Tea at Trianon: The Confessional State

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

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

The Confessional State

From Crisis:

Why am I allowed to attend Mass on Sundays? Is it because God has commanded that I worship him, and having a social nature I must do so in union with my fellows within the bounds of the Church founded by Christ for that purpose, on the day he rose from the dead? Or is it because I want to?

The first answer was given by states that officially professed Catholicism. A Catholic confessional state, as they were historically called, recognized as true that Catholics bear a duty from God to attend Mass on Sundays. Given their duty, Catholics had a right to exercise it, and the right was practically expressed in Catholics’ liberty of action.

The progression thus ran from truth, to duty, to right, to liberty. Liberty in the Catholic confessional state meant a liberty of truth. This liberty, which extended to the other sacraments, to the Church’s preaching and teaching, and to the Church’s temporalities such as buildings and liturgical goods, was generally known as the liberty of the Church.

That is not the answer given to me by the governments of the United States of America and the state of Kansas. These governments, taken as a single entity for the sake of convenience, allow me to attend Mass on Sundays because I want to. The state’s answer expresses liberalism, a governing philosophy that grants liberty in matters of religion within the bounds of public order.

Is this answer, like the prior one, the answer of a confessional state? Most people would say no, because the state does not officially profess a traditional religion like Catholicism. However, the state does officially profess liberalism, and in a prior essay I have argued liberalism functions as a religion. (Read more.)