Tea at Trianon: The EU and Christianity

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, February 1, 2016

The EU and Christianity

From Crisis:

Alcide de Gasperi knew that the Christian heritage was what united all Europeans. What’s more, de Gasperi realized that forgiveness is a key Christian teaching. Indeed, that Western Europe, destroyed by fratricidal war just a few years earlier, was able to reconcile was a true miracle. De Gasperi believed that a return to Christian ideals was the best protection against World War III. Starting in 1950, de Gasperi worked closely with French foreign minister Robert Schuman to create the European Coal and Steel Community, which ultimately came into existence in 1957. This association, the blueprint for today’s EU, was an association for economic and political cooperation, fostering peaceful relations between Europeans.

Alcide de Gasperi’s devout Catholicism was not unusual. The other founding fathers of post-war European unification—Schuman, French diplomat Jean Monnet and West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer—also took their faith seriously; Rome has opened beatification causes for all of them except Adenauer.

These statesmen were most influenced by the principle of subsidiarity. This idea, which originates in Rerum Novarum, states that policies are best enacted at the most local level, and if a smaller structure (such as a national legislature) can perform a function, it should perform it instead of a larger one. (Read more.)