La Perfide Albion

Posted on Friday, 5 October, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

Perfidious Albion is an expression frequently used by French people in regard to the British, and at present is perfectly apposite! I first heard the expression from my French confreres at seminary, though they conceded that I was the most “French” of the English-speakers.

The term comes from the Latin word perfida (by the faith) conventionally meaning treachery and duplicity in politics and diplomacy. The expression is also used in the old Good Friday liturgy in regard to the Jewish people, and has come under harsh criticism on account of the long tradition of anti-Semitism in the Church.

The terms was generalised with the era of the Napoleonic wars, sparked by the excesses of the French Revolution. Today, when there is some minor disagreement between a British person and a French person, the latter will often speak of the Perfide Albion as a joke in the same breath as allusions to the Battle of Waterloo and the burning of St Joan of Arc in Rouen in 1431. Other European countries have also used the expression in their own languages. Polemics over the UK leaving the EU have also served to revive the use of this term in the media.

At this time, my French wife is lapping it up as I find myself a little less nostalgic for the Great Invisible Empire of Romantia. She is a devout Bonapartist and we often joke about our somewhat plain cuisine, and – cheerful facts about the guillotine when I’m in a mood for gallows humour. Stereotyping is a part of our nature, and I often have to remind my wife that Germany was only Nazi for 12 years. My compatriots suffered from Hitler as much as the French did. The country that produced Bach, Beethoven and Goethe moved on after the war and is leading Europe – but Nazism (apart from marginal groups of cranks) is clearly a thing of the past. I was a little less jocular as I faced France in the person of that friendly man at the Prefecture. We triumphalist British are quick to glorify our values of freedom, democracy, human rights, yet our record in the old Empire for atrocities and reneging on deals is appalling. Even Elgar in his day sported an enormous moustache and wrote jingoistic imperial marches, but was a modest and retiring man with his Worcestershire accent, most at home composing beautiful and intimate music. Historical hindsight has enabled us to look on our past with as much shame as the Germans as they move on from their Nazi past.

The British invented the concentration camp during the Boer War, a chilling fact of history. The Sepoy rebels in India were mercilessly blown from cannon and hanged in 1857, even through the Sepoy rebels did horrible things too. The Nazis only continued the tradition of wartime atrocities. The way Ireland has been treated is appalling. The same went for English Roman Catholics in penal times faced with Protestant bigotry and hatred. The list is endless.

There is the French expression – filer à l’anglaise – meaning going away without taking polite leave of your host. Of course we British retorted with the expression taking French leave. I recently read the quip that the sun never sets on the British Empire because God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark! The cynicism and bitterness go back a long way.

Countries are not evil. The problem comes from a small minority of evil people who get themselves into positions of power and influence the population. Conversely, the beauty of a country or nation is brought out by an equally small minority of people who found self-knowledge – and therefore the divine – and created reflections or “icons” of that beauty that nurtured them. England (Scotland Wales and Ireland too) is a beautiful country with its history. I see things as a Romantic rather than a realist. William Blake summed it up beautifully in his poem Jerusalem:

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

Of course, the “dark satanic mills” do not necessary mean the factories of the Industrial Revolution but probably the universities of Oxford and Cambridge that educated the political elite. The point is debatable and has already been discussed on this blog. This poem is often sung as a hymn to a tune by Parry in public school chapels and national festivals, and forms a part of that triumphalist tradition – which from schooldays I found ironic when I discovered who Blake was and what he believed. I have often speculated further about the “dark satanic mills”. The real dark heart of England is the City of London and the banking system of the ultra-rich. It is the domain of people without conscience or empathy, the stuff of conspiracy theories, but also something of which we are aware.

I have lived for long enough in France to see beyond the red wine, fine cuisine and stereotyped images, the sensuous music of Ravel and the impressionist art of Pissaro and Monet. There are dark moments of this country’s history. France under the Occupation was something quite different from the UK where people were generally united against the Jerries. There was a climate of division and suspicion. In 1944 the reprisals against collaborators and women who fell in love with German soldiers were terrible. France has been divided politically ever since then along the lines of attitudes in regard to extreme right-wing politics. Algeria (like British India and Ghandi) was also a point of division, and the French army committed many atrocities during the Algerian War. There was a terrible amount of bitterness against General de Gaulle, and I once met someone who was in an assassination plot against De Gaulle – not a very pleasant man, by the name of Dominique de Laprade. The Dreyfus Affair also is not forgotten.

Don’t blame the British, but all of us. Is guilt collective? Do we participate in the crimes of others as we read in the Old Testament? I have already mentioned it elsewhere, but I support the theory of these evils being caused by a few percent of the population who are psychopaths, predators, etc. This book by a Polish psychiatrist is not easy reading, but it is worth the effort. Łobaczewski‘s book Political Ponerology is a study of the founders and supporters of oppressive political regimes like Nazism and Stalinist Communism. The Greek word πονηρός means evil. Their evil is the epitome of man’s inhumanity to man. The book makes a totally different approach to evil (ponerology) to that of religion and philosophy. It begins with the study of the psychopath and his influence on those under his control. Dr Robert Hare’s definition of a psychopath is a person who preys ruthlessly on others using charm, deceit, violence or other methods that allow them to get what they want. They lack any moral conscience or sense of guilt. They have little or no empathy. They cheat and lie. They think they are above law and social norms. They have an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Their emotions are shallow and they are glib. I am sure most of us have met persons like that and possibly even suffered from them. Now, most of us are not like that, but feel empathy for others and want to live decent lives.

In this more empirical evaluation of evil people, that is the way they are. It would seem to confirm Calvin’s interpretation of St Augustine in that some are predestined to evil and damnation, perhaps annihilation according to some philosophers and theologians. We all fall short of perfection and virtue, but few of us are evil. Some are evil, about 6% of the population. They inherit it in their genes and DNA. This tiny minority is responsible for most human suffering and crime, and they are able to infect others under their influence. The Polish philosopher Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II, often wrote and spoke of structures of sin. There are evil people and non-evil people who are influenced into sin and evil. The consent to sin of the “non-evil” is not absolute. In a situation like Soviet Communism or the Hitler regime, most of those who committed evil would not have done so without the influence of the regime. It would seem that evil does not always consist only of making evil choices. One example of this influence is the ease by which we can be swept up into a populist movement of black-and-white thinking, slogans and bigotry. This is now happening in my native country.

All societies seem to oscillate between “happy times” and “unhappy times”. During a “happy time”, the last one stretching from 1945 until about 1975, we enjoyed prosperity and politics appeared to be serving the common good. In a time of crisis, people pull together against a common enemy. I remember a quote from a famous war film The Guns of Navarone:

Anything can happen in a war.  Slap in the middle of insanity, people pull out the most extraordinary resources – ingenuity, courage, self-sacrifice.  Pity we can’t beat the problems of peace in the same way, isn’t it?  It would be much cheaper.

