewhat sidelined by Franco but still maintained a presence in the Spanish Cortes or Parliament. Moreover, there were splits in the movement when the heir-presumptive, Don Carlos VIII Hugo ( Don Carlos Hugo de Borbón-Parma y Borbón-Busset, the Duke of Madrid), became a Socialist which was alien to the Carlist tradition.

The traditional Carlists formed the COMUNIÓN TRADICIONALISTA CARLISTA which looks to his brother, Don Sixto Enrique (Don Sixto Enrique de Borbón-Parma y Borbón-Busset, Duke of Aranjuez) as putative Regent during the time that Don Carlos Hugo remains a Socialist, hoping for better from his sons.

In the meantime, General Franco decided to recognise Don Juan Carlos (Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón Dos Sicilias, Count of Barcelona) who fused both the Isabellinist line, the Alphonist line and the Carlist line of Borbon y Austria which arose at the death of King Alfonso Carlos I in 1936. Many Carlists had refused to recognise this line because its head, King Alfonso XII did not share the full Carlist ideals, especially of local regional autonomy, however it was arguably the direct male line of Don Carlos.

Thus King Juan Carlos I represents the fusion of the Legitimist and the Isabellinist lines which made a lot of sense in terms of stability.

However, traditional Carlists still recognise Don Sixto Enrique because he supports the traditionalist Catholic and regionalist principles of Carlism.

Carlists fought with the nationalists in the Civil war because the common enemy were the Communists, Socialists and Anarchists who were brutally murdering bishops, priests and religious and raping and murdering nuns and Catholic men, women and children.

On Sunday 28 October 2007, the Feast of Christ the King, Pope Benedict XVI beatified no less than 498 Spanish martyrs, brutally killed by the crazed and bloodthirsty Assault Guards, secret police (the dreaded SIM) and thugs of the revolutionary republicans.

This raised howls of protest from the modern secularists who could not stomach the idea that the Church dared to show any kind of support for those who were the victims of Communist and Anarchist brutality. These people are very happy when the Church beatifies the victims of Nazism and Right Wing regimes but the minute the Church shews balance and also beatifies the victims of the equally brutal Communist regimes, they howl. That this view is wholly unbalanced needs hardly to be stated - but nevertheless large sections of the media still vilify the Church for being so even-handed.

Apparently this kind of religious vilification is deemed acceptable by their editors and programme-makers. More balanced readers and viewers are able to judge more fairly and can see that it is no better than any other kind of religious vilification and, indeed, all the more odious for being practised by hypocrites who claim to object to such religious vilification.

The Carlist anthem is the hymn El Oriamendi.

It can be heard here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDikhUw8P9s

sung for the Regiment of Requetes of our Lady of Montserrat, and here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzrKhRX0CP4

The words are:

Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharon nuestros padres.
Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharemos nosotros también.

Lucharemos todos juntos,
todos juntos en unión,
defendiendo la bandera
de la santa tradición.

Lucharemos todos juntos,
todos juntos en unión,
defendiendo la bandera
de la santa tradición.

Cueste lo que cueste
se ha de conseguir
que venga el rey de España
a la Corte de Madrid.

Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharon nuestros padres.
Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharemos nosotros también.

+++++++++++++++++++

For God, for our country and king,
Our fathers fought without shirking
For God, for our country and king,
We shall do the very same thing!

Together we'll fight all as one
Together in unison,
Defending the standard as one
Of our holy tradition.

Whate'er the expense may be
To be counted at the end
The king of Spain shall enter
The court of Madrid at the end.

For God, for our country and king,
Our fathers fought without shirking
For God, for our country and king,
We shall do the very same thing!


Viva Cristo Rey!
Long live Christ the King!


....

Ave Christus Rex! Long live Christ The King! Viva Cristo Rey!

Jusepe de Ribera. Christ in the Crown of Thorns.

Christus Rex

The Feast of Christ the King

is today!

Regnavit a ligno Deus

"God hath ruled us from a tree"

(Vexilla Regis, Venantius Fortunatus)

Christos Pantokrator (Christ, ruler of all), ancient Byzantine ikon

Rex regum et Dominus dominantium
"King of kings and Lord of Lords"

Revelation 19:16

Dignus est Agnus qui occisus est, accipere virtutem, et divinitatem, et sapientem, et fortiudinem, et honorem. Ipsi gloria et imperium in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Revelation 5: 12, 13, Introit for the Mass of Christ the King

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing...Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
The same from Handel's Messiah

Dixit itaque ei Pilatus: ergo Rex es tu? Respondit Jesus: tu dicis quia Rex sum ego. Ego in hoc natus sum, et ad hoc veni in mundum, ut testimonium perhibeam veritati: omnis qui est ex veritate, audit vocem meam.
John 18, Gospel for the Mass of Christ the King

"Pilate therefore said to Him: art Thou a king then? Jesus answered: thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice".

"And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
Revelation 19:6

"And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever."
Revelation 11:15

"And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, LORD OF LORDS."
Revelation 19:16

"For unto Us a Child is born, unto Us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace".
Isaiah 9: 6
All also from Handel's Messiah

And so we must return to the social Kingship of Jesus Christ...

"19. When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony. Our Lord's regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen's duty of obedience. It is for this reason that St. Paul, while bidding wives revere Christ in their husbands, and slaves respect Christ in their masters, warns them to give obedience to them not as men, but as the vicegerents of Christ; for it is not meet that men redeemed by Christ should serve their fellow-men. "You are bought with a price; be not made the bond-slaves of men." If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. The result will be a stable peace and tranquillity, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man. Peace and harmony, too, will result; for with the spread and the universal extent of the kingdom of Christ men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them together, and thus many conflicts will be either prevented entirely or at least their bitterness will be diminished.
...
28. We further ordain that the dedication of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which Our predecessor of saintly memory, Pope Pius X, commanded to be renewed yearly, be made annually on that day."

[Pope Pius IX, Quas Primas, Encyclical letter establishing the Feast of Christ the King, 1925.]

Hail Christ the King!


...