www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Immaturity of the President of the USA

Alex

I think we're arguing over a matter that will never come to fruition. Needless to say, you find the idea of a monarchy, an attractive one, while I don't.

Still it remains a fact that prior to King Saul, the house of Israel were under the rule of the Judges who had been raised up by God, while it was the people who in rejecting God, who demanded to have a king set over them. Of course God in the great mystery of his plan of salvation used this for good.

I never intended to use 1st Kings as justification for the French Revolution or the removal of all monarchs, but merely to illustrate how the children of Israel were far better off in there relation to God prior to the establishment of a kingdom.

As for quoting scripture like a Protestant, I'm a little puzzled by that statement as I know of no prohibition having been made on Catholics or Orthodox.

P.S. If I try hard enough I could probably come up with 10 good kings, queens,etc.

Dear Lawrence,

You are right, the U.S. won't become a monarchy - but there are strong U.S. monarchists who promote monarchy around the world and I'm going to hear a lecture to be delivered by one on November 6th.

The problem with republican governments is that they are, in the majority, not democratic and dictatorial in fact.

Saddam Hussein's reign is a case in point. How many presidential palaces did the U.S. forces discover he had?

There are republican governments today who have elections - the problem is they only allow one party etc.

And the U.S. arrangement whereby you unite the head of state in the same person as the head of government is unique (or strange) and is something most governments around the world would shy away from.

At no time does the scripture say that Israel was better off with the judges rather than with their kings. One issue with having a king was the association with the pagan tradition of honouring the king as a god - something the Caesars did etc.

But my point about quoting scripture is not that we should not quote scripture, but that we shouldn't be quoting scripture like Protestants - in the sense that we take one scripture without balancing the overall biblical message with it.

God did not seek to destroy King David, in fact, the Messiah was to come from His line etc.

And the Eastern Church especially developed its liturgical culture on the basis of Imperial Byzantium - which is one of its great sources of attraction, at least it is for me and many others.

So much of what we have in the Eastern Church comes DIRECTLY from Imperial Byzantium, the New Roman Empire.

The crowned heads of church and state were to work synergistically under the Kingship of Christ etc.

So we need to balance out any isolated scriptural quote with the rest of the Bible, and with Church history - is what I'm saying, in order to make for a truly Catholic/Orthodox interpretation.

The Byzantine East canonized more than twenty emperors and empresses with many more princes etc.

There were many who were not canonized who yet helped the Church and defended her, in the East and the West.

I think the future will tell which form of government around the world will come into vogue as the most relevant one, taking into account democracy, need for tradition, stability, ceremony etc.

It was the U.S. that helped oust the Shah of Iran - for what reason, I don't know.

The U.S. also helped topple a number of monarchies around the world and invaded the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 etc.

The point is that the U.S. has had to backtrack on these ill-advised decisions and what came to replace the dethroned kings and sovereigns was simply "pure evil" as your country is finding out today in Iraq.

If your country had not been formerly so eager to spread your brand of republican democracy around the world and left the traditional kings in place, perhaps you wouldn't be in the hot seat you are in now.

In some political discussions here, the tendency is to blame Bush for Iraq.

It is really the misguided U.S. foreign policy, of whichever party, that has gotten the U.S. into the situation it is in now in the Middle East.

And it is a situation entirely of your country's own making.

The terrorist leaders you are fighting today are yesterday's American allies that you yourselves trained and outfitted.

A part of all this is the U.S. policy failure to recognize in monarchies, yes, even absolute monarchies today, a certain stability that ultimately makes for a more secure world where religious and cultural loyalties divide people and provoke them to terrorist acts.

In sadness,

Alex

Lawrence,

Perhaps the list is even smaller when you determine how many monarchs have been canonized as saints.

On the otherhand those who have suffered under monarchs (yes even Christian monarchs) and have been canonized as saints could fill volumes.

One thing the US does have in common with the Holy Roman Empire is the institution of Electors.

Dear Father Deacon John,

Actually, I am surprised at such an uninformed statement on your part!

