A Bit of Paper.

Two lung-fulls of Irish air, after getting off the 'plane from Portugal, and soon I had to take to bed for 3 days with a shocking chest-cold. Doc says I have also some 'atreal fibrillation' into the bargain and have to start minding the old heart. This has left me prey to some introspection, instead of for instance braving the weather like Fiona with  a respectable family representation for the Pope’s Mass.

En route to the Pope's Mass, by Fiona.

Meanwhile, my sister-in-law Linda has come up with a pretty document, to wit, the Oath of Allegiance sworn by my German great-grandfather to ‘His Majesty King George the Fifth, His Heirs and Successors...’ on the 26th day of September, 1912.

Charles Albert Beck had dodged the Prussian Emperor’s draft and been in America for some years, before returning to his native Reutlingen with the intention of opening a bakery there, and then having to flee to London after being tipped off that someone had reported him as a draft-dodger and he was about to be arrested as such. Little did the poor man realise the catastrophe that was so shortly to materialise, otherwise he would have chosen some other place to open his German bakery. He died of a heart attack in 1915, as far as I know.

Such quaint documents have rattled around in attics down the years since without anyone taking them very seriously. Nowadays, with millions of stateless persons in the world while our own citizenship counts for massive privileges, as opposed to those others for whom the lack of the appropriate bit of paper constitutes destitution and virtual imprisonment or maybe worse, it may be appropriate to take a new look at them and consider carefully their significance (if we do not find it too painful to do so). Fortunately things are not so bad hereabouts (yet?) that one dare not say where one stands now and again, thank God. One of the best sayings to have come from Pope Francis is that ‘one not alone has the right to express oneself, but also the duty’!

Unfortunately I for one have long since ceased to be disposed to grant my allegiance to any of their Britannic Majesties. It is nothing personal; in fact I quite like Prince Charles, but the institution seems to me obsolescent beyond recall; in its political dimension for a start, how is it remotely compatible with the notion of popular democracy, whereby decisions of vital national interest are apparently to be taken by plebiscite? In what way has the Queen managed, or even attempted, to assert her declared authority in Parliament? As for the other dimensions of the Monarchy, the alleged moral and indeed spiritual leadership involved, it all seems a classic box of English fudge, no good and well passed its sell-by date anyway! About the only thing that one might say in its favour is, where are the alternatives? We can only hope that they will emerge in the course of the catastrophic upheavals that no doubt are coming round again. One thing is for sure: the massive inequities cannot go on for ever.

As an interim measure, I swore allegiance to this Irish Republic back in the ‘70s. While I still am happy to support it in law, the Irish Republic has not escaped the chaos of democratic disintegration that has overtaken its bigger Anglophone neighbours, has far too little to boast of in terms of addressing present problems, and has also forfeited much personal spiritual affirmation by taking its cue from the international Liberal Agenda. It's not by any means that I disapprove of the separation of Church and State. However the ‘progressive’ establishment is anything but focussed on the future, and having got the present so wrong is unlikely to be effective in addressing its challenges.

In the seminal matter of abortion, their smug self-satisfaction was gently but very neatly debunked in the words of Pope Francis as he flew home:- 'The problem of abortion is not religious. We are not against abortion for religion, no! It’s a human problem and it should be studied anthropologically. To study abortion, beginning with the religious fact is to skip over thought....There is always the anthropological problem of the ethics of eliminating a human being to resolve a problem.'  

If it is to get its priorities right, democracy needs to be rebuilt, from the bottom up. I am hardly saying anything new. I have spent my adult life watching the decline of the current version, which bases itself on an affirmation of individual autonomy that is of a largely spurious and illusory nature. Actually the very heart of the crisis is in the U.S.A.; the rot really set in there with the Vietnam War and the assassination of President Kennedy, which has appeared to me to be by no means unconnected with his decision to pull out of Vietnam and his refusal to really back the attempted invasion of Cuba. Nobody however has really been held accountable for his murder, and the fact seems like an unexpurgated sin that has dogged American politics ever since, constantly dragging them down.

Whatever about that, the tyranny of the ‘majority’ has to be repudiated, and genuine representatives installed at the higher levels who have proved their worth and sense in the course of real work and achievement at the grass roots. They should be held to account by the communities they represent, newly empowered by communication technology, and by no means merely take their line from some political party or ideology or leader, let alone from the diktats of big money. 

This is the agenda that the European Union must accommodate itself to, if it too is not going to die away in the coming bonfire of vanities! Meanwhile we must work together with whomever we may in good faith, concentrating on William Blake’s ‘minute particulars’ and building up mutual trust and understanding, with a common sense of responsibility for our dire problems, as best we can.

Entretanto, muchas gracias, Papa Francisco, por haber venido. It is a privilege to unite our holy sacrifices with yours, offering up our disasters and miseries and frustrations with those of Our Lord on the Cross, so that we too may participate in the eternal rhythm of death and resurrection. 

As for how my poor old Anna M  is to make her way to new life, I shall be back on the case with the next blog!