The Downfall Of Christendom

Part Four: With Altar And Throne

Many Traditional Catholics like to romanticize the Kings and Queens just prior to the French Revolution.  Far from being the "Most Catholic Kings" of Pius VI, they were rather, for the most part, opportunists and scoundrels, who conspired against their peers to extend lands, acquire resources, and otherwise increase their coffers.  And the clerics of the period were no better.  Nothing epitomizes these times like Cardinal Richelieu.  About him a pope is said to have famously quipped: "If God exists, the cardinal will probably have a lot to explain to him; if God does not exist, the cardinal did his job perfectly."  Making alliances with Protestant England and the Netherlands during the Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648 in order to make for a balance of power that extended the conflict, he did many other things to further the plans of the Jews.  He promoted maritime power, centralized the monarchy at the expense of local dukes and prelates, making France into the template that future political entities would emulate.  

Meanwhile, the Thirty Years War, while accomplishing nothing politically, did succeed in destroying countless archives and ancient manuscripts and works of art, the first great blow to the material prowess of Christendom.  Lost to civilization is the story of how Benedictine Monks perfected beer, developed most modern dog, horse, and cattle breeds, vastly improved horticulture, and created the vast array of foods we enjoy today, from cheese to pastries to sausage.  Also lost to civilization were the annals of many a great saint who would lay incorrupt, along with the location of their very graves.

For their part, the Jews, at the dawn of the 17th Century, established what would be two far reaching projects.  On the 31st of December 1600, a group of influential English Merchants and Traders got approval from Queen Elizabeth to form the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies", better known as the British East India Company.  Meanwhile, across the English Channel, about the same time, on the 20th of March 1602, the "States General of the Netherlands" granted the charter for the "Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie", abbreviated as the "VOC", and better known to the world as the Dutch East India Company.  In a mere century and a half, between them, they would command three quarters of international trade and commerce, and become powerful enough to field their own armies and navies, and the governors of their colonies would become sovereigns in their own right, having all the political power abroad as their peers in Europe.  These were the foundations of the great multinational companies, and survive today in the entities of British Petroleum and Dutch Royal Shell.

Meanwhile, the waxing powers of Britain and France competed with each other in carving and gutting the Spanish Empire like a fat pig.  The English would specialize in North America and the Pacific Rim, while the French ventured mostly into Africa, although they would clash with the British repeatedly in North America too.

Against this backdrop of shifting political intrigue, the Jews would foment among the masses a taste for the worldly at the expense of the spiritual, and business at the expense of prayer.  Ever so slowly, the ancient admonitions against usury were dissipated, as the nobility abandoned their commitments to their serfs and rather consolidated fiefs into the "enclosure movement", as the raising of cattle and sheep became more profitable, thanks to manipulation of markets, for a time after the "Protestant Reformation", and many peasants were cast from their homes and lands of yore to seek their fortunes as mercenaries, and, in some cases, prostitutes.  This was the era of the paupers made famous by the works of Charles Dickens.  These would evolve into the disenfranchised "proletariat" for whom the communes would have appeal- but let us save that story for the next phase.

What was slowly happening was the focus was shifting.  For centuries, men and women had endured the privations and hardships of this "valley of tears" with hope for the Blessed Life to Come.  But now, the supernatural would be replaced with a natural longing for a happy home on earth, existing in the environment of utopia, the workers' paradise, or whatever else one wished to call the promised land of "Liberalism".  The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ would be replaced by the Royal Road of Progress, which was paved with political reforms and constitutions that guaranteed the populace would no longer be tyrannized by their sovereigns.  This was the age of the "enlightenment".

This was also the age of the decline of the arts and music, even though it was extolled as the progress of man from "Popery and Monkish Superstitions", to the world of Mozart and Bach, the world of Shakespeare and Don Quixote.  The Libertines did not mind if Altar and Throne were in the background.  They were nice for weddings, funerals, and holidays, but the foreground would now be occupied by business, the art of making money, and the art of extravagant entertainment.  The time had come once again for bread and circuses, to eat, drink and be merry, for wine, women, and song.   The Communion of Saints could eat cake,

During this period, the popes showed themselves more interested in the political intrigues concerning the Papal States than being Shepherds of Souls.  The Courts of the Vatican became as riotously corrupt as those of the great monarchs and nobles across Europe.  Indifferentism abounded as Protestants and Catholics and even Muslims increasingly collaborated with business enterprises.  

The World, Mr Beale, was becoming a business.