Łobaczewski’s book is not easy reading, but he describes symptoms that are so familiar to us. When the loonies take over the asylum, or when evil people take over governments, the result becomes a totalitarian system turned against its own people. Those who are not wise to the changes, words mean different things. Absurd behaviour becomes normal. Orwell’s doublethink gets into mainstream life and perverts rational logic and moral values. Eventually, the population instinctively resist and bring down the regime. If another country does that in the population’s place, it is war.

Are our rulers in England psychopaths and evil people? Certainly the collective consciousness is marginalising and resisting people like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The level of satire on Theresa May in the media and the Internet is healthy and shows that the British people are resisting the downward slope to hell. One thing that really stands out for me about Brexit and the refusal of our Government to call anything into question is the seeming inevitability of it all. Nothing can be called into question like when triumphalist Roman Catholics recited the old bit of doggerel Roma locuta est, causa finita est. The cause is not finished.

I love my country and I believe in our resilience as in times past.

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints…

Many of my compatriots will go along with these archons of power, money and self-interest, believing that they are serving their country. Others will resist. I am one of them. There are bad people ruling from the corridors of power in Brussels too, in every country. All we can do is stave off the descent into evil for as long as possible and turn the tide.

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Solidarity

Posted on Wednesday, 3 October, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I have had to become something of a political animal over the past few weeks, in an issue that directly concerns me: my life in continental Europe and France, the place where I live and work, where I contribute to the Social Security system to have healthcare when I need it and a pension. I share the same concerns as tens of thousands of other British people in France and 1.2 million of us in the 27 countries of the European Union. To this day, our future depends on the fudging incompetence of our British political system, Labour as well as the Tories.

What do they want? I would be tempted to suspect that the UK is for sale to the highest bidder to turn the country into a rich man’s playground – and to hell with ordinary people, even those who are worn out with work and pride in their jobs. This would be Thatcherism on steroids! Those people seem to have a thoroughly corrupt agenda, worthy of a banana republic, not that of one of the last remaining Kingdoms of the western world. This is my country where I was born, and for which I would have been sent to fight and die had I been born in about 1920. I was brought up to love England, and I still bask in nostalgia for the Lake District, the Costswolds, music by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst, John Ireland and that gentle pastoral character of our land. Our United Kingdom (because I don’t discriminate against the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh), with Germany and our Saxon roots, nurtured the Romantic Movement and its philosophy and poetry. Now, it is up for grabs to become a billionaire’s tax haven. Or is it? I have no certitude to make a credible accusation.

When that vote came up in 2016 for leaving or remaining in the European Union, I had already been out of England for more than fifteen years. In such a situation, we don’t have the vote! French people retain the vote for life, wherever they live. I am from a conservative family, and Euroscepticism has been in our family conversations for years. Where did I diverge? I got on a car ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe in 1982 and set off on my adventure in France. I returned to England in 1983 to 1984. I then returned to France. In 1985 I went to Rome. In 1986 I went to Switzerland to study theology. I returned to Italy until 1993 for my seminary training, and was send on pastoral experience back in France. From 1995 to 1996 I spent nearly a year in Bishop Hamlett’s ACC and returned to France, this time to stay. An unsettled existence, all that? Unstable? Perhaps due to my constant feeling of alienation associated with Aspergers autism, which I learned about only in 2016-17. Europe made me cosmopolitan. From someone feeling rootless, I became a European. Europe is an ideal that was born from the strife and atrocity of two world wars and goodness knows how many wars and revolutions before the twentieth century. Since 1945, we have lived in peace and prosperity. This seems to be coming to an end as old demons lurk in our dark sides.

Two years after the referendum, no one knows what is going to happen with Brexit, least of all the British Government. They seem to want to secure a leaving agreement and only a vague fudge about a future relationship, which they can sell as all things to all people. We are divided into leavers and remainers, largely depending on age. The leaving agreement will only cover the rights of EU citizens in the UK, the Irish border and the withdrawal payment. That is all that is required under Article 50. They have been talking about this for two years and nothing is decided.

So let’s have a hard no-deal Brexit! Contracts will be breached and buying and selling goods and services is only possible under contract. The result will be chaos. We seem to be ruled by people who have no conscience or care about destroying the lives and hopes of ordinary people. I prefer dysfunctional and bureaucratic Brussels to the spectre of post-Brexit Britain! Perhaps, this idiotic monster will be stopped, shut down, killed. It seems to be even money at present.

I learn a lot from Remain in France Together and we have a Facebook group. We are now 9,459 members. You can join on condition of answering three questions, and the group is well moderated. The website is very helpful for compiling lists of documents required by the French authorities: birth certificate and sworn translation, passport, proof of address, proof of uninterrupted residence in France, tax statements and health coverage. I have not had a residence permit since my old one ran out in 2004. The Prefecture of the Vendée at the time told me it was not necessary as we Brits belong to the EU. Why bother with something that is no longer required?

It is going to be needed when the UK jumps off the cliff next March. I want to be a legal resident in France and not have endless bother getting back to France after a visit to England. I went to the Prefecture in Rouen this morning to get my Carte de Séjour application appointment. I had to wait my turn for about 1 1/2 hours to get the appointment. I expected it, so read a book while the numbers turned. It was not possible by internet or phone. That is understandable given their workload. When my turn came up, the man was very helpful and pleasant. He told me that France was getting ready for a no-deal Brexit, and that 700 extra customs officers would be taken on. He said in a friendly voice that France would not leave us on the beach like at Dunkerque. He alluded to 1940. He was extraordinarily well informed, not at the level of ignorance found in functionaries deplored by those who have been treated shabbily by other Prefectures in France. I have my appointment for 15th November. I will probably have to wait about two months for the card, which should be in time for the fateful date. In the meantime, I intend to set my application for French nationality into motion – and that takes up to about two years! It will be worth it, because I would then recover my full freedom of movement to travel to other European countries as a European.

Acquiring citizenship of another country is more than just an administrative procedure – it involves our whole belief system and sense of identity: as such is an emotional, philosophical and ethical decision, not just a pragmatic one. And that complicates the issue for many.

What is going to happen? It will depend on whether the British Government and the EU come to an agreement this month. If those negotiations break down, it will be a hard Brexit or no Brexit, preferably the latter. The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs presented a bill enabling the government to take measures by decree to prepare for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. This would include provision for British expatriates (British Europeans) to keep the rights we presently enjoy. Presently, we are faced with the worrying attitude of “tit-for-tat” between Westminster and Brussels. However, I have the impression that Europe might prove more generous and compassionate than Theresa May who would limit immigration to those who earn more than £50,000 per annum, about twice the salary of a NHS doctor!

It is all very “iffy” because nothing is decided until everything is decided. In the event of a hard Brexit, such legislation might not be possible.

