The 2024 Crusader Knights' Congress: Republicanism Revisited

The Americanists are at it again.

This Wolf has said before that he does not wish to be a part of the circular firing squad.  Mike Church, Mike Parrot, and Richard Barrett are all good eggs, and anybody who can make his own pickles and cheese has this Wolf's instant respect.  (If I could make my own pickles and cheese, four goats and a jar of cucumber seeds later, it's head for the hills and this blog is history.)  But these guys have all imbibed somewhat of that strange brew of John Locke and William of Ockham, who have tried to separate "Nature" from the Providence of God, and see God as the Great Architect of the Grand Clock Who wound it up during Creation Week and is allowing all the gears and cogs and pendulums of the "Natural Law" to tick-tock away the ages.

Now this Wolf does not deny such a thing as the "natural law" exists.  One could not get much work done if bean seeds grew into oak trees and puppies were born from quarter horses.  The wind blows our sails and the flowing waters turn the millstones. And the sun travels its predictable course across the sky from day to day. This Wolf is not a buffoon.

And so with no further ado, we come to the Covington Preamble:  "Civil Authority is of God, not by any revelation or positive institution, but by the mere fact that God is the author of nature.  Nature imperatively requires that Civil Authority be established and obeyed.  Nature tolerates neither intemperance nor anarchy.  And what nature requires, or forbids with being incompatible with her well being, God commands, or God forbids.  God then forbids anarchy, and in forbidding anarchy He enjoins submission to authority."

First off, as a mathematician, this Wolf was trained to be absolutely finicky about definitions.  So, what exactly IS anarchy?  Is it absolute individualism, where even every member of a family has his own dog, fire, and cabin?  Is anarchy the Law of the Jungle, where the Strongest Prevail?  Is anarchy the freedom from all commitments, and the liberty to do as one pleases.  And just what exactly is Civil Authority?  Is it the authority to regulate roads and bridges, buildings in a congested city, wells, and other public infrastructure?  Is it the ability to subsume property for the "common good"?  In that case, what exactly is the common good?"  

Well, Fr Thomas Crean takes a crack at it: "A common good is a good which can be shared entirely by several persons.  Thus when several persons share a cake, the cake is not a common good, for no one person can have the whole of it.  But when several persons enjoy together some work of art or philosophy, this work is a common good; the enjoyment which one person receives from the work does not lessen that of the others, and may even increase it.  Hence, the notion of ‘common good’ applies directly to spiritual things, such as truth or beauty, which of their nature may be possessed by many without diminution.  Common goods are not harmed as such by being shared and are often enhanced.  Since the spiritual good is attainable only by the intelligence, and since the intellect is man’s highest faculty, man’s highest goods are all common.  Material things, by contrast, are always diminished by being shared."

Well, not exactly, Fr Crean.  A bridge or a lecture hall, for example, is not diminished by being shared, and they are definitely material things.  So are cornfields, forests, and rivers.  Is it necessary that these be regulated by the "commonweal" or can they rather be owned and apportioned by kings?  The Enlightenment would argue for the former, while Christendom the latter.  Now, as per Leo XIII, this Wolf really does not give two howls who is charging the Toll, whether it be His Most Catholic Majesty or El Presidente.  The only concern for the Wolf is that the toll be reasonably fair and proportionate for the joy of crossing the river without getting wet, and other inconveniences.  If the toll is not reasonable and fair, forgive this Wolf for not "submitting to authority" but rather building a canoe and paddling across the river.

Meanwhile, this Wolf humbly suggests that the solution to what ails us is not another grand coffee and donuts party where we trade war stories and become bloated, but rather a fistful of rosaries and a good conference by a Holy Hermit on Devotion to the Immaculate Heart.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.  You are our only hope!