Arabian Monarchy


Andrew Stuttaford beat me to a blog. In The Corner, he writes:


There's a conference going on in London at the moment being organized by Iraqi exiles. The London Times is reporting that it has played host to an interesting - and unexpected - visitor. It's also worth remembering that, for centuries prior to the usurpation by the House of Saud in the 1920s, the Hashemites were the ruling family in Mecca.


Indeed they were. As descendants of Muhammad, they ruled as Sherifs of Mecca. The best reference point for this is probably Lawrence of Arabia. In that movie, Hussein, Sherif of Mecca, is the Arab leader whose revolt against the Ottomans the British support. After the Great War, the British made his sons Feisal and Abdullah kings of Iraq and Transjordan respectively. Mecca itself, however, was conquered by Ibn Saud in 1924, and in Iraq, Feisal's grandson, Feisal II, was hanged in a military coup in 1958.


Restoring Hashemite sovereignty over "Saudi" Arabia and Iraq might help stabilize and moderate those dangerous countries. The Iraqi pretender's movement has a webpage (see especially this NYT feature), as does the reigning Jordanian Royal Family.


An aside: Although Lawrence of Arabia is excellent, you should read the original T.E. Lawrence memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom on which it is based. There are occasional dead spots in the narrative, but at its best his prose absolutely sparkles, especially when he sets himself to description. In addition, its claim to immortality in my view lies both in Lawrence's characterization (of individuals and tribes) and his thoughtful, agonized self-criticism concerning his British-Arab conflict of interests.

The Death of Marat


On 13 July 1793, radical Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat was assassinated in his bath by an aristocratic Girondist (with royalist sympathies) named Charlotte Corday. (You may recall the event from this painting by Jacques-Louis David and this play by Peter Weiss.) That this hero of the Revolution was murdered by a woman only fed into one of the French Revolution's better kept secrets: its misogyny.


It is difficult to muster tears over Marat's violent fate, as his incendiary rhetoric had helped inspire the awful September Massacres of priests and royalists in 1792. It is also telling that the Soviet Union named one of her first battleships "Marat" in his honor and in honor of the Revolution.


Which reminds me, check back tomorrow for Matthew's Bastille Day reading list.

Sir Tom Stoppard


The current issue of Britain's Fabian journal The New Statesman has an interview with that country's greatest living playwright, Tom Stoppard. Unlike many prominent artists today, Stoppard advances no political agenda beyond seeking more money for the arts (and that out of sound concern for the state of culture in Cool Britannia). The interviewer, expecting arrogance, is surprised by his grace.

For another sympathetic profile of Sir Tom's character and work, see this one by the inimitable Taki.

Erasmus of Rotterdam . . .

died on this day in 1536. I want to post on him, but this requires some preparation. Please check back later this weekend.

Greece and terrorism


There is a good piece in this week's Economist about the progress Greek authorities have made (with the help of Scotland Yard) against the brutal terrorist syndicate November 17th. (The group is named for the day in 1973 when the Greek colonels crushed a student rebellion in Athens.) Since the '70s, N17's operatives have murdered a CIA station chief, a Greek shipowner, & a British military attaché, among others. An important recent arrest and new judicial procedures, however, may put them out of business. We can hope.

Yet another reason to hate the EU


The European Court of Human Wrongs has superseded Britain's law and ordered that lowly province to allow a transsexual to marry as woman.

Speaking of Tosca . . .


it seems that someone has turned it into a film. This morning's Times carries A.O. Scott's rave review of the independent feature, which I shall try to see and report on myself in this space.


Perhaps next year it will turn up at Vienna's summer music Film Festival, a delightful program of free outdoor screenings of opera, ballet, and other such performances in front of the beautiful neo-Gothic Rathaus. I happened upon it last year quite by accident on my way back from taking my evening exercise.

Perfidious Belgium: Belgium has become a major recruiting base for al-Qa’eda


The old feud between the Flemings and the Walloons gets ugly. St Rombout, ora pro nobis.

The next Pavarotti?


You may remember hearing about Salvatore Licitra. Two months ago, during its Closing Night Gala fiasco, the Metropolitan Opera flew him in from Milan at the eleventh hour to replace Pavarotti as Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca. Under difficult circumstances, he sang well, earning standing ovations and positive reviews from grateful New Yorkers. Subsequently, the public relations machinery ground into gear, predictably billing Mr Licitra as the next great tenor. This has rankled the Italians, both because he has been known to them for years and because they are generally pickier in awarding such distinctions than we image-conscious Americans.


