Continued from last week….

Dear Homer,

As I was saying last week, (examining the voting records of our Catholic congressional representatives, both House and Senate, and for that matter, the life styles of American Catholics) ....to be a Catholic seems to make no difference. If it  does make a difference it should be banished from the public forum. Thus has it been in the Anglo Saxon world since the days of Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn, the founders of our republic. In what sense are Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn the founders of our republic?  The republic? They are the founders of the modern world. Let me tell you the story.

Henry the VIII, king of England lived from 1491 to 1547 and was crowned king in 1509. That makes him the contemporary of Martin Luther (1483-1546) At first Henry, being a “devout” Catholic, fought the Protestant revolution and Luther, but then a woman came along named Anne Boleyn (1507?- 1536) and all bets were off . Henry was married to Catherine, a Spanish princess, and aunt of the king of Spain, Emperor Charles, then the most powerful man in Europe. Henry petitioned the pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine but the pope refused, more out of fear of Charles than any religious conviction. Anne was a woman of strong temperament and stronger will.  Henry, like most powerful people had mistresses, and even a son by one of them, but Anne was not going to be anyone’s mistress. She was going to be queen of England or nothing.  Henry was madly in love with her and at wit’s end. He could not marry Anne as long as Catherine was still his wife. Anne had a clever solution. She was an early follower of Martin Luther who thought the pope was worse than useless. Henry could declare that he was the head of the English Church and, in effect, give himself an annulment, which he then did.  Anne got pregnant, married, and then crowned queen of England in that order. Henry was overjoyed! He was going to have a son who would be king of England after him. His Spanish wife had only given him a daughter. Unfortunately, Anne produced another daughter and then had  two miscarriages, one of them the longed for son. Henry’s had enough. He didn’t bother to divorce Anne. He accused her of adultery and cut off her head. He did that a lot. All told, he had six wives.  Two he divorced, two he murdered, one died in childbirth. The last one outlived him, but it was Anne who began the divorce between England and its Catholic faith.

That divorce was momentous. Henry realized that, being the new head of the Church in England came with perks. The English Church, particularly the monasteries, owned perhaps one third, yes 1/3, of the land in England. Shocking! Shameful! How dare the Church be so rich! Henry closed the monasteries, threw out the priests and took the land! Hurrah!  Hold on a minute. The monasteries had been given the land by grateful noblemen. The land was farmed out to poor landless peasants who made up the bulk of the English population. Many English clergymen were corrupt, but many were devout. They maintained hospitals and other charities for the poor. They rented the land at very low rates to poor farmers. England was a country in love with its faith. It was a land of saints’ days and church bells, processions and beautiful churches, art that was not just for the rich, but for all to see and enjoy. The Holy Days and Sabbaths gave the overworked peasants a little time off and vacations at Christmas and Easter. Henry changed all that. The monasteries were looted and their land and treasure given by Henry to his friends in exchange for their political support. The land was enclosed for the raising of sheep, wool being where the money was at the time. The peasants were thrown off their farms and became the mobs of starving urban poor that Dickens portrayed in “Oliver Twist” and “A Christmas Carol”. 

The peasants were so angry at the dissolution of the monasteries and the loss of their beloved old faith that they rose up in 1536, the same year that Ann was having a really thorough haircut, all the way down to the shoulders. Their movement was called the Pilgrimage of Grace. They wanted the nuns and monks back. It was better than the government bureaucrats who were taking their land in the name of religious reform. Henry finally made a truce with them but after they had disbanded he went back on his word and started the executions. He had already executed anyone who wouldn’t agree to his new title of “Head of the Church” St. Thomas More was one of the first executed. You can learn his story in the movie, “A Man for All Seasons.” It’s really good, and a true story. After the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry really started lopping heads off in earnest. Holinshed, an historian of that era claims that Henry executed 72,000 people. I find that hard to believe. I bet that Henry didn’t even mange to decapitate 10,000. Ah, Merry Old England and religious reform!

Well that’s the story, but in what sense are Henry and Anne the founders of the United States and the modern world?  This is a simple idea. Pay attention. This country was founded by English Protestants. They came with an idea that they learned from Henry who learned it from Anne who learned it from Luther. If the pope doesn’t agree with me, then I will have no pope. Better still, I will be my own pope. Maybe that’s true of Henry but Luther?  I really can’t go into it here, but there is one little bit of gossip that I can’t resist.

Philip the First, Duke of Hesse in Germany, was a great sponsor of Luther and his reformation. Politicians loved the reformation because that meant they could take over Church property and make it look virtuous. Power to the people! (Provided the people are aristocrats, or, in this country, incumbent office holders.) Philip had a problem, a wife who was none too attractive and drunk much of the time. Philip was advised by Luther’s friends that if the patriarchs of the Old Testament could have more than one wife at a time, why couldn’t a 16^th century Duke? Luther finally agreed, and gave his consent (though secretly.) This, from a man who disputed the pope’s right to give dispensations but ended up giving a dispensation, not from Church regulations but from divine law so that a wealthy prince could feed his appetites! The wonder of it all!

So you see, Homer, the Protestant Reformation was all about sex and money. The newly liberated culture of America is all about sex and money.  Don’t you see a connection? We are a protestant country. Why should you be alarmed or amazed when we bring the reformation to its logical conclusion?

Well, you may counter, the popes weren’t all that innocent either. Yes, there were few bad papal apples in the bunch, though most took the job seriously. You’re missing the point. The few bad popes of the Renaissance never changed one iota of Church teaching. They were sinners and they knew it. Henry, Anne, Philip, Luther and that crowd did as they pleased and said that God had changed His mind. The Puritans brought the concept of “every man his own pope” to these shores where it has taken root and now invades even the Catholic Church. Fawning politicians who claim to be Catholic bow before the popular will and try to give them what they want.

Henry and Philip and all the aristocrats who profited so mightily form the Reformation said that the King could better determine God’s will than the pope. The English came to these shores believing this, but with a variation learned from the guillotines of the French Revolution. The citizen is king in revolutionary republics like ours. It is King Citizen who determines the will of God. The mob at Pilate’s palace shouted, “We have no king but Caesar.” The mob in this country shouts, “We have no king but our own desires.” The true Catholic says in answer, “I have no king, but Christ. Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King!”  In America we have replaced the tyranny of kings with the tyranny of narcissism and may God help the pope, bishop or priest who would tell us, “no.”  The power of desire and wealth tore Europe apart in the centuries after Luther in wars of acquisition followed by wars of colonialism. Untold millions died and still the violence continues, unrestrained even by the Gospel. In the middle ages, the law of Christ preached by the Church held back the violence natural to fallen man. Canon law forbad war in Lent, war in Advent war at Eastertide and war at Christmas. The nobility could not make war on non combatants. A peasant’s marriage was a sacred as a king’s and what God had joined together could not be split asunder. The aristocracy did their best to ignore the law of God and His church, but at least there was some voice for the oppressed. Some force that held back the passions of the powerful.

Freud, despite his strangeness,  understood that sex and aggression were the most powerful forces in the world. If channeled  they give life. If uncontrolled they bring misery and death. We want a world without restraint, thinking that is freedom. It is the worst kind of slavery.  Let this country go its own way, but let me go mine. I would much rather be part of a Church founded on the rock of  Peter than the whims of Henry the Eighth! 

Sincerely,

the Rev. Know-it-all