The Shape of Things to Come

Life has a melody, a rhythm of notes that becomes our existence when played in harmony with God's plan.

Dearest readers-

Thanks to everyone who has been a faithful visitor to this blog for the past (nearly four) years. We recently passed 100,000 visitors and that's pretty exciting.

As you may have been able to guess, the American Inquisition has kind of run out of steam; we've had a good run and I'd like to thank my co-blogger, Honorius, as well as all of our readers for making this what is (in my mind) a successful blog-run.

I cannot, at present, tell you what will become of this blog (or of me), since I haven't finalized those plans yet. I plan on leaving the blog up, as we still generate a fair amount of traffic on the old historical posts, which is nice to see. I continue to contend that our quest for historical objectivity and the laying bare of biases (and subsequent sweeping away of them) in the historical discipline is of utmost importance to our own intellectual, collective growth as a species. To that end, I won't be taking down the blog or anything like that since, I hope, my own (exceedingly small) contribution has been (to a limited extent) to try to challenge our common conceptions about various events in our past.

I will (I hope) get around to (at the very least) editing the sidebar and providing some quick links to the more popular historical posts and whatnot here.

Updates regarding our respective departures from this blog elsewhere will of course be made (although I do not know that Honorius plans to blog somewhere else, but I do) here, but you shouldn't expect any more substantive posts here anymore.

So, the shape of things to come is (as yet) somewhat ambiguous, but I'm sure if you brought me the Arrow of Apollo I could tell you a few more things. ;-)

So long, gentle readers, and thanks for all the fish.

~

Our Lady of the Snows, pray for us.

Valentine's Day brought to you by St. Valentine...and the Onion

I Wish I'd Spent Valentine's Day Eating A Prix Fixe Dinner, But I Was Too Busy Getting Beheaded

Is it Valentine's Day already? My word! How the time does fly. I might have missed the day entirely had I not caught a glimpse of all the young couples walking hand in hand this evening, filling the tables of every fancy French restaurant in town. And what better way to celebrate this fine holiday than sharing a scrumptious, fixed price, three-course menu with your beloved? Lord knows that's what I'd be doing tonight if my head hadn't been severed from my body in the third century!

I'm sorry. I hope all this talk about my gruesome martyrdom doesn't put you off your moules du jour.

On this special day for lovers young and old, few things can top a gourmet meal served by candlelight on small, tasteful plates. It's much more intimate than cards or candy, and it certainly beats meeting a grisly end at the hands of the Church's enemies. So by all means, enjoy your duck confit and chocolate mousse while you stare into the eyes of the person you love. What a romantic way to celebrate the 1,739th anniversary of the day I was bludgeoned to within an inch of my life and then publicly executed!

Go on, have another bite. Savor it.

I bet some of you are on your very first date. Lucky you! The moon is full, and the night seems ripe for romance. Also, I notice you all still have your heads attached to your shoulders. Bravo. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of you little devils snuck out before the last course to do some midnight kissing by the lake. Just don't forget to settle your tab before you go—you wouldn't want to get caught by a police officer or a servant of Claudius II during a time when minor offenses were settled by violent beheadings!

Then how would you enjoy your after-dinner digestif?

Yes, if things had gone a bit differently, I'm sure I would have loved to spend the first Valentine's Day sampling a variety of goat cheese and wine pairings, but alas, I was a little preoccupied by the severing of my spinal cord, which caused my brain-spattered skull to go bouncing down the streets of Rome. Ooh, lobster ravioli, how grand! You simply must try the lobster ravioli, seeing as how you're still alive and not just a bloodied stump of a torso on legs.

My, my, just looking at all those delicious appetizers and delicately seasoned entrées is enough to make me wish I had never been convicted of marrying Christian couples in the early days of the Roman empire, beaten with clubs, stoned, and fed a pan seared sea bass with stuffed artichoke hearts. Oh, wait. That last part wasn't me! That's just how you've chosen to commemorate my painful, unnecessary death. Please, everyone, have another round on me.

Why not try the '97 Bordeaux? I love a good Bordeaux. That's what I would order on a day as special as Valentine's Day or, as I like to call it, "St. Valentine Gets His Ass Handed to Him Day."