Besides informing us of these ruffled feathers, this Washington Post article (by way of Andante.com) is worth reading for the author's delightful description of the open-air opera experience in Verona, which I had the pleasure of visiting last year. I am happy to read that, at the performance of Aida the writer attended, "the orchestra seemed to be whispering." At the performance of Rigoletto I saw, it seemed at times to be shouting, especially when combined with the ill-conceived stage ensemble in the opening act. Overpowering orchestras at the opera are a general pet peeve of mine, but the conductor's obligation to be sensitive to his singers is even more pronounced in the Arena's difficult acoustic.


The event as a whole, though, was commendable, especially the performance of the lady singing Gilda, who projected her voice even up to where I was sitting -- the highest heights of the outdoor venue -- with an easy and open tone. (The Post writer perceptively calls the Arena "the Fenway Park of opera," although no ballpark peanut vendor I have met could match the charm of the little old ice cream salesman cheerfully shouting out "Gelato, Gelato!" as he moved about the seats during intermission.)

Impertinence


"'The Savoys look for house in Rome, but the aristocracy snubs them' one La Stampa headline recently said.
'One of their rich friends will surely let them use a house in order to boost their own exposure and climb a rung on the social ladder,' Ines Torlonia, one of Italy's young aristocrats, told the newspaper."


The kind of aristocrat that would shun the direct descendants of Italy's last king could stand to learn some genuine nobility.

Italy's Parliament Votes to End Royals' 56-Year Exile

This is news I have been awaiting with eagerness for some time. I am very happy for the Savoys and most encouraged to hear that the first call they will pay upon arriving in Italy will be on the Holy Father to seek his blessing. I also rejoice for Italy, the land of my maternal ancestors.

Even so, my cheer is mixed with melancholy because of this: "The prince and his son have pledged their allegiance to the Italian Republic and vowed to return as private citizens in a bid to sway public opinion."

This is not a new development. When I first learned that they had done so (back in April, when Parliament passed the bill the first time), I wrote the following short commentary:

"A previous Telegraph article on this topic noted that the princes' unprompted declaration had dismayed the Italian Union of Monarchists, which, taking the pledges as renunciations of claims to the throne, now regards Prince Amadeo d'Aosta (a firm royalist) as the rightful heir.

I would have to agree. A pledge recognizing the legitimacy of the republic implicitly denies the existence of the throne, which in turn would seem automatically to renounce one's claim to that throne.

I am far from diminishing the suffering the Savoys must have endured under their unjust sentence of exile; nor do I wish to minimize the love for Italy that must have impelled them to make such a compromise out of desperation to see her again. And yet standing as a quiet rebuke is the example of another Catholic King, the saintly Charles I of Austria-Hungary. After the Great War (the prosecution of which he opposed), Charles refused to abdicate his thrones, instead choosing to give up participation in government. He would not abdicate, he said, because he could not renounce his duty, his birthright, and his sacred oath. For his devotion to God and country, he died in a state of exile every bit as dismal as Napoleon's on St Helena (and much less deserved). That exile was his cross to be borne in witness to the truth.

Therefore, while I am heartened to hear that they will be allowed at last to return, I am rather sad that they felt they had to make such a fundamental compromise to attain what is in fact their inalienable right."

Sumerian treasures in the storeroom


It would seem that Saint Anthony has been touring museums of late. First a misidentified Michelangelo emerged from a box of indifferent drawings at the Cooper-Hewitt in New York, and now the British Museum has discovered two ancient Sumerian gold head-dresses forgotten and mislabelled in a back room. Thanks to LewRockwell.com for the link.

Trade in the time of Ptolemy


. . . and in the time of a grumbling Tiberius, for that matter. (Quoth the Emperor: "the ladies and their baubles are transferring our money to foreigners.") Scholars digging along the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea have unearthed Berenike, which was once a stop along an ancient maritime trading route between East and West.

Gruesome


Speaking of Uncle Joe (see below), construction workers in Moscow have found human remains apparently belonging to Stalin's purge victims beneath the Russian Supreme Court building.

"The Sky Was Black With Planes"


On this day in 1940, the Battle of Britain began with a fearsome aerial conflict over the Channel and Nazi raids on British towns. Read the thrilling New York Times report here. (Notice too how much better the writing was in the Times back then.)


