Essays in Idleness

It is evident, indeed, less than nine days after his election, to me and to some others whom I entirely trust, that suddenly, we have a “real” pope again. All the former Robert Prevost of Chicago (and Peru) has said and liturgically done in this short space of time has conspired to make this argument; and I, for one, have been so surprised that I have had a little ischaemic attack. (Which I hope will prove as transient as others previous; it made me tumble comically on the sidewalk, and now suggests that I recover some coherence, even before resuming these idleposts.)

About the papacy, over the last twelve years, I had resolved that the less I had to say, the better. Now it seems I shall have more to say; but the reader is granted at least a fortnight’s silence.

I am told that I will probably dislike Pope Leo XIV, by a person who generally knows what I will dislike, and that I try to be predictable. My preference doesn’t matter, however, because even if I did not approve, the world’s couple billion Catholics would have to live with the conclave’s selection. Pope Benedict XVI usefully explained that God does not choose the pope. This is a superstition, and I think not a very nice one, for were it true, man would not be free. (Think it through: the pope is not the Christ.) To contradict the late Pope Francis, God — and thank Him — is not in the habit of surprising us, and does not make a mess, yet He allows men to sink into disorder. But God may choose to be more or less active in the guidance of this and every other man, and we, for our part, are guided to bless and to love All Souls.

Pope Leo’s appearance with traditional name and vestments suggests he will return to where Pope Francis instinctively departed. That Leo XIV chose his name after Leo XIII, the author of that novel treatise, Rerum Novarum, is “interesting.” His promotion of the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and of Thomist scholasticism as the starch holding Catholic philosophy, theology, and schools together, in full integration, was signal. It is not “a system,” as every clever philosopher proposes one, but a Catholic system; his encyclical Aeterni Patris ought to be revived and refreshed. For not everything from 1879 is dated; faith and reason are still linked.

Nevertheless, his dress gives promise that we may rely on him to be more stable than his predecessor, thus more papistical, even though certainly with progressive swish. Like too many others, he was recently elevated to “the highest pay grade” — to the cardinalate, alas. May we at least hope to hear less about “Vatican II,” and more about the immortal Catholic doctrine? For this is what we need.

Probably, Pope Leo XIV will be a disaster, like Pope Francis. … But you know me: “Always look on the bright side.”

“There will always be an England,” my mommy and her friends used to sing, with tears in their eyes, and some may sing today, eighty years after the Victory Europe celebrations. Too, there will always be a France, &c — or the “Franks,” or “Franj,” as the Saracens used to call them, when, as Crusaders, they were trying to recover the most Holy Christian lands, between the XIth and XVth centuries. England, being afloat on an irremovable island, will not be overrun except by the ice, when the northern glaciation reasserts itself — whenupon France and England will once again be joined together, as the seas recede around Europe. But this is to look too far ahead. On present demographic trends they will much sooner be conquered by Islam.

Then, we may sing, perhaps, “There will always be an Anti-America,” even as the opposition to America from Europe dies away, to be replaced by something more forceful from the Ummah.

But it was seeing off the Nazis that we were toasting on the 8th of May, 1945.

My mommy, an unmarried nurse in Halifax at the time, had to be rescued from our allied drunken louts when she came off shift. (Our great Atlantic port was crawling with sailors from everywhere.) Without time to explain what they were up to, chivalrous Canadian military toughs threw my mother in the back of a truck, with other ladies, and drove her several miles out of town. Thanks to this precaution, she was not raped.

The Haligonian licker stores had been, as a further precaution, locked down tight. But they were all trashed and looted by the sailors and soldiers, in a memorable show of international solidarity.

Yes, there will always be an England, and a Canada too, and we will always win, unless we don’t.

Because he is a “populist” (i.e. give the people the stuff they want, which includes parades, incidentally), Mr Trump does not, and possibly cannot, grasp the appeal of “sovereignty,” or its expression in nationalism. This has already cost him, politically, outside of the USA and the anti-American forces at home. It is why Greenland, Canada, and now Australia have been going farther over onto their dark side, and making ruinous alliances instead with Red China.

One could go into those cases individually, but in Mr Mark Carney we see it most unambiguously. For the new Canadian prime minister is notoriously as pro-Sinitic as he is anti-carbon, and is willing to make huge sacrifices at the expense of Canada in order to line the pockets of his masters in Peking, and caress the pleasures and pretensions of the World Economic Forum. Nor is he entirely dishonest; he really believes in selling out. He also acknowledges the hard-left principle of universal multiculturalism, over against both nationalism and populism. His Liberal Party is filled, too, with traitors of that sort.