I knew the people who killed me, you know. They were the corrupt guards of Emperor Claudius, and they snatched me from my home in the middle of the night. I was dragged through the streets, my legs and arms torn to ribbons by the glass and stones my neighbors hurled at me. I was propped up in the center of town and made to look the fool while large men took turns violently beating me with anything they could find as I slipped in and out of consciousness. I can still hear them laughing.

How rude of me! Blabbering on about myself when this is clearly your special day. Where's my head? Oh, here it is. In my hands. Because it was chopped off by savages who wished to punish me for practicing my faith. That's how I celebrated Valentine's Day—also known as the Feast of St. Valentine, who just so happens to be me. A man who had nothing to do with going out and making goo-goo eyes over an overpriced steak.

After all, it's a little hard for the man of the hour to eat a steak when his mouth is no longer attached to his esophagus.

And what's all this I hear about Valentine's Day getting too commercial? Oh, so just now it's becoming a little superficial for you? I wish you could have seen the second Valentine's Day in A.D. 271, the year after I died. There weren't a whole lot of chocolates or overpriced cruise packages to be found back then. Mostly just my mother crying.

Well, anyway, Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Go forth and have fun! Gorge yourselves on succulent meats, put on a Nick Drake CD to drown out the bloodthirsty howls of the hateful who clamor for your execution, and—please, I insist—engage in hour upon hour of the kind of passionate, unbridled intercourse that I never experienced because I took a vow of celibacy.

Jerks.

Sanctus Valentinus, ora pro nobis!!!

An Analysis of Evil, Reprise- Battlestar Galactica

Wherein Jason defends a bunch of evil robots.

[Okay, yes, sorry, I know I've been MIA for like 189203 years. But here I am, and reprising an old favorite- the Evil in Pop Culture series! That makes up for it, right?]

The point of the Evil in Pop Culture series was to offer (in, admittedly, a tongue-in-cheek sort of way) a counter-position to the notions of "evil" being offered to us by Hollywood. I chose three subjects for this- Narnia, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings- based on their rampant popularity and the (apparently) cut and dry representations of "good" and "evil" that they presented us with.

Over the course of the blogposts, I attempted to strip the symbolism away (for example, Darth Vader wears BLACK and is therefore EVIL) and ask what, if anything, these supposedly "bad" characters had done to deserve our ire. I shall now be undertaking this endeavor again, and this time my target shall be Battlestar Galactica (the best television show ever created, and on this point, at least, I shall brook no argument). Specifically, we shall be discussing the show's overarching enemies, the Cylon.

My dear readers should be aware that I shall not be induling in spoiler-free analysis, so if you haven't watched BSG- or you aren't caught up yet [get on the ball, man!]- you should probably wait until you have/are.

~

Oh my gods, the Cylons are coming!
Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the One True God

The first problem we immediately encounter in any discussion of the Cylon race is that they are, in fact, a race of robots created by humans. As we initially learned in the mini-series and was reinforced for us thereafter many times, 1. The Cylons were created by man 2. They evolved 3. They rebelled 4. There are many copies and 5. They have a plan.

The series basically opens with the Cylon attack on what we know as the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, the twelve human worlds in the BSGverse. Through back-story we find out that the Cylons were originally mechanical slaves created by humans to make life easier on the Twelve Colonies; after they became self-aware, the Cylons rebelled against their masters and, after a bloody struggle, a truce was declared, and the Cylons left the Twelve Colonies for their own homeworld.

After not hearing from the Cylons for forty years, the Cylons launch a devastating attack against the Colonies, and the only humans that escape are those who, under the enlightened stewardship of the new President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, Laura Roslin (First of Her Name and Prophet of the Gods, etc., but this is beside the point), assemble a fleet and leave the Colonies for good. The humans are initially numbered at around 50,000 survivors, and the audience's sympathy is immediately placed with the humans, since a) we are human and b) the humans are being attacked by evil robots.

Okay, so, yes, any defense of the Cylon race will have to initially overcome two primary objections: 1. that the Cylons are evil robots and 2. that the attack on the Colonies was unjustified, grotesquely immoral and unforgivable. I will deal with the latter point first.