There’s not much we can do other than pray and encourage each other, especially British pensioners who fear being deported on a whim or not allowed to receive their pensions. We are all in different situations, and all that has to be sorted out by the Prefecture functionaries. I don’t envy them! They are not that well paid, and they work hard. They can’t go quicker than the machine! Those of us who have been here several years and are married to a spouse of French nationality are safe. The procedure for acquiring nationality par déclaration (by marriage) as opposed to par décret is relatively simple. It is merely a legal confirmation of an existing situation de facto. This is a wonderful example of law coming after established fact like in Canon Law. In a couple of years, I’ll enter England with my British passport and return to France with my EU French one.

Many of us are going to demonstrations in London later this month to make people aware of the numbers of British expatriates in the EU. I’m afraid I don’t have the time or the money to go. What I can do is to research and write about the European ideal, just as I found in writings by Romantic philosophers and writers. I need to know more about the development of the present European Union and discern its ideals over and above simply economic or regulatory considerations. It is another objective of my Blue Flower. The pen (or computer keyboard) is mightier than the sword!

I beg British readers of my blog to reconsider if they voted to leave the EU. We were told lies in 2016, and I don’t think anyone intentionally voted for chaos and instability, for catastrophe and mass homelessness and poverty. I appeal to all to support in any way possible any number of movements to stop Brexit and make the UK a key player in the future of Europe through our true patriotism, culture, prestige and business talents. There may be another referendum. There may only be the possibility to petition MP’s to kill Brexit and avert a human catastrophe on a scale of more than a million persons.

Solidarność! – as the Polish workers cried in the 1980’s led by the determination and spirituality of Pope John-Paul II. Theirs too was a struggle for humanity and our dignity in the sight of God. Let us put away our populist and simplistic temptations of nationalistic jingoism for the sake of nobility of spirit and being right with God.

* * *

Update, a couple of articles about the British diaspora in Europe.

In my own experience, I have little to do with other Britons in France, except on the Facebook group. I live in an area that is on the English Channel coast, but where fewer Britons live than in the Dordogne for example or even in the Vendée where there are shops selling Marmite and Worcestershire sauce among other things. Married to a French woman, I have become totally integrated except in the recesses of the secret garden of my own mind.

British people don’t have the esprit du corps of eastern Europeans, for example, united by religion. We are frustratingly individualist, and I have met very few expats who would be remotely interested in attending church services. It takes a certain amount of independent thinking to leave England and live in another country where the language and culture are different. The stereotypes are still in the collective consciousness, the wealthy retired and nostalgic for the old Empire or middle-aged folk looking for the Good Life that is beyond their financial means in England.

To those we left behind in England, as the years pass, migrating almost seems to be seen as morally reprehensible. We can easily be seen as cheats avoiding paying taxes in the UK. Unlike the Americans, we don’t pay tax in the UK if we don’t live there or have any income, and we generally do not benefit from any tax-funded services. It is a temptation to see ourselves as colonists, but the Great Invisible Empire of Romantia is only a whim of the mind. We live in other countries because they let us in, and we are expected to learn and respect their cultures and languages – and not be a burden on their welfare systems.

This is an aspect of multiculturalism seen “from the other side”. Expat Britons tend to be discreet and respectful, but we do need something of our own identity. It is not without a reason that I still write in English and refer to what was familiar to me until I was in my early twenties. If we expect to survive in a world that becomes increasingly nationalist and ideologically driven, we have to integrate and play the game in society.

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I’ll cut your leg off any day!

Posted on Tuesday, 2 October, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

When I approach certain subjects, I keep thinking about the ship’s surgeon on the Bounty in the 1935 film, who had a different story to relate to each person about how he lost his leg, and that he would gladly perform an amputation whilst sozzled on rum. We come to the subject of someone who is hardly reputed for any love of truth and who is constantly drunk and disorderly. A new article has appeared on the Anglicanorum Coetibus blog.

There it is. I have nothing to add since I never met this character. I met others like Jean-Gérard Roux and various Gallican prelates here in France. I got bitten by the former back in 1998, and now I stay right away from this whole bunch of imitations, shenanigans and perhaps a few sincere though misguided clergy. I have been a Continuing Anglican since 2005 and a priest in the ACC since 2013. I don’t claim to be any better, but there again, I don’t “claim” to be anything.

I have made comments before on this underworld of bishops of bugger-all in The Wooden Leg and one or two earlier pieces. As with most people I have met with personality disorders, these “larger than life” people leave me with a feeling of nausea. They feed on emotional and spiritual energy, and they live half in our world and half in the “lower realms” where hell touches our world. It is best to keep away. Like with trolls on the internet, don’t feed them!

We do tend to get over curious like the Victorians who went to freak shows or public executions. We might take it as a warning pour encourager les autres, or something to bolster our feeling of self-righteousness. It’s all rather unhealthy.

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The Clint Eastwood Hour

Posted on Tuesday, 25 September, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I am in the process of looking for a redundant organ for a church in France that has asked me for one and has called on my services as a skilled non-professional organ builder. I found a number of available redundant instruments on a website about English organs in general. I wrote to the e-mail addresses given to me. One wrote me a most convoluted e-mail, suggesting that I should cooperate with a long drawn-out bureaucratic process. The organ will end up scrapped! This is the problem with much of our closed English mentality and partly what is behind the latest stupidities of the politicians. I’m afraid this was my “Clint Eastwood” moment.

Most of the organs I have dealt with successfully came from non-conformist churches.

* * *

Dear Mr Chadwick

Many thanks for your interest in the organ that we are seeking to re-house from (church) here in (town). Let me start by quickly explaining where things stand vis a vis the organ’s availability. The Church Commissioners have approved a Scheme for the future use of (church), but this is dependent on Listed Building consent being given by the XX District Council to the proposed changes necessary for the new use planned for the building. One of the changes is the removal of the organ. We (the PCC) are currently caught up in a very bureaucratic planning process but hope for a decision in February or March next year.

Assuming all goes well and the necessary planning permission is forthcoming, the Church Commissioners will then allow the Scheme to be adopted. At that point, the Bishop of (diocese) will confirm what is to happen to all the fittings and furnishings. We are in the process of preparing an inventory for him and, against each item, we must give a recommendation as to where it should go. As we are a charity, the trustees have a duty to try and ensure that, should items need to be re-housed and not be gifted to a church, then they must try and ensure proper value is obtained for them.

Provided the PCC has assurance that the organ is destined to be re-housed in a church and that there are no costs accruing to the PCC, then I suspect that the PCC might well look favourably on a request from your Diocese. You should be aware that we have had other tentative enquiries concerning this organ and so, at this juncture nothing can be promised. As an aside, if you were to catch the PCC’s eye, are you able to offer any advice on how to export the ivory (as in the keys and stops) to France?

I think the best way forward would be if you could send me full details of your Diocese, your church and about yourself, your proposal for the organ’s future and confirmation that you would carry the costs of its dismantling and removal – yes, we should be able to help with muscle power at the critical moments. I will then record these on the inventory. Once Listed Building consent is granted, I will get back in touch with you to confirm whether or not you are still interested in the organ. If you are, your proposal for the organ will go on the inventory, together with any others we have received, and the PCC will then decide where they would like the organ to go. They will then recommend this option to the Bishop. I will, of course, be keeping those interested in acquiring the organ fully informed at each stage.

