Father Orthoduck wishes to throw a shout out to the French. Happy Fête de la Fédération.
The Storming of the Bastille in Paris occurred on 14 July, 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. While the prison only contained seven prisoners at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution, and it subsequently became an icon of the French Republic. In France, Le quatorze juillet (14 July) is a public holiday, formally known as the Fête de la Fédération (Federation Holiday). It is usually called Bastille Day in English.
This event is considered the third of three events that led to the French Revolution. After this event, there were essentially two parallel governments in France, the official government and the people-led municipal governments. In short order the French Revolution broke out. Unfortunately, it rapidly went to an extreme and The Terror took place from June 1793 to July 1794. The democratic reforms of the revolution were suspended and massive executions of anyone denounced as against the revolution began. Estimates of the death toll range from 15,000 to 40,000, but no one knows for sure.
Nevertheless, this day, several centuries ago, was the day that began the march towards the modern French State. And, today, the day is celebrated peacefully in a stable republic.
I, spent the day praying for the souls of King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette. Edmund Burke’s warnings, almost prophetic in 1790, predicted the worst excesses that produced countless headless corpses, and a tyrant. The Reign of Terror happened not long after Burke made this prediction, in 1792.
One can take the longue duree approach and say that his was the first of the modern revolutions, the Bolshevik Revolution being the one of the bad fruits it engendered.
So, Fr. Orthoduck, forgive me if I do not join in the celebrations. i will mourn, and pray for the countless souls who lost their lives because they didn’t “conform” to the perfect revolutionary ideal of “humanity.” Always the disease of revolutionaries, this: love of “humanity,” hatred of indivudual human beings.
But for you, Fr. Orthoduck, I raise a good pint and wish you some good liberte, egalite, fraternite!
A stable republic still antagonistic to Christianity, one should add. A questionable blessing, perhaps.
Robert and Terry, this may sound funny, but I actually prefer a society openly antagonistic to Christianity to a conflicted society, claiming to be one thing but heading toward another. Several of the European countries still have an official state religion while having regulations that inhibit that Christianity from fully expressing itself.
At least the open antagonism helps Christianity to remain true to itself. At the other extreme is the sad state of the Religious Right in the USA that claims it is being persecuted and put down as though they were living in a Communist country. I know what living in a Communist country means, and, believe me, Christians in the USA are not begin persecuted. They may be being harassed in some states; we may have lost the abortion decision, but the degree of freedom that we have in the USA is incredible compared to almost any other country in the world.
(In other words, YAY USA!)
You are certainly right, Father, about open antagonism. And certainly right about the whining much of the religious Right does about being “persecuted.” I at times attend weekday services at Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral, a Russian OCA cathedral in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles, and what some of the Russian emigres tell about their experiences under the Soviet state is at times blood-curdling. I would like to see the likes of Jerry Falwell’s disciples top those stories with their own accounts of “persecution”-usually involves something like “my teacher didn’t allow me to pray out loud in class.” Big deal. Pray silently for your classmates.
One thing I will not do, however, is celebrate events that led to crimes against humanity in the name of “progress.” See the story of the genocide in the Vendee in 1794: http://lefleurdelystoo.blogspot.com/2009/07/crimes-against-humanity-1794.html I see the French Revolution as the first modern revolution. Revolutionaries are by their very nature lovers of humanity, of liberte, egalite, fraternite, but hate individual people who don’t conform to their idea of perfect humanity. The French Revolution unleashed the demon of “progress” on the world, and what has it gotten us? Gulags, death camps, and Fidel Castro. (there’s my Cubanity speaking;-)
Oye hombre recuerda que Batista nos azotaba antes de Castro. Ni los derechistas ni los izquierdistas son verdaderos humanitarios.
Translation: Remember that Batista pounded us before Castro, Neither the right-wingers nor the left-wingers are true humanitarians.
The problem is that both Revolutions and Reformations tend to come as a result of significant misbehavior by the government or by the church. And they tend to have a rubber-band effect. Cut the rubber band and it heads to the opposite end. So we get a Castro and we get the destruction of images in churches. But, they come as a result of the preceding sin that no one was “fixing.”
So that over-the-top liberty and extreme individual freedom are over-reactions to the misuse of power by those who should have been watching over their people. And, the throwing away of legitimate Church structure and authority are the over-reactions to the misuse of power by those who called themselves shepherds but savaged their sheep.
So, I end up celebrating Bastille Day because it was the overthrow of an evil regime, but I also mourn (as I mentioned in the article) The Terror that followed. I am happy that Batista was overthrown while I mourn that Castro has harmed so many of my relatives and my people. It is both/and.
“Oye hombre recuerda que Batista nos azotaba antes de Castro. Ni los derechistas ni los izquierdistas son verdaderos humanitarios.”
100% de acuerdo, Padre!!!! Pero la respuesta a Batista no era Fidel Castro y el Marxismo.
Translation:
100% agree, Father!!!! But the answer to Batista was not Fidel Castro and Marxism.
I think Edmund Burke had the right idea: fix the problem in a given constitution, don’t try to overthrow it, because you will ultimately be committing cultural and societal suicide if you do.
Burke’s sensible approach is rooted in a realistic understanding of what it means to be human in the context of a given society, and that our humanity takes shape as we live out our lives in a specific society, with its history, culture and norms. I wish the so-called “conservatives” that got us into the business of “nation-building”, but that is another issue.
The point is, your right, and in fact, Batista was the result of the previous governments of Carlos Prio Socarras and Frederico Laredo Bru misbehaving themselves.
“I end up celebrating Bastille Day because it was the overthrow of an evil regime, but I also mourn (as I mentioned in the article) The Terror that followed.”
If you allow me one more foray into this, Father…
I don’t think I would agree that the Ancien Regime was “evil”, at least not any more evil than other regimes of this world. The ancien regime was vexed with many problems, and there were certainly evils in it. But I think Edmund Burke’s point on Reflections on the Revolution in France was that these evils need to be dealt with be addressing the evils that plague the tree, not cut down the whole tree. Revolutions hardly ever result in much good. The evils that a revolution seeks to address by destroying a given constitution ends up bringing worse crimes and evils upon a society. Better to prune the vineyard than to burn it down.
Fr. Obregon,
Its funny you talk about that-I recently watched a video over at Acts 17 Apologetics, where a group of Evangelical apologists wandered into the middle of an Arab Festival with two cameras in tow, walked right up to the question/answer booth and began antagonizing the imams. And then they complained when everyone became antagonistic towards them. Its almost as if they had to create the persecution they were seeking.
In the end, I actually agree with you. In a sense, I think a society that challenges Catholic complacency would be benefit to the Church as it’ll force it out of the internecine squabbling of the past 40 years, and focus it towards regaining a sense of identity in the face of oppression.
At least, that is what I took from your comments, Father. I could be off.
Sanguis martyrum semen Christianorum = The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church – Tertullian
It is one of the most frightening but true statements from one of the Church Fathers.
Ha! I had that in mind when I posted my comment.