Nobody Blames the Flood

There are two avenues we must traverse in order to get a comprehensive picture of the Cylon culpability (or lack thereof) in the supposed holocaust of mankind at the opening of Battlestar Galactica. Firstly, we must question whether or not this so-called "holocaust" actually happened, and secondly, we must ask why it happened.

Now, the entire premise of the series is that the Battlestar Galactica is defending a fleet of the remnants of humanity (assembled by the Prophet Laura Roslin, see above); the opening credits reinforce this premise, offering us a "survivor count" as the rag-tag fleet seeks to find a way to Earth, and a new home. However, events later in the series actually point to the unreliability of this so-called "survivor count"; Starbuck's return to Caprica and the arrival of the Battlestar Pegasus BOTH serve to undermine the credibility of the human claim that they are "all that is left", since in both cases they discovered more humans that survived the attacks. As such, we cannot take the survivor count in the credits as an actual indicator of reality.

If there were survivors on Caprica, which undoubtedly bore the worst of the attacks, and indeed other surviving colonial vessels, this calls into question the entire "holocaust" of mankind. Although some human estimates put the total killed at around 50 billion, this seems unlikely. The scenes we see of the initial attack on the colonies are limited; we see Caprica getting nuked repeatedly, but otherwise we do not see anyone else getting nuked. Roslin reports that a number of other colonies were nuked, but we have no confirmation of this.

Indeed, Starbuck's return to Caprica- as well as the Helo/Sharon subplot- both indicate that there are a number of cities completely intact (albeit largely devoid of people), which does not square very well with a massive nuclear holocaust. Our lack of non-biased confirmation of these attacks (since Colonial claims about these attacks are clearly biased) calls into doubt whether or not this so-called holocaust actually happened at all; given, further, the human-like form that the Cylons take (the "skin jobs"), it makes little sense that the Cylons would seek to turn the Colonies into a string of burning cinders, unusable for anything.

Even if we accept the nuking of Caprica as fact (although, as previously noted, it had to be limited in some sense, since we see fairly large swathes of it- including cities- completely untouched), this reduces the Cylon assault on the colonies to a) nuking Caprica, the political, economic, cultural and military capital of the Colonies and b) the destruction of the human military (save, of course, for the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus).

Although the nuking of parts of a planet is of course Rather Unfortunate, it must be noted that Caprica, as the center of Colonial politics and the Colonial military, was essentially a target. Collateral damage, though tragic, is more or less inevitable, and, given our own inexperience with inter-planetary warfare, it would be wrong of us to judge them for it. Furthermore, we must consider (especially given that it is later revelead that the Cylons have a plan for the Colonies, and then, later, Cylon regret over the attack) that the nuking of Caprica (and other Colonies, if in fact that happened) may have been an accident. Nuclear weapons are repeatedly shown as being used by both the humans and the Cylons in space combat, and given the disposition of the fleet around Caprica (we see this briefly when Helo and Boomer are crashing on Caprica), it is entirely possible nukes were getting fired off and sucked into Caprica's gravity well. Tragic, yes, but also accidental and therefore morally neutral.

Since we cannot adequately establish the true extent of the so-called holocaust of humanity on the Colonies because of the unreliability of the sources we are presented with, I am afraid we must, at most, admit only the destruction of the human military (perfectly reasonable in a war) and that of some of Caprica (unfortunate, but inevitable).

Having absolved the Cylons of their guilt by exposing the attack on the Colonies for what it really was (a largely military strike, not intentional genocide), we can move on to the question of motivation. Here, again, we find the situation much more complex than the anti-cylon, racist humans would have us believe.

The First Cylon War was, of course, the rebellion of the Cylons against their enslavement by humans, and, following this, we see a repeated trend of humans refusing to recognize Cylons as anything more than machines. President Roslin repeatedly airlocks Cylons on the grounds that, "they are dangerous machines", despite the fact that they look just like people (not to mention are capable of creative reason, among other things), and the racist term "skin job" is used to refer to the non-centurian cylon models.

All of this, despite the fact that, from the beginning, the humans are CLEARLY in the moral wrong. Enslaving a race for convenience is of course gravely immoral, and Intelligence- artificial or not- must be respected. Thus, we see a situation: the Cylons, mistreated, disrespected and enslaved, break free from their human masters and leave to find their own home.