Also, if you didn't see National Review Online's serialization of the Churchill chapter in Eliot Cohen's Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime a few weeks ago, here is a link to the last installment (which has a link to the preceding one, &c.). Cohen's thesis is that the key to Churchill's wartime greatness was his constant questioning, challenging, and pushing of his military staff.

Peter the Great


The Daily Telegraph reviews a new book on the famous 17C tsar, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin considers a role model. (Stalin did too, but he criticized him for not executing enough people.)


On a related note, last autumn I coined an obvious term for the new signs Putin began to show (after Sept. 11th) of reorienting Russia towards the West: Westpolitik. Let's see if they -- the Westernization and the term for it -- catch on.

C of E to allow remarriage after divorce


The General Synod of the Church of England has handed down a disappointing but predictable decision to allow divorcees to remarry in church. While it has always been difficult to trust the commitment of a church to the sanctity of marriage that was born to grant a certain powerful man a divorce, this recent action can only serve further to weaken the family in Britain, not to mention the moral authority of the Anglican Church. So much for being a sign of contradiction in the world.


Christ's teaching on the sacrament of Holy Matrimony is clear:


"The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery" (Matthew 19:3-9, KJV).


St Paul reiterates and expands upon his Master's teaching thus: "And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: / But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife" (1Cor. 7:10-11).


In accordance with the very words of Christ, it has been the constant teaching of the Church since Apostolic times that, as the relationship between bride and groom is like that of Christ to His Church (Ephesians 5), no power can dissolve a sacramental marriage validly contracted. The apparent exception in case of adultery turns out, as Catholic Answers argues, actually to refer to people living together in a de facto union, who may separate and remarry because they have never really been married at all. An annulment, of course, does not dissolve a marriage; it declares that one never took place.


The permanence of marriage is the foundation of society; its stability and love are required for the healthy rearing of children for the flourishing of the community and the glory of the Kingdom of God. Matrimony is ultimately a vocation, the state of life in which two persons are called to work out their salvation together, helping eachother to grow in holiness. While the marriage bond endures only in this life, it is inherently oriented in its purpose toward the eternal life.


Of course, in life some marriages do fail, but should a couple be so unfortunate as to separate for a grave reason, each party is required to remain continent. This is a difficult saying in a society that places such a high value on pleasure and only concerns itself with this life, but Christ Himself warned of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering. He called us each to take up our Cross and follow him. By offering up their suffering and uniting it with Christ's on the Calvary, the divorced person can make his earthly misery his path to eternal blessedness. Surely this is not easy -- Christianity is not easy -- but if we ask, the Lord will grant us the graces needed to persevere.


The late Princess Margaret, a faithful Anglican and a devotee of the classical Prayer Book, understood her royal duty to set a moral example for her people and renounced her plans to marry the divorced Peter Townsend. (Once upon a time, it was forbidden for a divorced person to be presented to the Queen.) Earlier, the monarchy itself faced a great crisis when King Edward VIII insisted on wedding the twice-divorced Mrs Simpson. Now, however, in keeping with the times, it would seem that the present heir to the throne will face no similar dilemma.


A former Anglican (now a Catholic) once told me directly: the Anglican Church has no theology. That may be an exaggeration, but I can see what he meant. Since the time of Elizabeth it has been primarily a civil religion, the purpose of which has been to unite people in a nationalistic religious institution under malleable formulae to minimize religious discord and allow the country to get on with other business. Elizabeth herself was famous for saying that she did not wish to make "windows into men's souls." So long as they conform to the general symbols, people of quite different (and incompatible beliefs) on things like the nature of the Eucharist, the validity of female priests, and, now, the indissolubility of marriage can find a home in the same church. With no guarantee of unity or certainty of unchanging belief, the C of E is subject to the will of the powerful and the spirit of the age. Case in point is the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is appointed by the Prime Minister according to his conformity to fashionable opinions rather than his fidelity to the depositum Fidei. The Queen herself is both Anglican (when in England) and Presbyterian (when in Scotland).


When the Anglican Church ordained women priests, many traditional adherents converted to Catholicism. We might pray and hope that those who remained but are now disaffected by the present decision on divorce may feel moved to do likewise.

Lucy and the Double Effect


On 7 May 1915, the great Cunard steamship Lusitania, having been struck by a U-Boat's
torpedo, sank off the Irish coast. One can read the original Associated Press wire report of
the disaster here.


Although it is one of the most talked-about incidents of the Great War, two new books on the liner's final voyage have garnered considerable attention this year. In the July 1st issue of The New Yorker, noted author John Updike reviews them in tandem. The Economist did likewise [pay archive] last April.