In order not to be a traitor, or some other kind of criminal fool, one must be loyal to something. This should not be to something arbitrarily assigned, but rather to principles rationally and viscerally true. In particular, we should pursue a foreign policy that combines all the higher allegiances — as Canada and Australia once did — and in which a civilized population (if one can be made to exist) will find its best features represented.

This is why I recommend that the Summa Contra Gentiles should be the basis of our foreign policy — not, perhaps, exactly as it was written in the XIIIth century by Saint Thomas, but updated in the same spirit. It gives, without directly depending on Christian revelation, a comprehensive view of the world, and of what is wrong with all non-Christian viewpoints. Our collective approach to this world must be founded in a natural theology, and this Summa, in its first three books, safely guides us to what that should be.

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POSTSCRIPTUM. — Sprayed by news from Washington this morning, in which (according to the CBC, &c) Carney says repeatedly, “Canada is not for sale.” Who, I wonder, was proposing to buy it? If someone is, I would at least like to look at their offer. Mr Trump certainly hasn’t mentioned a price, and he is too sensible a businessman to do so. I would guess his “51st state” blather is just positioning himself for when we break up, and the larger, chocolate pieces will be available for free.

The case becomes confusing in domestic politics, where virtually all the politicians lie, cheat, and steal — those on the left, such as Liberals and Democrats, much more than those on the right — and yet, it is painful to choose between one brand of fraudulence and another. My personal preference for the party on the right is because they need not lie, cheat, or steal necessarily; whereas, if you are on the left you have no choice. In this sense, we could afford to be more merciful to the diehard leftists, but of course, not so merciful that they will survive.

In diplomacy, the matter is more obvious. The choice is between basically normal, Westernized regimes, and their Imperial offspring; and ideological regimes. It is complicated only because ideology proliferates, when making compromises with the Devil. But there are regimes in which there is no compromise: for instance, Communist regimes. These do not sometimes violate diplomatic agreements. They always do. The Red Chinese economy, for instance, has been built entirely upon intellectual theft, and ugly forms of exploitation. The idea that “free trade” with them would moderate their commercial practices did not, and would not, prove true.

I was writing about this long before Tiananmen, in columns commonly received as radical and crazy. And yet, they were entirely correct. This is because Communists are communist: they have no morals, even in principle.

An intelligent person will not deal with those who are consistently dishonest.

Pietro, good to hear you are still alive, too. I continue to be unhealthy.

My chief source is long observation; I do not have any surprising contacts in contemporary Trumpland. But the humour with which that gentleman for instance sets up his old friend Carney! Yes, they’ve been an item for a long time, & they both use the globalist camp to advance their self-interests. Mr Carney will now usefully take credit for the final Canadian disintegration.

The joke was Mr Poilievre, successfully smeared in Liberal propaganda, was perfectly sincere in his opposition to the experimental Trump tariffs, as well as rather naïve and foolish. Carney, by contrast, is not sincere at all; his “outrage” at them was entirely a performance, which he knew he would discard right after the election. His continuing, belief-based but asinine support for “net zero,” advances both Carney’s & Trump’s agenda — by eliminating Alberta gas & oil, the Ontario auto industry, & general “free trade” Canadian competition. The rest of our economy will now move to the United States.

You just have to smile! … Of course Trump was pulling strings for Carney!

The First of May is called, wherever socialism has been imposed or there are aspirants to impose it, “Labour Day.” A milder version of this, in America, falls on the first Monday of September. A “Victims of Communism Day” has been shifted to May 1st from November 7th, in certain jurisdictions, as a formal memorial and rememberance of the (literally) tens of millions of human beings who were slaughtered by the various socialist and atheist regimes. To my mind, “May Day” is an appropriate occasion to torment the various socialists and atheists who persist. Most imagine glibly that they are merely “progressive,” but I do not think their vile ignorance ought to be accommodated.

On the other hand, “May Day” should be spiritually reversed, by re-establishing jolly mediaeval customs with flowers and fertility rites. While it is important that we punish socialists, and quasi-socialists such as environmentalists, we should declare a “Leisure Day” on which to celebrate our occasional flights from these tyrants. For genuine, productive, creative work has always been founded in philosophical leisure, and not in the marching orders of bureaucrats and slave masters. Remember, at least ninety percent of the “government work” for which taxes are collected and public debt incurred is not only absolutely worthless; it is evil, and anti-human. On Leisure Day, we should make it our habit to rebel.