Then they return and, in a devastating attack, take over the Twelve Colonies. This attack certainly seems immoral, but, as we find out later, this attack was actually a response to deliberate provocation by the humans. Admiral Adama relates his part in a black-ops mission over the Armistice Line, a clear violation of the Human-Cylon truce. Adama takes responsibility for the ensuing Second Cylon War on the grounds that his mission showed the Cylons that the humans would never leave them alone, would always be the war-mongers, always try to destroy them at some point. In other words, a classic "it's either me or you" situation, which provides fairly reasonable pretext for a pre-emptive strike (although it's pre-emptive nature could, of course, be debated, given the mission over the Line).

As President Roslin explains to Adama, however, he cannot- and indeed should not- take sole responsibility for the attack, because it was a complex situation with more than an easy answer as to the Why of it. This is of course true, and, as Roslin points out, Adama cannot solely take the blame for a War that the Admiralty was obviously trying to instigate. In other words, we find out that the humans were trying to start a war with the Cylons. And they certainly got one.

Does this, however, justify a pre-emptive strike? We can safely assume that Adama's was not the only mission sent into Cylon territory; an Admiralty spoiling for a war (presumably because they were unhappy with the current civilian administration) would not send just *one* recon mission when trying to assess an enemy's strength. Indeed, the massive expansion of the military (we are informed that they are huge numbers of battlestars in the human fleet- well over a hundred, whereas in the First War there were 12) implies a highly aggressive foreign policy.

It seems, therefore, that we can absolve the Cylons of any "blame" or other kind of moral "guilt" on the grounds that 1. the attack was not as bad as human propagandists would have you think and 2. the attack was merely a response to decades of belligerence, hostility and racism on the part of the humans, and an act of self-preservation by the Cylons.

We may also absolve the Cylons of blame on slightly more ambigious religious grounds. The Twelve Colonies are largely under the sway of one religion, that of the Lords of Kobol, and it seems that the prophet Pythia foretold the exodus of humanity seen in the show. Baltar, in season four, points out that these kinds of disasters have struck humanity before, and that, "nobody blames the flood" because it's a force of nature; we may similarly analogize the Cylons as that proverbial flood, set in motion by the divine will of the Lords of Kobol, for some mysterious purpose.

We may also note that the One True God of the Cylons also has a plan to which the Cylons are (usually... or at least presumably) party to. This plan involves (as the angel that Baltar sees notes) the ending of the human race. So, if there is any blame to be had for the attack on the Colonies (and I am not sure there is), we may place it either at the feet of the Lords of Kobol, or at the feet of the One True God.

Frakking Toasters

Having sufficiently dealt with the Cylon attack on the Colonies, we must now turn to the character of the Cylons themselves. Are they, in fact, just evil robots? Can robots be evil? Are they evil more-than-robots?

The argument that Cylons are simply evil robots is, in many ways, impossible to defend. Throughout the course of the show we see Cylons that love, hurt, desire, lie, and so on. In other words, they experience emotions, and, as Dr. Baltar points out to Admiral Cain, Cylons are susceptible to the same kinds of psychological pressures as humans. Furthermore, there are multiple Cylons who side with the humans- and, if you accept the humans as "good", then this immediately deflates any attempt at painting Cylons as universally and ubiquitously evil.

The existence, furthermore, of a Cylon religion seriously undercuts claims that the Cylons are simply machines. Cylons can feel, think, reason, pray; they do everything, in short, that humans do, and so the continued insistence by many of the humans in the show that Cylons are nothing more than walking toasters is bizarrely inexplicable.

Indeed, having diminished the so-called holocaust of humanity to its appropriate size (that is, not a holocaust, probably), we see the humans engaging in far worse behavior than the Cylons. In the Black Market episode, we see evidence for pedophilia existing in the fleet, and we are repeatedly faced with Cylons being raped by humans (Gina- repeatedly on the Pegasus; Athena- once on the Galactica, and then threatened with it again). The charge that the Cylons torture humans can immediately be countered with noting that the humans do the same things to the Cylons and it is wartime.

We must, furthermore, note that the Cylons express regret over the assault on the Twelve Colonies and send an emissary to the humans to that effect; they inform the humans that the attack was a mistake and that they are leaving the Colonies for another world. Roslin and Adama roundly refuse to even consider this offer, and insist that the Colonies are a nuclear wasteland (despite evidence to the contrary) so that they can continue to prop up their own administration under the guise of perpetual warfare and fear.

