Charles Coulombe
and for Unam
THE LORD OF THE RINGS--- A CATHOLIC VIEW
Charles Coulombe
I think part of the problem here is many posters don't understand the institution of the monarchy or the sacral culture that is present in a Catholic confessional state - probably because that due to liberalism none exist in the world. I like Mr. Coulombe's description:
"Directly accessible to us is the medieval intelligentsia's perception of its own culture and society. In assessing their own world, medieval intellectuals were heavily conditioned by a persistent idealism that saw in society around them signs of the earthly incarnation of the Heavenly City. The perception of the early-twelfth-century poet Bernard of Morval was the base line in Medieval assessment: "God's own nation, God's own congregation. Magnificent towers, fair homeland of flowers, thou country of life [Trans. E.J. Martin].
The central dogma of the Incarnation likewise governed the social perceptions of medieval people. They were preconditioned by the dogma of the Incarnation, and the philosophy of "realism" which underlies it, to find the ideal within the material, the beautiful within the ugly, the moral and peaceful in the midst of violence and disorder. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among usÖfull of grace and truth." Since everything was of divine creation, medieval intellectuals had no doubt that all the pieces would ultimately fit together in an idealistic, morally committed structure. Whatever they saw or experienced was part of a divine manifestation.
The Catholic or universal Church does not merely aim to be an aggregation of particular Christian communities and of the believers composing them; she regards herself as a superior power, as a reality distinct from and independent of the individuals belonging to the fold. If the Idea, that is, the general or universal, were not a reality, "the Church" would be a mere collective term, and the particular churches, or rather the individuals composing them, would be the only realities. Hence, the Church must be [Ultra-] realistic, and declare with the Academy [Plato's School]: Universals are real. Catholicism is synonymous with [Ultra-] realism.
These notions had political repercussions as well. If a given Pope or Emperor were evil, this was not held to diminish the essential goodness of the Institutions which they headed. Moreover, resistance to evils committed by Pope or Emperor did not necessarily imply disloyalty to Church or Empire.
Similarly, the doctrine grew up on the national level of the "King's Two Bodies." The Body Political was simply the King as embodiment of the Crown. He never died, nor could do any wrong. He was Crowned and anointed by God through the medium of the country's leading prelate, and in some places was held to have miraculous powers. Loyalty to the King was indeed a holy obligation.
But there also subsisted in the person of the King the Body natural. This was the human being who wore the Crown at the moment. He could sin, he could err, he would die. If he stepped out of bounds, if he broke the law, then loyalty demanded he be compelled to step back within its bounds. Hence Magna Carta is couched as a gracious confirmation of the rights of his Bishops and Barons by a loving King. We moderns might consider it an exercise in hypocrisy, since we know that King John was forced to sign it by the great men of his realm. But it would not have been seen that way by either the King or the Magnates.
This is because, for the Medievals, Law was also seen as something self-existent; it bound King and Subjects alike. It could not be created, and legislation in our sense did not exist. Rather, it was something to be discovered and concretely applied to any given situation. It was thus considered natural that different provinces should have wildly differing systems of law, and that the King should reign in each province in accord with its particular legal code.
But that reign was, in itself, a very intangible thing. The medieval world distinguished between authority and power. Authority, which came from God, was the right to say what ought to be done; power was the ability to make it happen. In a word, it was the difference between a doctor's authority to prescribe, and his patient's power not to fulfil that prescription. Without the Secret Police and Internal Revenue of the Modern State, the King's power outside his capital, palaces, and estates was limited. Power was widely diffused among the Church, nobility, and guilds. But the King's authority, subject to the law, was unlimited. Hence, although there were no FBI nor RCMP to enforce it, the King's Peace was observed on the King's Highways. When private citizens or groups suppressed banditry, they did not (although unsubsidised by and often unknown to the King) enforce peace on their own account, but in the name of the King. If His Majesty wanted to bring a restive city or great lord to heel, he must declare them outside his protection --- "outlawed." In a word, the Medieval state, to a degree unbelievable to us to-day, rested upon an act of collective Faith, a product of Neo-Platonism.
This being true of national entities, it was truer still of the Holy Roman Empire. In theory, the Empire had never died. Rather, it encompassed all of Christendom, and its frontiers ran wherever a baptised Christian lived. Founded by Constantine and renewed (in the West) by Charlemagne, it formed the psychological and spiritual bedrock of all European governance. As Viscount Bryce puts it:
The realistic philosophy, and the needs of a time when the only notion of civil or religious order was submission to authority, required the World State to be a monarchy: tradition, as well as the continued existence of a part of the ancient institutions, gave the monarch the name of Roman Emperor. A king could not be universal sovereign, for there were many kings: the Emperor must be universal, for there had never been but one Emperor; he had in older and brighter days been the actual lord of the civilised world; the seat of his power was placed beside that of the spiritual autocrat of Christendom. His functions will be seen most clearly if we deduce them from the leading principle of medieval mythology, the exact correspondence of earth and heaven [Neo-Platonism again! CAC]. As God, in the midst of the celestial hierarchy, rules blessed spirits in Paradise, so the Pope, His vicar, raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigns over the souls of mortal men below. But as God is Lord of earth as well as of heaven. So must he (the Imperator coelestis ) be represented by a second earthly viceroy, the Emperor ( Imperator terrenus), whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this present world the soul cannot act save through the body, while yet the body is no more than an instrument and means for the soulës manifestation, so there must be a rule and care of menës bodies as well as their souls, yet subordinated always to the well-being of that element which is the purer and more enduring. It is under the emblem of soul and body that the relation of the papal and imperial power is presented to us throughout the Middle Ages. The Pope, as Godës Vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the Emperor, as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their dealings with one another that they are able to pursue undisturbed the spiritual life, and thereby attain the same supreme and common end of everlasting happiness. In view of this object his chief duty is to maintain peace in the world, while towards the Church his position is that of Advocate or Patron, a title borrowed from the practise adopted by churches and monasteries of choosing some powerful baron to protect their lands and lead their tenants in war. The functions of Advocacy are twofold: at home to make the Christian people obedient to the priesthood, and to execute priestly decrees upon heretics and sinners; abroad to propagate the Faith among the heathen, sparing not to use carnal weapons. Thus does the Emperor answer in every point to his antitype the Pope, his power being yet of a lower rank, created on the analogy of the papalÖThus the Holy Roman Church and the Holy Roman Empire are one and the same thing, seen from different sides; and Catholicism, the principle of the universal Christian society, is also RomanismÖ
H.H. Leo XIII also gives an insight into that lost culture
"There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies. Christian Europe has subdued barbarous nations, and changed them from a savage to a civilized condition, from superstition to true worship. It victoriously rolled back the tide of Mohammedan conquest; retained the headship of civilization; stood forth in the front rank as the leader and teacher of all, in every branch of national culture; bestowed on the world the gift of true and many-sided liberty; and most wisely founded very numerous institutions for the solace of human suffering. And if we inquire how it was able to bring about so altered a condition of things, the answer is -- beyond all question, in large measure, through religion, under whose auspices so many great undertakings were set on foot, through whose aid they were brought to completion.
A similar state of things would certainly have continued had the agreement of the two powers been lasting. More important results even might have been justly looked for, had obedience waited upon the authority, teaching, and counsels of the Church, and had this submission been specially marked by greater and more unswerving loyalty. For that should be regarded in the light of an ever-changeless law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II: "When kingdom and priesthood are at one, in complete accord, the world is well ruled, and the Church flourishes, and brings forth abundant fruit. But when they are at variance, not only smaller interests prosper not, but even things of greatest moment fall into deplorable decay."
Beautiful.