The organ is currently located in (church – town – county – postcode). You would be most welcome to come and see it, just drop me an email as and when you would be able to call by and I will arrange access for you. As to the organ’s condition, both the Diocesan Organ Adviser and our own church organist assure me that it is a lovely instrument, that it is in full working and has been regularly serviced over the years. I have attached some details from the (website about organs), some photographs and also a couple of photocopies showing its provenance.

Hopefully that’s everything and I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

(name withheld)

Dear Mr X,

Many thanks for your kind reply, but I really do think it would be best to advertise the organ as being available when it becomes available.

By the time it does indeed become available, I will have probably found a suitable instrument for the parish that has asked me to do the job as a skilled non-professional organ builder. I have no intention of endearing myself to any PCC, though I have never had any difficulty in exporting dismantled organs with ivory parts.

If your “bureaucracy” is inclined to cut and minimise its procedure to avoid the organ ending up in an impossible situation (no one wanting it and its having to be scrapped), unless your church intends to keep it, then I would be prepared to give information about the parish of (town) in the Diocese of XX in the YY region of France and its commitment to bear the costs of its dismantling and removal. I would be alone doing the job other than volunteers prepared to help dismantle, carry and load the heaviest parts of the organ.

I live in France, and the cost of “popping over” and examining the organ would be disproportionate. My usual way is to trust what I am told, and pull out if the information proves to be false. I have never had to do that. I once had a clergyman and parish council wanting to stop my work frequently for meetings in the church, and reproved my assistant and myself for eating take-away food and camping in the vestry. I proposed leaving the dismantled organ strewn all over the church floor and going away. Fortunately, the vicar was reasonable and agreed to hold his meetings at the vicarage and leave me in peace to do the job. The organ in question is now in a Benedictine abbey in France. Sorry for my “Clint Eastwood” manner!

You might be able to dispose of the organ to an acquirer willing to go through a long and drawn-out process, not under threat from the impeding Brexit. I wish you every success. If you decide to simplify the procedure, let me know.

Kindest regards,

Anthony Chadwick

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Cosmopolitanism Revisited

Posted on Saturday, 22 September, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

This word, like many others ending with “ism”, describes an ideology according to which we all belong to a single “world city”, κοσμοπολίτης in Greek. This idea would transcend the differences that exist between cultures and languages through some form of “natural law” or common morality.

There may be some difficulty in distinguishing cosmopolitanism from globalism. As words often cause an emotional reaction, we are often concerned that globalism would set out to destroy all culture and identity for the sake of enslaving humanity in a dystopia. The twentieth century taught us that there was actually very little difference between international and national socialism, both causing millions of deaths and ruined lives.

It can be a notion that describes something other than a political agenda or a notion of making human beings compete against each other for their very lives. In this posting, I may be using words that have been seized and abused by agendas that appear to do very little to further the cause of human dignity and happiness. I will use them all the same, as I would use the word “gay” to mean joyful, bright, happy or any number of other synonyms. One word I will use is “inclusive” to mean consideration and respect for people of different cultures and ethnical origins. I would certainly also have to consider matters like homosexuality and gender dysphoria, but I will not allow them to dominate or crush the finer points I am trying to discern.

Cosmopolitanism as a shared idea is found in towns and cities more than in the countryside. I sought it in York when I lived in Kendal, and in London when I lived in York, and in Europe when I lived in London. In my own thought and personality, it accompanied my attraction to traditional liturgical Christianity, and there entered another conflict with narrow conservatism and nationalism. Living in a city introduces other constraints, in particular the need for much more money and the conditions for earning it. One enters another paradigm of conformity and narrowness. Cosmopolitanism is often dismissed by conservatives as “political correctness”, alluding to the dystopian novels of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. In the end, it is not a matter of living in some mega-city and its ugliness with the basest of human nature – but something that is within us. It seems to be a part of that nobility of spirit I see in certain twentieth century minds rather than some elusive social reality.

As an ideology, it seems to have developed in the Enlightenment era and was criticised by the Romantic movement. Some elements of the latter sought for a reinterpretation of cosmopolitanism rather than rally to the cause of nationalism. In reaction to the more legalistic and abstract notions, Schlegel and Novalis approached almost an anarchistic idea of fraternity without coercive laws. How could such a republic work? Novalis came up with his Christenheit oder Europa, an essay that looked to some like an apologia for integralist Roman Catholicism, but contains a subtle cosmopolitan message. The central theme was Romantic to the core, an emphasis on emotion, spirit and imagination in the place of pure rationality and materialism. For this reason, the image of the European medieval period is a kind of parable to convey a longing for a cosmopolitan, global, spiritual community. Romanticism sought to promote the idea of a new world, a new utopia without too much thought for “reality”. In Novalis’ mind, the cosmopolitan utopia could not be separated from Christian eschatology and the spiritual dimension. It is not something we can “push” on other people, but one that can guide our own innermost vision.

The ideal is a new society based on personal transformation, an aspiration to peace, harmony, tolerance, inclusion and understanding rather than competition and the lust for money and power. In the political world after World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, cosmopolitanism was certainly at the root of the United Nations, NATO and the European Union. Again we are faced with the choice of it being about humanity or the brutality of the strongest over the whole world. Globalism can be something very frightening, but so can nationalism and parochialism.

It goes back much further than Romanticism or the Enlightenment, among the Stoics of ancient Greece. We find a “circle” model of identity by which we understand ourselves, our families, our local community, our country and finally the world of humanity as a whole. Saint Paul in the Christian tradition affirmed that we are brothers, sons of God, not foreigners. We are citizens of one world. Before Schlegel and Novalis, Kant saw a role in cosmopolitanism for preventing war, the very founding notion of the European Union. He mentioned the “principle of universal hospitality”, the earth and its resources belonging to the entire human race. Here I would object to such a notion because nature has right and is not intrinsically property.

Cosmopolitanism is also found in modern French Deconstructionalism and the foundation of ethics being our response to the Other. That sounds very abstract, but philosophers like Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida might be alluding to empathy and our capacity of feeling the needs and sufferings of another human being. On the surface, that seems to be a good foundation. Derrida like Kant emphasised hospitality, welcoming another person into our home. We immediately recoil from the risk of accepting someone who would rob us, kill us, cause harm to our families. At the same time, isolation is no solution. How do we accept the other and prudently determine conditions to protect ourselves from evil? The most fundamental conditions would seem to be that the person is a citizen of his own country and that he is being allowed to stay as a guest or a visitor.

As mentioned, the European ideal came out of the Romantic and Idealist reaction to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and was strengthened by the victory over Nazi barbarianism and crimes against humanity. I heartily recommend seeing the film Nuremberg made in 2000. That trial taught us not only that those who wage aggressive war will be personally punished for it, but also that we have a responsibility for all mankind. The first concern of the cosmopolitan is to end war and bring about peace between us all.