I could write sheets and sheets on this event, but I shall spare you that. I should like, however, to examine ever so briefly a potential justification for the Germans' actions.


This is a tough case to make. International law, in accordance with the moral law, was clear on this point: the so-called Cruiser Rules required warships to give the passengers and crew of civilian vessels time to escape before attacking. Germany's objection that these rules vitiated the advantage of their new submarines is irrelevant. If the only way a weapon can be used violates the moral law, then it is an unjust weapon and has no place in war. This I take to have been President Wilson's point, and on this, but on few other things, I agree with him.


That said, a German apologist could conceivably make an argument in defense of U-20 by means of the Principle of the Double Effect. 1) The U-Boat intended to destroy contraband (morally permissible); 2) It foresaw but did not will the deaths of the civilians (an objective moral evil) that would also result from sinking the ship; and 3) The bad effect in no way caused the good. (This presumes the Germans were convinced there was contraband aboard.)


To my mind, however, this argument fails because the good achieved was not
proportional to the evil allowed. (Proportionality is a necessary component of the
Principle of the Double Effect.) The elimination of 4.2 million rounds of small arms
ammunition bound for soldiers fighting a just war does not balance the deaths of nearly
1200 innocents, 94 of whom were children. The argument also fails because there were other morally acceptable options, viz. boarding the ship and seizing the cargo and sinking the ship after allowing the people to disembark. Granted, those acceptable options would have been most difficult for Germany to carry out, but British naval superiority did not give her license to act viciously in compensation. Too bad; that's war.

Winnifred Quick Van Tongerloo, R.I.P.


FoxNews and the A.P. are reporting that Mrs Van Tongerloo, who was a Second Class passenger on the Titanic, has died at the age of 98. Eight years old at the time, she was one of only 705 people (out of a total of 2200) to escape the disaster and one of the very few survivors still living. Requiescat in pace.


One can view the original New York Times front page from 15 April 1912, including the paper's account of the Titanic's sinking, here.


Speaking of famous shipwrecks, if you happened upon this page in the earliest hours of its life, you may have noticed a post on the Lusitania. As I was still adapting to the blog medium, I was dissatisfied with the effort and have removed it. I may, however, post a modified version again soon.

The Tallis Scholars


The Tallis Scholars -- in my opinion the best mixed choir in the world today -- have a new website. If you have never heard their singing, please run to the record store when you have finished reading this. Under the direction of Peter Phillips, The Tallis Scholars have established and preserved a distinctive sound, marked by crystalline tone and flawless tuning in the finest English choral tradition. Focusing, as their name
might suggest, on the 16C, their revival of the penetrating, ineffable beauty of Renaissance sacred music is unmatched.


Being able to hear them live at least once a year is one of the sweetest blessings of living
near New York. They actually sang here twice last season, once in a special benefit
concert for September 11th victims and again later as part of Columbia University’s series on music during the reign of Queen Mary I. On the latter occasion, they joined with two other choirs to sing Thomas Tallis’s spectacular (with the emphasis on the spectacle) 40-part motet "Spem in alium," which for obvious reasons one rarely hears in live performance. Included on the new site are programs for their upcoming concerts, and this year’s American tour promises to be no less splendid.


I am particularly excited at the prospect of hearing them sing William Byrd’s Mass for
Four Voices. Of all that master composer's great works, this one is my favorite because of a single line: his movingly defiant setting of the phrase Et Unam Sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam in the Credo. Although he enjoyed certain privileges under Elizabeth I and wrote some music for the new Protestant service, Byrd remained a faithful Catholic and suffered spiritual anguish as a result. The titles of his three great Masses (for Three, Four, & Five voices) are telling. The composer wrote them in such few parts because he intended them to be sung in the secret liturgies of the recusant safe houses.

Quakerism, Part II


As is the case with many sects, one can find in the Quaker belief system grains of truth. Particularly interesting is their appreciation of the value of silence. Catholics share this, having always understood that it is through sequestering oneself from the banal din of ordinary life that one can truly open one’s ears to hear the voice of God and, by steps, rise to the heights of contemplation. The rule of silence is therefore fundamental to the discipline of most religious orders.


But the Quaker understanding is flawed because it proposes a false dichotomy between
silence and liturgy, which the Friends reject. The traditional Catholic liturgy, however, incorporates silence, even demanding it at its central moment. (Indeed, one of the objections to the Novus Ordo Missae is that it offers precious little time for quiet prayer, either for the congregation or the priest.)


