Essays in Idleness

Under a Conservative government, in England, tens or hundreds of thousands may meet to protest against “Trump,” for a police murder in an American city and state that have been in the hands of Democrat politicians since time out of mind. More or less all the race-hustling, anti-Trump riots, west across the Atlantic, have been in cities and states under progressive Democrat rule, for generations. Even their cops belong to Democrat-controlled unions. The false “black lives matter” attribution of blame is so insane as to be funny.

But back to England. While the hordes of leftists amuse themselves, by for instance despoiling the statues of Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln in Parliament Square — without fear of punishment — a gathering of seven Christians in one place must risk arrest under the Batflu regulations. This is beyond funny, and not merely insane.

A hat tip to the beloved Father Hunwicke, who points to this state of affairs in his Mutual Enrichment blog this morning. He is mild on the Church hierarchy. They have been abjectly begging for permission to reopen their churches — in England, as here in Ontario for that matter. I’m not sure the supposedly Conservative politicians are even answering their phones.

Father Hunwicke proposes roughly what I would propose. It is to open all churches in defiance, and declare:

“We already have our own ancestral memories of being banned from worshipping by your predecessors; of being arrested; and even of worse. Non possumus sine Dominico.”

Unfortunately, our Church is in a sorry state. Our leaders who are not, for instance, Peronist Marxists, are caitiffs, more often that not, vying with each other to overpay their jizyahs to the spirit of the age. Some may have the excuse of senility, but many are younger and do not.

The Road to Hell is Paved with the Skulls of Bishops, to cite an old adage. The bones of priests and monks are also mentioned in the fuller quote, recklessly assigned to the third homily on the Book of Acts by Saint John Chrysostom. What that great 4th-century Father of the Church actually said was, more modestly, οὐκ οῖμαι εῖναι πόλλους ἐν τοῖς ἰερευσι τοὺς σωζομένους, ἀλλὰ πολλῳ πλείους τοὺς ἀπολλυμένους. This has been embellished.

Still, we know what he meant.