Some feel aware of a positive identity as world citizens and the need to harmonise all local cultures and practical needs. As we see the number of international organisations that exist since 1945, we begin to understand that globalism tends to narrow everything down to money and trade and forgets culture and human needs. This is also the unfortunate tendency of the European Union that causes concern. One cause of warfare and atrocity is the banalisation of evil and the refusal of the quality of humanity in the other for whatever reason. The same result is obtained by depriving a person or a community of their livelihood through greed and corruption.

We live at a time when (we are told) thousand and millions of refugees and immigrants are entering Europe from the Middle East and Africa. Most are Muslims and their paradigm of life is similar to our pre-Enlightenment way in Europe. Infidels must be killed so that nothing may come in the way to submission to Allah. Seventeenth century Christian Puritanism was no different, any more than the Inquisition “cleaning out” Cathars and reverts to Islam and Judaism. Are all Muslims attached to such a paradigm? I don’t think so, and I must emphasise that my criticism concerns their philosophy of life, and not their race or right to practice their religion in a free world. What do we do when they fail to respect us, when they commit acts of violence? These are issues at the root of the current resurgence of nationalism, populism and even forms of neo-Nazism in some places.

A challenge we have to face is seeing through prejudice caused by inaccurate news reports and to venture into the unknown. As a seminarian, I often wandered into the “Arabic” (Algerian or Moroccan in reality) districts of Marseilles. This was in the early 1990’s, and I found that they respected the cassock, something like the thobe they wear. I bought spices and other things in their shops and was quite fascinated by this other way of life in a French city. I have known Brick Lane and the Pakistani community in London, the West Indians of Brixton, and felt stimulated. It was something else that drove me to Europe. I have always known that when those people need to live in Europe, it is because Europe ruined the lives they led in their places of origin.

Could cosmopolitanism be itself a form of colonisation by European values, along with democracy and Christianity, over other parts of the world? It is a good question. The problem is that it is moulded against a backdrop of nationalism and the sovereign state. Is there an alternative, like an alternative to the traditional family of husband, wife and their biological offspring? What about anarchism, the freedom of the individual and the absence of coercion and interference – except in cases of violence? Where are the lines drawn? Humans can be very clever at cheating and stealing without appearing to be doing so! This problem of limits often justifies the curtailing of freedom of religions, native languages and culture. Brexit is now threatening the free movement of people in Europe that accompanies the border-free use of the Internet by which ideas are sent and received across the world instantly. I am increasingly sceptical about the nation-state. What do we replace it with? Tribes? Cantons like in Switzerland? How do we keep corruption and evil out of big institutions like the UN or the EU?

I think we need to travel and see more of the world for ourselves, not as tourists looking into the cages of a zoo, but living among the peoples of the world. My brother has been to Nepal and India, but I have only been to some European countries and to the USA for four short visits. Travel is expensive and can be dangerous, and most of us are not nineteenth-century dilettantes. Flying is one of the most painful experiences I have had, not so much from the possibility the plane might crash, but from the invasive security procedures at airports and people being treated like cattle for processing. We can go to “foreign” districts of our own cities with an open and respectful mind, and we might learn something.

What about multiculturalism? That idea seems to presuppose that we still have a culture. Our Christianity has nearly died out. Many of us are afraid of being replaced by Muslims and everything reverting to a way of life like in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, women treated as chattel, public executions being a routine part of life, abolition of music and alcohol, etc. Since the advent of Romanticism, the notion of the individual has taken over, and this has brought both good and bad. Jacques Maritain along with other French philosophers integrated such ideas into his integral humanism. Maritain reacted away from nationalist integralism as had François Mitterand in his time. Maritain had a considerable amount of influence on Pope Paul VI, whilst Mitterand turned to Socialism. We find here the quest for individual rights and human dignity as the building block of the society that was no longer Christian, but keeping some of the tenets like the intrinsic value of the person even when that person is weak.

What of the world state, a “new world order” which is a subject of discussion among conspiracy theorists? Is it something that is inevitable and has to be influenced by good rather than evil? We have to remember that as much evil can corrupt the nation state, and become a reason for declaring war to protect peaceful and democratic countries.

At the risk of imposing European philosophy worldwide, there are certain questions that cannot be negotiated, such as the intrinsic value of the human person and human dignity. How can these notions be understood in different cultures, value systems and religious doctrines? There is also the integrity of the natural world and its rights, with which we share our life. Are western values the only yardstick? What is obviously needed is for us to understand each other whilst respecting all systems of values and culture and being ourselves.

I see a danger in the rise of populism because I have read the history (cf. William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany) of what happened between 1919 and 1933, the year when Hitler got elected as Chancellor of Germany. The whole scenario was made possible by the consequences of World War I and a cultural background going back centuries. Nuremberg had to mark the end of an era and the beginning of a new cosmopolitanism. The British Empire evaporated and France lost Algeria. We baby boomers contested everything in the 1960’s even if some of us were no more than spoiled brats. At this very day, I feel at a watershed between the two ways the world can go – back to the era of the dictatorships or seeing the achievements of the past becoming shitholes and post-apocalyptic scenes of misery.

I could see the nation-states in Europe being something like the Cantons of Switzerland, keeping local culture and language, but reinforcing the federal union. The reality of the European Union is incredibly complex, and it leaves me confused. Criticisms of it are contradictory and biased. I am not sure that political cosmopolitanism would ever be good and lead to a better world, any more than nation-states at war with each other and stealing other countries to make their empires.

I fear that nationalism and populism will win out, and we face more suffering like in Europe a hundred years ago. The appearance will not be the same, any more than the technology. Even Orwell’s nightmare will be outdated, and the evil will ooze into our lives from where we don’t expect it. For my own part, I can only be myself and express what I believe, and maybe someone will kill me for it. The dream must continue even when it is opposed and annihilated by sin and the self-styled Ubermensch. I end this piece with a note of sadness as autumn begins to rob our days of light. Hope can only begin with within, just like the Kingdom of God.

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A Cri de Coeur from an English Expatriate in Europe

Posted on Friday, 21 September, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I wrote this short text for a Facegroup group of more than nine thousand English expatriates in France, many of whom are uncertain of their future in the event of a “hard” or “blind” Brexit. There are hundreds of thousands of British expatriates in all the countries of the European Union.

Our tales all point to the tragedy of humanity and the clash between the “haves” and have-nots”. I don’t want to belittle anyone, being myself an expatriate in France still applying for the citizenship which will perpetuate the status we presently have as EU citizens. I will say this, we have “had it so good” since World War II. Most of us were born after 1945 (1959 in my case) and have only known peace and the period of change in the 1960’s – which is now at an end. I look at all this from the point of view of a historian.

In the 1790’s Wordsworth saw the reality of the French Revolution when the Terror began. He was married to a French woman, and he had to return to England leaving his wife and children behind. As France was occupied in 1940, any English had to leave. Some of us might have seen the film “Tea with Mussolini” about how English people in Italy, even rich ones, were made to leave their homes and assets. The grandparents of my wife lost everything twice during World War II, first in Warsaw and then in Lyon. These are tragedies that begin to haunt us once again.