Either you have not studied hagiography and also the lists of canonized kings, queens, princes and princesses of both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, or else you are starting to uncritically believe the republican press!

And your comparison with the Holy Roman Empire is inappropriate.

The U.S. electoral process is strictly a millionaire's game, is it not?

I suppose if the Ruthenian Church were to succeed in having a completely assimilated "American Church" then you would want to better reflect the republican spirit of the U.S. by banning mitres?

In sadness again,

Alex

I take it some have never been introduced to Bible Roulette. Ask God to give you a word from his Holy Bible and see if it isn't just one Scripture or a group of Scriputes that comes to your eyes as you open up the pages. The word in those verses will relate to exactly what the situation is you have at hand. God speaks to us indiviually as well as communily in his Word. Jesus is the Word made flesh and he desires that we know him in the breaking of the Word and well as the breaking of the Bread. They are both of utmost importance to our faith. If God lets us read Scripture like that, why should we be stopped?

Ok, I'm done ....folding up my step ladder and putting it away...

No, this was the other way around.. The CIA helped to overthrow the democratically elected President Mossadegh of Iran and replace him with the Shah.

Dear Brian,

Did not your CIA help oust the Shah later - presumably when he was no longer of use to your country's foreign policy?

This is what our Iranian immigrants here tell us.

They are strong supporters of the Shah and there is no doubt the CIA helped oust him as well.

The CIA has no real consistent pattern of working, except to promote the changing fortunes of America's interests around the world.

They're doing a great job . . .

Alex

Dear Pani Rose,

I think that if we choose ANY scripture in any given situation, we can find support and comfort in it for our current necessities.

There have been Protestants who have played Bible roulette and who have founded separate denominations on the basis of where their finger stopped in the Good Book.

St Peter exhorts Christians to "honour the emperor."

And how about Psalm 21:

The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice . . .thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head . . .for the king trustest in the Lord and through the mercy of the most High he shlal not be moved.

And in Psalm 72:

Give the king thy judgments O God . . .he shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

The Fathers of Canadian Confederation accepted the above psalmic verse as Canada's motto.

They called our kingdom the "Dominion of Canada" and the motto became "from sea to sea" (A Mari Usque Ad Mare) and it was understood that the reference to the "river" meant, in this application, the St Lawrence River until the islands near the Arctic Circle.

The Royal Psalms 19 and 20 are still sung at Byzantine Matins daily and this was the "Royal Office" for the Byzantine Emperor or for another Sovereign.

Something else occurred to me in reference to Fr. Deacon John Montalvo - has even one republican president anywhere ever been canonized?

(Alex, stop that, stop that now!)

I'm smacking myself on the wrist!

Have a great weekend!

Alex

I think it's probably true that one can pull out one scripture and not pay any attention to the rest. It's also true that one can have a preconceived idea and ignore one scripture that is contrary to one's idea, especially among those who have a natural tendency to let their hearts rule their heads. If I remember correctly, it was Jimmy Carter's confused foreign policies that caused the Shah of Iran to fall. I admire Carter as a good man, but he surely was a terrible president. But the post was correct that stated the U.S. helped overthrow the validly elected government of Iran to place the Shah on the throne in the first place. He was not of any royal family going back 2500 years as some mistakenly believed. His claim to that throne was tenuous, at best. I believe, if I remember correctly, his father was a military officer who had helped in the overthrow of another Iranian government.

Dear Charles,

Excellent - and God bless America and protect all Americans!

Alex

Monarchy in the USA? Just for the record, the last serious attempt that I'm aware of involved a plan to bring Charles III (this was in the late 1760s) and establish a Stuart dynasty for an independent federation of the 13 colonies. Presumably the consideration that caused the scheme to disappear was that Charles III had no legitimate offspring; his brother (later Henry IX) was a Cardinal and therefore unmarried - and entirely unlikely to care to export himself to the New World anyway.
Henry IX was misguided enough to leave the Stuart papers to the Hanoverians. This included documents relating to the idea of bring Charles III to the 13 colonies as they then were. Unfortunately, one of the nineteenth-century Hanoverians saw fit to destroy these documents (with, it would seem, some others), so that more precise information is no longer available. For what little is known, cf. Petrie, *The Jacobite Movement*.
Watching the current hoopla over what is loosely termed the election, I'm tempted to suggest that a monarchy would have distinct merits in the USA. But the thought of who might be selected to found such a dynasty scares the wits out of me. Arnold Schwarzenegger? Ross Limbaugh? Charlton Heston? HELP!!!!!!!!