Later, when the Cylons discover the human settlement on New Caprica, they arrive as Allies and Friends of the President of the Colonies and attempt to live with the humans there. This attempt is met with disbelief and horror by the humans who (laboring under the delusions foisted on them by the Roslin-Adama coalition of Orwellian control-fear) believe the Cylons to be evil (not to mention the ingrained racism that the humans already have). The Cylon attempts to live peacefully with the humans is repeatedly foiled by the humans, and the Cylons only reluctantly take measures to restore control (which ultimately fail). The use of human suicide bombers by the resistance, later, is met with abject horror by the Cylons, who are stunned at this gross disrespect for human life.

So Say We All

What we see, in short, throughout the series is the use of two primary elements of propaganda against a race of people and machines (the Cylons) by the humans. The first element is the supposed annhilation of humanity, and the second is that the Cylons are dangerous machines. These elements of propaganda are repeatedly used by the coalition of a political strongwoman (Roslin) and a military strongman (Adama) to coerce the human population in accepting their leadership, but in reality we see very little real basis for these claims.

The Cylons, though certainly dangerous (but, to be fair, so are humans, so holding that aganist them is unfair), are tragic and flawed, but not evil. Their culpability in the attacks on the colonies is minimal, and their repeated attempts at trying to live their lives according to God's Plan for them are admirable, as are their attempts to make peace with a human government that, having gotten the war it was spoiling for, consistenly refused to consider the Cylons as people.

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.

Christmas Reflections

As Christmas approaches I think it is an important time to reflect on how far we have come in the Church as far as papal liturgy and ceremony is concerned. Benedict has been pope for only four years, and what a gift his papacy has been for the Church! One of the greatest gifts we have is our faith and I think a little triumphalism, not pride, but a celebration is very fitting, especially on a day such as Christmas. I feel that Benedict has brought back some of that much needed triumphalism. The papacy of John-Paul II witnessed unprecedented apologizing on behalf of the Church: to Jews for the Holocaust, Muslims for the Crusades, and a host of other things. These were all controversial and I don't agree with most of it frankly, but that's another discussion.

In any case, one can't help but get the feeling that as a Catholic we should be ashamed of everything that happened prior to Vatican II in the history of our Church, as well as the scandals of priests, basically that we should just be ashamed to be Catholic in general. This shame is placed on us from all sides of the spectrum and quite honestly I think anti-Catholicism has become more subtle and overt than ever. This of course is exacerbated by the ignorance of most Catholics themselves who are defenseless when their faith is challenged by others or who are convinced of these anti-Catholic lies floating around. Returning to Benedict, his approach to Catholicism has been called "Affirmative Orthodoxy," that is to say, it is a view of Catholicism not as restrictions, rules and an attempt by an institution to just "bring you down" or "guilt you into feeling bad" but rather it is a lifestyle and a choice that frees us and opens the path to God and good Christian living.

Therefore! If I may conclude my rant and be so ultramontane I propose (perhaps prematurely) that for Christmas we follow the example of the Holy Father and celebrate our faith and really try to keep Christ in Christmas. I would recommend that instead of giving a gift that gets old after a month or fussing over a dinner that will provide left overs until Easter, we should buy books that educate us in the faith. None are better than the Benedict's own books. We should teach ourselves about the history of our Church, its sacraments, liturgy, and beliefs so that when people make ignorant comments or blatant lies we can correct them and show that such discrimination is not tolerated, and that we are proud in the ways of our faith, resting assured that it is infallible in the truth of its doctrines. Our faith is the gift of the Incarnation itself, let us not take it for granted!

Urbi et Orbi 2005



Urbi et Orbi 2006



Urbi et Orbi 2007 (after the changing of the guard)



N.B. The New Liturgical Movement blog has posted that Benedict will be in choir dress for the Urbi et Orbi blessing this year, and that he will be wearing a Roman cut chasuble for the Epiphany, followed by a Mass for the Baptism of our Lord celebrated ad orientem in the Sistine Chapel.

Mater Dei, ora pro nobis!!!

