Popes and Kings and other Things
God is in his heaven and not all is right with the world...
The New Pope!
What do I know from popes? Nothing. But popes mean something. They mean a lot to a lot of people. So, even though I have no idea what the new Pope Leo will get up to, I like it that he is both American and not American, at least not in the whole ‘America First’ way, which should be retitled ‘Me First,’ because that is what it means.
Leo XIV is American through and through if you accept that the word ‘America’ does not refer only to the United States of America but to all the Americas, North and South. His Peruvian identity is as American as his born-in-Chicago identity.
His speech on the balcony of the Sistine Chapel, after he was chosen by his peers, was in Italian and Spanish, no English, which greatly upset the MAGA snowflakes who get upset by everything and anything that contradicts their strange little weltanschauung of me first and only me.
The man is clearly a world citizen. We need that. And we must hope that he is a true follower of Jesus. If he is then he will have no choice but to use his high office to stick up for values that are in short supply in the US government, and many other places.
Leo used his first homily to urge the priesthood to show humility and make itself “small,” a call that strongly echoes the priorities of Francis, who devoted much of his papacy to reaching the “peripheries” of the globe. ~ CNN
If you need any more proof that Leo and the Don occupy irreconcilable parts of the moral universe, just try to imagine our poor desperate chest-thumping president suggesting that he should make himself ‘small.’
cabbages and kings
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."
~The Walrus and the Carpenter, by Lewis Carroll
The Walrus and the Carpenter is the story of a couple of guys (one is a walrus) who bamboozle a bunch of naive oysters into leaving the safe haven of their oyster bed and following the sweet-talkers down the beach until they reach a spot where the walrus and the carpenter eat them all, against their will, with bread, butter, pepper and vinegar.
Why does this remind me of those poor little MAGA oysters who have innocently followed their charismatic leader to a banquet table where they are the main course?
And speaking of kings…
Indivisible.org is promoting No Kings Day on June 14th, a nationwide protest against the plot to replace our democracy with autocracy. How did we get here? Our system of government was born out of a direct repudiation, not just of a particular king, but of the KING concept: a domineering tyrant unaccountable to laws or the governed. Now we must reject an attempt by traitors and quislings to usurp the system for ends that are far less ideological and more self-serving than they like to admit. Don’t listen to their talk of shoes and ships and sealing wax; all they really want is to eat the oysters.
The King of America is God (not the Royal Brute)
From Common Sense, 1776, by Thomas Paine, a 47-page pamphlet that helped to inspire the American Revolution:
But where, say some, is the King of America? I’ll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honours, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the Charter; let it be brought forth placed on the Divine Law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.
It’s time for a new story…
As obvious as it is that the current ‘administration’ (that word is too good for the rapscallions who are trying to unadminister the checks and balances designed to restrain their worst impulses) is a group of people who are causing pain and suffering and will continue to do so until stopped, the time has come, as the walrus said, to reimagine, rethink and restate why democracy is better than monarchy. Saying it’s Divine Law doesn’t cut it anymore.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Preamble to the Declaration of Independence
Saying ‘endowed by the Creator’ doesn’t cut it any more either. I’m as woo-woo as the next guy, much more woo-woo. I think the world works in great mysterious cosmic ways. Right now though, we are overdue for a new paradigm of what matters and why, that is based on science wedded to spirituality. Science and spirituality are a match made in heaven, though they have been kept apart by our fears.
Pinning everything on a head honcho, a singular ultimate authority, a KING, if you will, is not going to get us where we need to go. I’m not just talking about saving democracy in the United States, I’m talking about grappling with everything our species is doing in this world that is cruel and harmful—to people, to all living things, to the planet itself.
I believe there is an ultimate authority that we disobey at our peril. Let’s call it reality. Let’s call it the way of life. Let’s call it cause and effect. Let’s call it how things actually work, or sustainability. I know these definitions are inadequate.
I also know that expressing what I want to express is an ongoing challenge. I want to contribute to an understanding of what matters that is not dependent on my god is bigger than your god. On do what I say or I’ll kill you. On fear-and-greed-based short term solutions that lead to death and devastation because they don’t have the humility to take enough into account, to see a big enough picture.
Making yourself ‘small’ as Pope Leo suggests, is not a diminution of self; it is an enlargement of self that allows for greater awareness. In seeing yourself as a small part of a great whole, it is possible to serve that whole.
What I want to express is more along the lines of we’re all in this together, and the more we care about ourselves, each other, and the world that is our home and host, the more intelligent and creative we will be, and the closer we may come to living up to our true potential as the weird stewards of this beautiful planet.
Speaking of Popes…
A rabbi and a priest were sitting together on a train, and the rabbi leans over and asks, "So, how high can you advance in your organization?"
The priest says, "If I am lucky, I guess I could become a bishop."
"Well, could you get any higher than that?" asks the rabbi.
"I suppose that if my works are seen in a very good light that I might be made an archbishop," said the priest a bit cautiously.
"Is there any way that you might go higher than that?"
"If all the saints should smile, I guess I could be made a cardinal."
"Could you be anything higher than a cardinal?" probed the rabbi.
Hesitating a little bit, the priest said, "I suppose that I could be elected pope..."
So the rabbi says, "And could you be anything higher than that? Is there any way to go up from being the pope?"
"What!! I should be the Messiah himself?"
The rabbi leaned back and said, "One of our boys made it."