This fiasco of Brexit is another chapter in the tragic history, and may destroy even the appearance of stability in our country. The consequences are so totally unpredictable, and all we hear are lies intended to anaesthetise us and make us helpless. It would be poetic justice if post-Brexit Britain suffered an economic collapse of such a magnitude that it would bring real-estate values lower than equivalent areas in France and would destroy speculation and profiteering with housing, food, health care and other essential utilities.

Some of us may have to go back to England. Most will be able to get residence / work permits or citizenship, and our life will be allowed to continue as it is. Others may be less fortunate. The powers that be in England would be just as uncaring about our plight than workhouse beadles in Dickensian England. There is still that puritan notion of the human person being worth his money, and that poverty is a consequence of sin or lack of faith! Thus I have taken a highly critical attitude and found a lot of inspiration in pre-Marxist socialism.

There will never be justice in this world, but I am one of you in this struggle. We left our country for different reasons. I sought a new and cosmopolitan life and found different experiences in France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. The bedrock of my thought is Romanticism, as Europe emerged from the ruins of the Aristocracy and the Church and reacted against the extremes of the new rationalism. Everything is in the imagination and the force of the human spirit. My combat is one for humanism.

Our struggle is also one of cosmopolitanism and the gift of being in contact with other cultures and ways of life. I suffocate in England when brought into contact with parochial conservatism. I’m sure we didn’t come to Europe only because English housing prices are prohibitive. There is a whole cultural and human dimension.

I joined this group because I see in it a swelling of the human spirit from the ground that inspires me, in the same way as Polish dock workers in the early 1980’s fought against the Soviet straitjacket for freedom. We also sought freedom from a country that is subtly becoming something quite foreign and sinister.

England owes us nothing, as we owe nothing to England. Certain things may inspire us from our long history and rich culture. I am a musician and love Purcell, Vaughan-Williams and Elgar, but they were geniuses from their persons, not the country that made them. The true England is within us, no longer the country that is taking us back to the Victorian era! We are criticised by family and friends because they still live in Plato’s cave of shadows – but we have emerged and found something greater. The genii cannot be put back into the bottle!

The figures hearten me, and I suspect that the true England is here, off England’s shores and in the hearts of those who sought freedom and an original view of life.

I am new to this group, but I am sure we will achieve a lot by writing and making it known how many of us there are in all the European countries, speaking their languages, discovering new cultures and ways of life and being better persons for it. We are still English and refer to our roots. We should also write to those who represent our local authorities and governments in the countries in which we live, showing that we love and respect the values they and Europe have forged to make sure that the tragedy of Nazi Germany should never ever again happen. We need to show our love for human rights and freedom.

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The Virtue of Hope

Posted on Thursday, 20 September, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I have followed my Bishop’s tenth anniversary of Episcopal Consecration from afar. I would like to join my voice (or writing fingers) to Fr Jonathan Munn’s article Ad multos annos!

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I came to the conclusion in 1995 that my conversion to Roman Catholicism was mistaken and joined the Anglican Catholic Church in England, then under Bishop Hamlett. My experience brought me a clear view of the dangers of the extremes of cosmopolitan liberalism and parochialist conservatism. I went through all kinds of different journeys and dead-ends and ended up in the TAC under the “wooden-legged” Archbishop Hepworth. I stayed aboard until the deck sank from under my feet, and applied to Bishop Mead of the Anglican Catholic Church in England. I had already been in correspondence with Fr Jonathan Munn, and his most memorable saying was that this Church was like finding the contents of a jar corresponding exactly with the description on the label. What a surprise in this world of deceit, lies and the grandiose pretensions of narcissists and people with other disorders!

Even though Bishop Damien was friendly in my regard, he had me fill in the forms, express my motivations and vocation in writing and go before the Board of Ministry whose members were unused to dealing with someone of such an atypical profile who had lived such an extremely varied life. I was accepted, received and given conditional ordination to the priesthood.

No one would claim that the ACC is “the true Church”, but it is a true Church. The appeal to me of continuing Anglicanism was the liturgy and the effort to live with no preference over the Opus Dei – the work of God as St Benedict termed the Divine Office. Unlike with Roman Catholic traditionalists, I was not faced with political extremes and the “dialogue of the deaf”. In Bishop Damien Mead, I found a father in Christ, even though he is much younger than I am. We priests and laity are persons to him, not files of documents or quantities. This is an increasingly rare quality in a diocesan bishop!

My time in the ACC thus goes back to 2013. I never met Fr Tim Perkins who tragically died young. I was spared from knowing the drunken charlatan who was asked to leave our Diocese, who got himself consecrated by a “wooden leg” and continues to cause trouble in his town. A second priest left us for Atkinson-Wake’s group. No sooner than our Diocese had lost these two priests, others came and joined us, contributing their knowledge and learning to a cause beyond and higher than our immediate perimeters.

Like many Bishops, Bishop Damien has suffered from the weight of his pastoral charge – symbolised by the big Book of the Gospels placed on his shoulders at his consecration. We all suffer from the whims, iniquity and nihilism of humanity. Bishop Damien has taken all these sufferings with great courage, and thus edifies his charge. Ecce Sacerdos Magnus…

I am often asked what would happen if we had to have a new Bishop? I suppose that a suitable and worthy priest would be elected. However, I do think that we are in a time when Bishop Damien is the only one who has the depth of vision and understanding of profound issues that give us all a sense of direction and hope. It is indeed a part of the Virtue of Hope for us. I join in with Fr Jonathan’s prayers of –

asking the prayers of St Augustine of Canterbury, St Anselm, St Thomas Becket and St Damien of Molokai, that Bishop Damien may be given the strength to bear the maniple of tears and sorrow and that he may receive the true reward of his labours. I pray also for many more happy years as my bishop!

What a contrast from some Roman Catholic bishops I have been reading about who care more about their careers than their pastoral responsibilities!

I end with the reflection that a Bishop’s pastoral care is not unilateral. It is our responsibility as priests to look after and support our Bishop in his sufferings as a human being and his joy in doing God’s will and his job.

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The mask comes away…

Posted on Tuesday, 18 September, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I have come across a review of a book on the history of Vatican I (1870) in Vatican I, Pius IX, and the problem of ultramontanism. The article is published in a Roman Catholic site, and criticism from such a point of view is that much more germane. I was reading stuff like The Pope and the Council by Döllinger (Janus) and August Berhard Hasler’s How the Pope Became Infallible published in 1979 and translated into English in 1981 when I was yet a student at Fribourg and afterwards a seminarian at Gricigliano. The book in question is John W. O’Malley, Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church, Harvard University Press, 2018. I’ll read it.

This review approaches the subject with the eternal rule of the historian, that of avoiding anachronisms. You don’t judge the Inquisition by the standards of modern declarations of human rights! However, the historian is human and such temptations are impossible to avoid entirely when what we see today is a consequence of the past.