On the Modern Navy

Wherein Jason discusses the situation of international waters, piracy, modern navies, and the collapse of the British Empire.

My dear readers will, I hope, forgive me for my long absence, for which I have no reasonable excuse.

Today I would like to discuss the situation of the modern day "navy", international waters, and global piracy. This is something I should have blogged about weeks ago, so that I had some record of what I am going to say, but ah, alas!, I did not, and so I don't. My dear readers will, perhaps, indulge me when I note that I've said all this before (and before the media was reporting on it, yep).

~

You will, I hope, recall the recent profusion of media coverage of the ongoing pirate situation off the coast of western Africa- off Somalia, in fact- a profusion stimulated by the capture of, among other things, a number of weapons and a Saudi oil tanker by African pirates. More recently, it was reported that the pirates had attacked a cruise ship, too.

Before this media attention, I predicted that these things would happen; I don't want to toot my own proverbial horn here, though, so I'll lay out precisely why I thought that it was going to happen. It is, I think, a more or less inevitable situation, for a variety of reasons, one of the principle of which is- you guessed it- the fall of the British Empire and consequent/subsequent decline of Her navy.

~

Many of the things that we take for granted in our modern world are, in fact, things that we should not take for granted. This is, ah, a bit on the stunningly obvious side, but I'm not talking about things like air conditioning, electricity and cars. I am, rather, talking about things like international bodies of law and politics, theories, ideas, concepts- foundational beliefs in our society that are embedded so deeply into our consciousness that we don't even think about them, really.

This might seem like an exaggeration, but I need only point to a concept like, "Innocent until proven guilty", and then note that plenty of societies around the world do not, in fact, subscribe to that precept to make the point, I think.

On a more related note, one of these things that we take for granted in this world is the safe, free and open travel on and over the sea- including, but not limited to, that concept of "international waters" and the lack, frankly, of any serious policing navies in the world.

The sudden appearance of piracy in the news undoubtedly conjured, in the minds of many, images of Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack Sparrow swaggering and Keira Knightley complaining about corsets; this popular cultural association is a simultaneous sign of the general ignorance of the populace as to a number of naval-related things, and (perhaps) a sign of the general success of the British Navy during its heyday. Allow me to elaborate!

~

Many of the principles, assumptions and otherwise that we take for granted (for example, that we can simply hop on a cruise ship without worrying about our safety, or send some cargo overseas without worrying about it reaching its destination) is the product of two forces: firstly, the diminishing ability of pirates to make piracy profitable, and secondly, the ongoing vigilance of the British navy in policing the trade lanes of the world to protect its own economy/merchants/trade.

The popular impression that most people have when you say something like "British navy" is a very large, very powerful navy that accompanied the British Empire and is, therefore, gone now. This is, essentially, fairly true. I shall avoid going into a deep background of the British navy itself, but suffice it to say that the British Empire and Navy shared a symbiotic relationship, and as one grew, the other more or less did, too.

The fact that the sun used to never set on the British Empire, and that the British ruled over a quarter of the globe not so very long ago, should give you some clue as to why their efforts in suppressing piracy are relevant today. That is to say, the efforts of the British, on behalf of their Empire, secured incalculable benefits for the rest of the world, and (to condense, wildly), part of the reason we have enjoyed secure seas for so long (among other things) is because of the British.

The actual suppression of piracy which, in many ways, can be credited to the British (in many respects), is, as I said, one piece of why piracy went away. Another, of course, is that piracy was no longer economical; there are a variety of reasons for these that I am going to crudely condense down into these: firstly, when technology made the leap to non-wooden ships, ships suddenly got vastly more difficult to acquire and, therefore, fewer pirates had them; secondly, pirates need a reason for piracy, and when governments stabilize, there are fewer of them; thirdly, pirates need a market for their goods, and as empires expanded and governments and economies stabilized, piracy was needed less and less.

Hence, the combination of the stabilization of the world under emerging imperial/political orders and the active suppression of piracy by the British led to a situation in which piracy declined significantly (with the possible exception of piracy in Chinese waters, which is, in many ways, entirely different and therefore out of the scope of what I'm saying).

~

So, if a combination of circumstances were capable of producing a world order in which piracy did not flourish, what changed?