Incognitus

While a monarchy is highly unlikely here in the states it certainly holds much appeal to me. I do wish we could separate the position of head of state and head of government.

Dan L

Alex,

to your comment regarding hagiography and lists of canonized royals, the list of those who were governing monarchs and canonized as saints are rather small. I will admit the number is greater than 10. As to my uncritically believing republican press, please consider this article from CNS entitled, "Is blue blood bad for holiness? Monarchs rarely make the cut" [catholicnews.com]

Reread my post, the only thing that I said the US has in common with the Holy Roman Empire are Electors. This is a true statement. I fail to see how it is inapproriate. Please don't tell me the Electors of the HRE weren't the important people of their day.

How you came to the conclusion that my sentiments about monarchs can be imputed to clerical vestiture is beyond the scope of my comments and nonsensical.

As a citizen in this country, I pledge allegiance to the Republic of the United States, but I have no king but Christ.

The king is dead. �Viva Cristo Rey!

The article makes clear that one reason there aren't more monarchs who have been declared saint is that there are few of them. Another reason may be that a monarch almost always has blood on his hands. With competing claims of the justice of that blood it is a wonder that any monarchs made the cut. King David wasn't even allowed to build the Temple because of the blood on his hands.

A parallel exists in Buddhism. The Theravadens strictly follow practices that will keep them "in" Nirvana. The Boddhisattvas of the Mahayana tradition discover Nirvana but turn away from it in order to spread share the pathway to Nirvana with all creatures of earth.

It might be interesting to look at the number of late mideaval popes who made the cut. They had to hold the keys both of the temporal and the eternal kingdoms. Now that's a difficult balancing act and few there were who could pull it off.

Dan L

Dear Father Deacon,

Yes, I've reread your post and the article you cite deals with those who have been sainted by Rome in the last few hundred years.

The reason I said I was surprised is because you are a Deacon of an EC Church.

We have many more saints in our calendar who haven't been touched by Rome and never will be.

Your Church has St Photios in her calendar - I also doubt that he will be canonized by Rome.

There are many sovereigns and other royalty in the calendar, many that also became monastics, and left their wealthy lives behind them.

The Slavonic calendar has MANY examples of royalty that became saints - but they are not canonized by Rome.

And yet many EC churches and the Orthodox Churches especially (since they are their saints) venerate them.

That is why I said I was surprised at what is your statement that is informed with respect to what goes on in the Roman Church, but not what goes on in the Eastern Churches.

Were you a deacon of the Roman Church, I would not have been surprised.

And what is wrong with being surprised?

I am not condemning the U.S. for being a republic, I was not serious when I said the U.S. should return to its monarchic roots (sorry if that is STILL a sorepoint after all these years following the American Revolution) and I honour the great values espoused by the American way of life.

I have been told that I would make an excellent American citizen by American relatives and friends (I would greet everyone with "God bless America" for example).

I don't understand why you would take this personally, perhaps I was too harsh and I apologise.

I just thought that an EC Deacon of the Ruthenian Church that is known for its ability to embrace Orthodoxy and Orthodox saints would have an appreciation for the many royal and aristocratic saints, East and West, that we do have in a shared calendar.

And since you seemed to want to take your position on behalf of the republican side (which is fine), I just countered it.

One may defend the republican perspective, but let's not do it with arguments that are simply not true.

But I know you speak the truth and had no intention of lying.

That is why I simply said your view was uninformed.

And it still is, with all respect, Father Deacon.

Alex