On the subject of Vatican I and its Pope who “felt infallible” like one of those clowns in the Palmar de Troya sect in Spain, we are reminded that a considerable amount of Roman Catholic apologetic cant ignores human imperfections. We are reminded of the way bishops had to live through a Roman July with its torrid heat and rain. The debates and speeches were nearly inaudible, in Latin, and horribly monotonous.

This review picks up on how Catholic reactionaries were hysterical about how the modern world, then like now, was threatening the existence of the institutional Church. Pius IX’s “solution” was to make himself an infallible monarch, the butt of jokes for decades. The theory according to which everything tightens up when there is a real or imagined threat is very compelling in this context. Conspiracy theorists in the latter part of the nineteenth century were quite shrill in their expression, and their writings are still used by groups like the sedevacantists or other traditionalists with similar views. Pius XI was a moderate and intelligent Pope who found a need to develop ideas of Christ the King (cf. Quas primas) in the 1920’s to dilute the influence of budding dictators like Mussolini and Hitler.

The nineteenth century in most of Europe was a time of great instability, and the spectre still influences the Brexit question. The paroxysm of authoritarianism was over in 1945 with the defeat of the dictators and a beginning of a new paradigm in which I discovered the world as a child. We have found out that such a guarantee of absolute certitude is an illusion. We have to work by our critical sense and understanding of our own times.

A historical study of the Council, such as I have read in Hasler’s book, and might discover in O’Malley’s book, is essential to deconstruct the myths and see the emerging image of hysterical reactionaries and a “hostage” situation as the clouds of war loomed in Europe.

We find the same terms applied to the Papacy since the French Revolution as to modern politics between the EU status quo and populist movements. In violation of the historian’s golden rule, our times give us a hermeneutic key to understanding the movements and goings-on of the nineteenth century. The history is the same, though over a longer time-scale.

Papal absolutism has brought us the Jesuit Pope from Argentina, who continues in a paradigm of unaccountability and bluff. The future will tell. To non Roman Catholic Christians, it hardly seems to matter. We are brought to the quip of Winston Churchill about the best argument against democracy being a conversation with a voter for five minutes!

We need seriously to change our paradigm and way of seeing the world. Certainly, there is hostility towards Christianity, but it is mostly indifference and ignorance. Most people don’t know and don’t want to know. Their freedom has to be respected. This forsaking of totalitarianism and authoritarianism has brought me to seek the essential of the Romantic movement and a realisation that truth is beyond our activism and illusions. It is transcendent.

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Tight or Loose?

Posted on Monday, 17 September, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I have reading a number of articles by sociologists and others who have an interesting theory about “tight” against “loose” cultures. The tightest would be strict Muslim countries or the remaining Communist and totalitarian countries. The loosest would be New Zealand or the Netherlands. It is the old dilemma between individualism and collectivism, liberalism against conservatism, between those who see positive aspects in today’s world and those who would go back to the 1950’s or 30’s and force everyone else to do so. Such a study would be Differences Between Tight and Loose Cultures: A 33-Nation Study.

My curiosity into this subject was aroused when I was voicing my concern a few days ago over Brexit. People want to leave or remain for different reasons, but I can say I have personal experience of northern England in the 1970’s and smallness of mind. A film that deeply resounded with me in those years was Kes. Here is the trailer:

This is essentially a young boy from a working class background seeking and finding his own world against the smothering norms of social conformity and bullying by schoolmates and teachers alike. I would almost wonder if there were a trace of autism in Billy Casper and the need for different world from working class Barnsley. In my own experience, I began an apprenticeship in organ building in Durham in 1976, and I only stayed for three months. My problem was cultural and my disgust with that narrow parochial mentality of the petty self-righteous. It was not my world, and I remember my father idealising those men whom he qualified at the time as the “salt of the earth”. It’s great to have a pint down t’ local with the lads, but living and working with them is another matter! It’s a point of view, because I am not interested in conversations about sexy women or football. The politicians in Westminster appealed to such people to get their Brexit vote.

All my life, I have contended with this issue of strict conformity and social cohesion against finding self-knowledge and the stuff of which creative people are made. I’m not picking on the workers, because the French bourgeoisie can be horrible too. Oscar Wilde picked out the point beautifully as he compared them with the Scribes and Pharisees, all law with a cold heart!

The world is made of many dialectical opposites: rich and poor, urban and rural, religious and spiritual or materialistic, nationalists and globalists, conservatives or traditionalists and liberals. Some of the sociologists I have been reading suggest that our differences are less political and ideological – but cultural. What is culture? Culture is not only art, music and literature, the creativeness of the few, but it is also a code – differing from country to country, from one social class to another – determining rules for correct behaviour and dress. Most of us follow these norms without a second thought, and others are more critical and find themselves living on the edge or in the margins. In some countries, social norms are enforced strictly – Saudi Arabia or North Korea for example – and we can do pretty well what we want in most western countries within the limits of the law.

One thing that alienated me in northern England was the pettiness and intolerance. On the other hand, people will talk to you. Try opening a conversation in London and the response is likely to be a very stuffy “I don’t think we’ve been introduced“. Those are two different levels of social conformity and intolerance. When things go too far, we tend to yearn for a nostalgic idealisation of the 1950’s when there was less litter, rudeness, selfishness and lack of respect for other people. Men wore hats. Ladies wore dresses. Men had short haircuts and women tied up their hair and wore hats. Punctuality was the politeness of kings! No one was entitled to anything – you had to earn it, in your place. The cycle turns again when individuals are stifled and yearn for the freedom, not to harm others, but to be truly themselves. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis – in the way Hegel put it. History is cyclic and what goes round comes round.

The theory according to which an existential threat brings about a coherent society is interesting. England during World War II was a model of national unity and people pulling together to look after the victims of war and the common effort of beating the Hun! My grandparents and parents mocked Hitler by drawing his face on rubbish bins and in other ways. On the other hand, occupied France was a minefield of collaborators and resistants. One could find oneself betrayed to the Gestapo by one’s own family! Collaborators would sell out a person just for a few food ration stamps or some petty privilege. I don’t think that tightness was always so correlative with existential threats, but it is often the case. The present-day threat as perceived by some is the spectre of mass Islamic immigration and the islamisation of Europe. How real is that threat? Certainly much more in Paris or Marseilles than in my little village among the apple trees and cows of Normandy! We also have to take into consideration the fact that we have voluntarily relinquished our Christian culture in favour of materialist consumerism.

With Brexit and tendencies towards nationalism and so-called “populism”, many favour authoritarianism and tightness. Who knows, in the 2020’s and 30’s, we might see a repeat or a caricature of a hundred years before with full-blown totalitarianism. It suffices to see the old footage to see how popular Hitler and Mussolini were in the 1930’s before the war and without folk knowing anything about slavery, concentration camps and euthanasia programmes. After all, the word Nazi was simply a contraction of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, a socialist notion made to appeal to the working class. Working class people could be counted on to obey the leader and repress original thinking. Without the workers, no one would have taken any notice of the ranting failed art student from Austria! That is the extreme. I felt the same “tightness” in Durham but at a more subtle and moderate level, but bullying and abuse are still serious matters.