Well, a variety of things changed. First of all, the British Empire is essentially gone, as is the British Navy (it pains me to say that, but there it is). Secondly, the post-colonial, post-Cold War era has seen a number of states undergo severe destabilization (like, in this case, Somalia). Thirdly, no international police force has arisen to take the place of the British Empire (there is a reason, after all, we call it the Pax Britannica). Fourthly, the advent of cheap naval technology (like speedboats, engines) and cheap firearms and munitions (machine guns and the like), means that the ability to pirate has been restored because it is no longer prohibitively expensive to do so.

And, perhaps most importantly, it seems (at least to me), that part of the reason nothing has arisen to take the place of the British Navy on the world stage is that there is no longer a country/nation/empire with the will, vision or desire to do so.

The need to suppress piracy and keep their merchants safe was, of course, borne out of what we may see as a "self-interested motive", one which is, in many ways, lacking from modern day nation-states, for a variety of reasons (one of which is, paradoxically, the safety of the seas). However, it is also worth considering that the Great Powers of today's global political situation do not, generally speaking, place the great emphasis upon the navy that the British Empire did. This is, of course, due to things like the advent of air power and nuclear weapons, but also because navies are very expensive, and, although modern-day militaries are certainly large, I would venture to guess that they are not, in fact, proportionally larger than those seen in the heyday of imperialism.

In the absence of immediate self-interest, changing technological spectra and the like, we no longer hear about the glory of a nation's navy, and no nation today places the same emphasis upon theirs that the British did; a navy is not necessary to preserve the safety of the American Empire, the Russian Empire, the Chinese Empire (because these are all empires in some sense, whether we want to call them that or not).

This, in turn, has led to a power vacuum on the high seas, and, in the presence of a variety of factors that make piracy possible and profitable (as in the highly destabilized and economically depressed Somalia, or in the drug-running Caribbean), piracy is now on the rise again.

In short: we are seeing pirates again because 1. being a pirate in certain areas is now profitable 2. there is no one to stop them.

~

Because of the ongoing inability of any one country to deal with these kinds of situations- either because of the lack of a navy, or an unwillingness to use it to police the world's waters- what we are seeing now is a situation that is only going to get worse as time goes on. And, because of the short-sightedness of the world's leaders, it is very possible, and even likely, that very little, if anything, will be done to correct the situation.

Although it is certainly true that, in recent days, some successes have been scored against the pirates, it is worth noting that, for example, taking prisoner (or killing) 37 pirates is not going to make a big difference in the grand scheme of things. When potential pirates around the globe see the captures of multi-million and multi-billion dollar cargoes, huge ransoms paid in and the general success that these Somalian pirates are enjoying, it will almost certainly rise. My prediction a few weeks ago that the Somalians would strike a cruise ship, and that such a thing was only a matter of time, was also validated recently. Cruise ships are, after all, large, defenseless vessels full of wealthy (at least from their perspective) people.

Are we going to see a return to the days of marauding pirates in the Caribbean and elsewhere that the world saw in the 17th century? Probably not. But what we are going to see- unless something happens to galvanize the major powers into action, like the slaughter of a bunch of civilians- is a worsening of the piracy, alongside a general destabilization of the geopolitical global situation.

Things to consider: sometimes, even if it isn't in their direct interest, it may be incumbent upon Great Powers to assume to themselves duties that benefit mankind and civilization writ large.

~

Our Lady, Star of the Sea, pray for us.

St. Wilgefortis

A biretta tip to my Anglo-Catholic senior tutor for showing me this video, I simply cannot get enough of it. It's a song by Rebecca Clamp about St. Wilgefortis. Watch the video, it's very enjoyable, funny, and a wonderful way to learn about one of those more obscure saints (bearded woman saint no less!).

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TYOt2hSPxyQ




St. Wilgefortis, patron saint of bearded women, pray for us!!!

Cardinal Arinze on Liturgical Abuse

An interesting article on Zenit on which Cardinal Arinze comments on liturgical abuse after Vatican II, attributing it mostly to the ignorance of priests and not on malicious intentions.

"CARDINAL: LITURGICAL ERROR OFTEN DUE TO IGNORANCE

Says Mass Is Church's Life and Breath

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 25, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Erroneous applications of liturgical reforms implemented by Vatican II are generally not due to bad intentions, but simply to ignorance, says the Vatican official in charge of liturgy.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, affirmed this to L'Osservatore Romano on Saturday. The cardinal celebrated 50 years as a priest last Sunday.

