Essays in Idleness

The Catholic Church is an absolute tyranny. This is my political thought for this morning.

She, the Church, is animated by only one person — Jesus Christ. She has other officers, of course; some of them saintly, though most of them not. But she is not a democracy, nor an aristocracy, nor a kakistocracy like our modern states, but a permanent monarchy. The pope merely stands in for the monarch, rather as the governor-general represents the king in the Canadian constitution. He has an essentially ceremonial function, except when he is carrying orders from on high.

Most particularly, the Church is not a corporate body, by any political, or business definition. That is why she is still alive, after two thousand years, or a few more thousand dating from the beginning of Judaism.

Whereas, corporate bodies have no life, no living soul, as William Hazlitt points out (in his Table Talk):

“Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individual, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace and punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill” — all of which Our Lord is reported to have felt, in the course of the Old Testament.

We should make no distinction between public and private corporations. In none can natural conscience exist. I might refer the reader to Hazlitt, and some others, for a synopsis of what corporations have instead.