The disciplined, clean and crime-free society is a temptation, as is a Church that serves as a “chaplain” to such a regime as in Spain under Franco. The loose society has its disadvantages and self-entitled “lazy bums”, but it also has tolerance and creativity. The totalitarian cult or sect works well for as long as the “guru” is reasonable in his demands and the adepts can be satisfied with life without criticising or asking questions. The “democratic” alternative community rarely lasts very long due to human nature. We are back to the old theme of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor.

The only way out of this impossible situation is nobility of spirit, a subject I have written imperfectly about and which I am researching for my next Blue Flower. Few have it. Do I have it? It seems to be a quality like the State of Grace or humility! It is unredeemed against redeemed humanity. The dialectic is certainly to be found at the root of many problems in our world like terrorism, revolution or the road towards totalitarianism. The cycles of history turn and reaction follows action.

I see these things happening, and the truth is higher and more transcendent that any of this bloody mess. The aspiration to the wholeness of humanity in Romanticism happened in the wake of the French Revolution, as a reaction to Victorian hypocrisy and again shortly after World War II and the evaporation of European totalitarianism with the only exception of Communism in countries far away from us.

What about each one of us in all this? Be as harmless as doves and as cunning as wolves! We have to live in society and play the game, do the right things, but not believe in everything uncritically. That seems to be the difference. The Christian anarchist obeys the law and respects other people, but believes in a higher spiritual principle than authority, submission or law.

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Piss-ups in Breweries

Posted on Friday, 14 September, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

In two hundred days, the 29th March 2019, the UK will leave the European Union and go to the “good old days”. I won’t go into the details of everything I have been reading in the news. You can read it all for yourself, listen to videos of speeches in the Commons. I can only be grateful to have lived in France for so long – and I fulfil all the requirements for French citizenship. I have to go and sit an examination with the Alliance Française next month to produce a piece of paper saying that I come up to standard for the Froggie Lingo. It is one of the required conditions. Then I can submit my application to the Prefecture of Rouen in November. The UK will have nothing to say about that and the law allows me to keep my British nationality. I will then be both British and European, able to travel without restriction between the two worlds. I also have to get a French / EU driving licence, which I will be applying for next week. British driving licences will no longer be valid in Europe – and I will need to ask whether it is possible to keep my UK licence for when I go to England.

If Brexit is “no-deal”, then it is going to be chaos. Some journalists are likening the situation of this impotent government to France or Russia just before their revolutions, or Weimar shortly before Hitler took over. It is all very frightening as the British political establishment seems about as corrupt as the Vatican and any number of fly-blown banana republics, though more about money than “chicken leg”. Perhaps they are exaggerating and fear-mongering. Though there are many problems in the EU, I have not been hard to convince into the Remain camp – and I give my voice to the cause of a new Referendum before it is too late, offering three choices: soft Brexit according to the Chequers Agreement, hard Brexit or remain in the EU.

The British establishment seems blithely uninterested even in questions of business and trade, where the money is. The situation of EU nationals in England and UK nationals in Europe like myself is still vague and would become dire after a no-deal Brexit. I remember having to have a residence permit here in France, but then there was no problem in being able to work and be affiliated to the social security, health care and pension system. Without all that, I would be back in England and destitute, told that I can eat cake if I have no bread! Not so with French nationality as many British expats here in France have obtained.

From what I am reading in the mainstream news, Brexit seems to me absurd, an impossible situation. There are problems with the EU, over-regulation, lack of accountability and democracy, but the status quo is better than what might happen with a no-deal Brexit. As Voltaire said, Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien (the best is the enemy of the good).

A friend of mine wrote to his MP: “Current polling shows that a majority of UK voters, (and of your constituents), want to stay in the EU.  The best legal advice is that Article 50 can be rescinded unilaterally, even at the very last minute. Staying in the EU would protect this country’s commerce, manufacturing and agriculture, as well as its influence in the world“. My own work as a French to English translator is an epitome of the need for business in different countries to overcome the language barrier and to trade. I do business with translation agents in several European countries, and one in England run by a French director. He will also have difficulties once the fateful day arrives with all the restrictions and red tape.

I know zilch about economics and and international trade (except at my own infinitesimal level) but I can only strike my forehead with the palm of my hand – repeatedly – when I see the people running Westminster living in – – – Cloud Cuckoo Land. The EU was put together painstakingly over some forty years, and it is all about to be ruined. Perhaps the country of my birth is about to go back to the 1930’s!

This plea will have no effect other than ask British readers to reflect and voice their conviction that the Referendum first-time around was obtained by lies and populist jingoism. Our country lost what was left of its Empire from the end of World War II to the 1960’s. Next, it will be the unification of Ireland (an idea with which I sympathise) and the division of the Kingdom. Alarmism? Perhaps, but what I am reading about Theresa May and the Conservative half-wits hardly inspires confidence. I wonder whether all this is going to end up with a General Election over a vote of no-confidence and Labour getting in under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. We will have deserved it!

Some might ask me what I think about mass immigration and the vast sums of money being sucked out of the social security system. It is not a question I know much about. I live in the country, but I do know that some parts of Paris resemble slum dwellings in Africa, South America and the Middle-East. There is a problem when English people cannot afford to buy or rent homes and social housing is being given to people who have just arrived and are living on benefits. The question of survival is at the front of any populist and nationalist agenda. I cannot myself return to England because I don’t have the money and have not contributed to national insurance for years. I wouldn’t even get a measly state pension! The migration policies of the EU are catastrophic, even for the people themselves living in destitution and squalor. I don’t know what to say, but we can’t ruin everything just to stop the immigrants.

I have so little left of my origins: the English language in which I am writing, my red passport, my Church and my family. I go to Synod and Council of Advice meetings in England. I still have my memories from childhood and adolescence before I arrived in France in July 1982 looking for my vocation and life. The journey took me to Italy and Switzerland, an experience of cosmopolitanism – and I cringe when I read about the parochialism of Tory politicians in a completely bigoted and closed paradigm of mind. I was born in England, and I was given values and a world view I would have found nowhere else, except perhaps in Germany two hundred years ago. The present English political establishment is not the England that made me English!

I ask English readers to think these things over and write to their PM’s to show their support for a new Referendum. I am sure that Europe can and will reform the present institutions in Belgium and forge something that is not only money and material, but also lofty inspirations of the soul, the gift of Christianity, the intrinsic goodness and worth of the human person. There must be light at the end of the tunnel. Anyway, we can only do something about it by staying and working for that reform, not by leaving .

In every lawful and peaceful way, let us exorcise this demon of Brexit and avert incalculable harm to us innocent citizens, our families and friends, and all that matters to us.

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