The cardinal spoke with the Vatican daily about the responsibilities of his dicastery and its role in promoting and protecting the worship of God.

"The liturgy is the heart of the Church," he said. "If the Church were not to celebrate the Eucharist, she would become an obsolete institution." The congregation therefore is not an "ecclesiastical police force" but simply a "promoter of divine worship."

"If the Church doesn't pray, it doesn't live. The liturgy is the respiration of the life of the Church. The Church was born to adore God, to honor and praise him. The Mass is the highest act that the Church can perform; there is nothing higher. This is essentially the center of the activity of this dicastery," the prelate added.

Regarding confusion after the reforms to the liturgy implemented by the Second Vatican Council, the cardinal affirmed that the problem "is not the council itself, but those who have not received it correctly or those who in practice have even rejected it."

Differing views

"There are people who have not digested what Vatican II said, others who pretend to dictate the authentic interpretation of the council spirit, and others who even request a new council," he said.

Nevertheless, Cardinal Arinze affirmed, the situation today is much calmer than 30 years ago.

He contended that many abuses "are not due to bad intentions, but to ignorance. Some do no know, or are not aware that they do not know. They don't know, for example, that words and gestures have roots in the tradition of the Church. Thus, they think themselves more original or more creative changing them.

"Faced with these things, it is necessary to reaffirm that the liturgy is sacred; it is the public prayer of the Church."

The cardinal noted that his dicastery is currently studying possible changes to the liturgy, such as the placement of the sign of peace.

"Often, the significance of this gesture is not fully understood," Cardinal Arinze noted. "It is thought that it is an occasion to give a high-five to friends. Rather, it is a way of saying to the person beside you that the peace of Christ, really present on the altar, is also with all men."

The prelate said that the Church is considering moving the sign of peace to the moment of the offertory, "to create an atmosphere of more recollection while one is preparing for Communion."

"The Pope has asked for a consultation of all the bishops," the cardinal said. "Afterward, he will decide."

To which my reply towards Cardinal Arinze would be, "why was there no structure in place to educate the priests on the reform?" or even better "where were the bishops who attended the council when priests started hacking apart their churches and substituting wine and wafers for coke and crackers?" Perhaps much of the liturgical abuse that has now become legendary fame wasn't based off of bad intentions, but I can't help but question the motivation of some who remain utterly obstinate in their views, refusing to change or reconsider their positions, even when it harms the flock they are trying to serve. I must disagree with his eminence, there was more than just an "oops, my mistake, I'll fix this right away and get back to chant and latin like the documents actually say." There was real destruction, not just of churches and liturgy, but of faith, mostly because these "ignorant priests" didn't care about anyone themselves no matter how much it scandalized the faithful.

As always we must pray for our priests, none of us are perfect people, and as Jesus had Simon so we must help our priests carry the cross that they must shoulder. In these delicate times there must be charity. Charity for the faithful to be patient, and priests to be patient with their flocks. If Vatican II has accomplished anything in regard to the liturgy, I think it has shown us how much we tend to take it for granted, and more importantly, how much we take the Eucharist for granted. "Good" or "Bad" intentions aside, we must all have one intention upon entering into divine worship, orienting ourselves toward God with the intention of offering ourselves to Him on the altar. With humility on both sides of the altar rail I hope that "intentions" won't be a problem as the Church moves to re-orient itself back towards Christ in the liturgy.

Our Lady of the Incarnation, pray for us!!!

Once Upon A Time

There was a time, not too long ago. There were women filled with untold grace, clothed in humility, veiled in virtue, and the goodness of God shone forth from them like the sun, for they made themselves like unto vessels of purity for Him, just as the mother of the Incarnation...



They were mothers...



They were teachers...



And they nourished the poor of Christ...

But the age had come when their virtue seemed all but gone...



In their stead came the proud, the haughty, usurpers of a holy office, and a scandal to the Holy Mother Church that they once loved so dearly...



But there is hope.....





Our Lady, Sedes Sapientiae, Mater Ecclesiae, Virgo Virginis, ora pro nobis!!!