The traditional liturgy reflects the understanding that silence is necessary but not sufficient; left on our own in our human weakness, after a while most of us will find that our minds drift into distractions. Unless we have advanced very far in the spiritual life (and even then), we require assistance, not just to help us focus but also to lift us to a higher level than we could otherwise reach. It is no coincidence that the transcendent tones and rhythms of chant achieved their perfection in the monasteries.


This flaw in the Quaker understanding of silence is rooted in a more fundamental weakness in the religion: a subjectivity that deprecates as unnecessary externals and inventions such things as rituals, sacraments, and creeds. Protestantism's doctrine of private judgment taken to its logical conclusion, the Quaker veneration of the individual's "inner light" is historically interesting as a forerunner of the widespread embrace of subjectivity that emerged in the following centuries and prevails even today.

350 candles on the Quaker Oat cake


Last month marked the 350th anniversary of the advent of the Society of Friends, better
known by the originally derogatory nickname “Quakers”. The Economist commemorated the occasion with a short article .


Now, I dislike -- spiritually, morally, and epistemologically -- their radical subjectivism. Neither do I have any use for their absolute pacifism and scorn for the
conventions of courtesy and deference (a sort of soft leveling tendency).
I do, however, sympathize with their plight in 17C England, which was similar to that of English Catholics. One must also admire William Penn for his loyalty to the Catholic king, James II, who removed the Quakers’ legal disadvantages. When other dissenting groups, which had also benefited from James’s Declaration of Indulgence, deserted his cause during the so-called Glorious Revolution, Penn stood firm for his king.


Sympathy, however, does have its limits. It is amusing, for example, to see Voltaire lay
off the Catholics for a while and turn his satire on the Friends.

Grazie, Giuseppe.


I am a newcomer to Blogsville and still move about the neighborhood rather uncertainly. Happily for me, therefore, my old friend Mr De Feo has discovered my presence (is there a directory of Blogs out here somewhere?) and kindly showed up with the virtual equivalent of a fruit basket: a link to my page and a recommendation to his readership. For that I heartily thank him. As he and I are similar in our values and temperament, if you like his page, you might like mine as well. I apologize for its rudimentary condition and paucity of content at the moment; some design improvements and new posts should be up soon. But now it is time for tea.

London, count your blessings


The July/August issue of Archaeology magazine has an interesting article about Roman Britain’s first capital, Colchester, which was sacked by Boudica in the first century AD and subsequently restored. (Unfortunately, only an abstract is available online; perhaps your local library subscribes to the print edition if you do not.) According to an archaeologist digging there now, Colchester might have retained its pre-eminence had the Romans rebuilt it not, as they did, atop the ruins of the previous city but rather “[a] few miles closer to the mouth of the Colne.” Alas, however, for Colchester, it was not to be, and a certain minor town on the Thames would attain to glory in its stead.

Take up the White Man’s religion


In his most recent column, the indispensable John Derbyshire writes about Rudyard
Kipling. Literally as a footnote to the piece, Mr Derbyshire has this to say about the poet’s
spirituality:


“Kipling's religion was extremely peculiar, and I am not sure that anyone has got to the
bottom of it. He seems to have believed, at least for a spell, that the English were
descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel.”

This unusual notion is known as British Israelism. "Peculiar" it most definitely is. Now I knew, of course, that Kipling believed his nation had a special destiny to spread liberty and civilization to the rest of the world, but I was not aware that he took it so far as to join the nuts who would write the English into the Bible. (Heaven knows I am as Anglophilic as anyone, but this is ridiculous.) Frankly, it lowers him in my estimation. If indeed he did hold such beliefs, I only hope his reasons for doing so were more intellectually coherent than this nonsense, which is ably demolished by the good people at Catholic Answers.

More true today than in 1820

"'L'Europe,' a celebrated writer has recently said, 'fait aujourd'hui pitié à l'homme d'esprit et horreur à l'homme vertueux.'"
("Europe . . . is pitied by men of spirit and abhorred by men of virtue.")
-- Prince Klemens von Metternich, Secret Memorandum to Tsar Alexander I


I very nearly titled this page "l'homme d'esprit" in reference to this quotation, but had I given it a French name, I should have (justifiably) never heard the end of it.


Now a question: try as I might, I have been unable to discover the identity of the "celebrated writer" to whom Prince Metternich is referring here. I suspect it is Metternich himself, but if anyone knows otherwise, please e-mail me.