Modernity and Loyalty

One reason I have trouble understanding "normal" contempoary people is that I don't believe in unconditional geographical patriotism. I believe in loyalty to Monarchs, not loyalty to "Countries." While fond of some specific places that happen to be located within the USA, I feel nothing for the USA as a whole as a political entity, and while I love England and the United Kingdom, if God forbid Britain ever abolished the Monarchy, I would regard the new republic(s) as my enemy. Had I (or a version of me) been Brazilian in 1889, Portuguese in 1910, Russian in 1917, German or Austrian in 1918, Italian in 1946, Greek in 1974, or Iranian in 1979, I would have then felt that I had no country and no obligations of any kind to the new regime, preferring death (with which I'm sure the Bolsheviks or the Mullahs in particular would have been happy to oblige) or exile to obedience. So the mentality of Iranians who, the New York Times tells us, don't much like the Islamic Republic regime but are nevertheless rallying to it in patriotic anger is incomprehensible to me. I don't accept that countries have the right to abolish their monarchies, or come into existence by revolting against their monarch, and still expect the kind of automatic loyalty that would have been natural when the world was relatively sane and properly ordered.

On a related note, I find the mentality of Catholics who know that the Latin Mass is superior but nevertheless willingly attend Novus Ordo "masses" they find repulsive similarly incomprehensible. (I'm not worried that this will actually happen, but if traditional music & liturgy disappeared from my Episcopal parish, so would I.) I guess I'm not very good at Obedience.

Tactics

On the internet I sometimes see monarchists, perhaps especially religiously conservative American monarchists, make arguments that rely on blaming the U.S. republican form of government for various contemporary phenomena that they (and presumably their audience) dislike. While my lack of enthusiasm for Americanism is well known, I honestly think this is a mistake, because it can easily be pointed out that the same phenomena exist in contemporary European and Commonwealth constitutional monarchies. If you wish to criticize modern laws and social developments that are not unique to the USA or republics, you're really arguing against Democracy, Secularism, and Modernity, not republicanism per se. Now traditionalists and reactionaries who are also monarchists have every right to make those arguments. But I think discussion of Monarchy versus Republic has to be kept somewhat distinct from them.  Let's make sure that we're defending Monarchy on its own merits and for its own sake, as an institution compatible with the modern world, even if there are other aspects of that modern world that we dislike and hope to change.

Happy New Year!

Sorry for the lack of recent activity on this blog. It was good to see one of its few regular interactive readers again in person last month in New Jersey. Here is something I started typing on Facebook but decided I'd rather put here instead. (There's a lot I could post about here, including my recent monarchist-themed trip to NY and NJ, but generally by the time I get done documenting everything on Facebook I tend not to feel like also making a blog post. Any remaining blog readers who want to see my monarchist posts are welcome to "Friend" me at facebook.com/royalcello ; please include a message indicating that you've been a reader of my blog.)

I love my Catholic monarchist friends, but it saddens me that Catholic monarchism appears to be almost exclusively a lay thing. Are there ANY Roman Catholic priests or bishops who publicly advocate the restoration of defunct Catholic monarchies? (Note: devotion to Emperor Bl. Karl, while encouraging and praiseworthy, is not exactly the same thing as promoting the restoration of the Habsburg monarchy--as some non-political devotees of Bl. Karl would probably be quick to point out!)

As an Episcopalian, I have several Anglican clergy Facebook Friends who are more or less sympathetic to my views, though I can't help suspecting that some of them must raise their eyebrows at my stridency occasionally. I wonder what Roman Catholic priests would think of a Catholic version of me. (Even if I were RC I would still chafe at the non-infallible, republic-appeasing political judgments of Leo XIII and Pius XI, before we even got to Vatican II.) Anglican monarchism is of course fundamentally different anyway as the only Monarchy of our particular tradition is still intact, allowing Anglican monarchists to be more "conservative" (in the sense of defending something that currently exists) than Roman Catholic monarchists whose greatest examples (apart from Spain, which presents its own problems) are long gone. That's why Anglican monarchism (though mine isn't always) can be modernity-accommodating, moderate, and pragmatic but Roman Catholic monarchism (even if its proponents are more prudent and polite than I am, which many of them are) will inevitably be accused of "LARPing" (I hate that expression!) and of being "unrealistic" and inherently reactionary, despite the survival of five (six or seven if the Vatican itself and Andorra are counted) nominally Roman Catholic monarchies in modern Europe.

Parallel Debates

It's funny, because the people who have argued with me over Anglicanism vs. Catholicism and the people who have argued with me over the Spanish Civil War (like my latest Ex-Facebook-Friend, sadly) probably wouldn't like each other very much, but in a way the root of my stubbornness is the same: I frankly put a higher priority on Aesthetics than most people do. So, while I genuinely believe in the merits of Anglicanism, my love of Anglican worship & patrimony is impervious to Roman Catholic theological criticisms (whether of the Reformation or of the contemporary Episcopal Church or CofE), and while I genuinely believe that the right side won in 1939 and that Monarchy's superiority is not superficial, my gratitude to Franco for eventually restoring the Spanish monarchy is impervious to objections to his authoritarian tactics.

100 Years without German Monarchies

New article in German on why the abolition of monarchies has been a disaster for Germany and Europe. I relied on a friend's translation, which it would be too cumbersome to reproduce here, but if you don't read German, Google Translate may help.

https://www.kraut-zone.de/blog/2019/10/15/100-jahre-ohne-monarchie-100-jahre-verirrung-und-zerstrung

The Reactionary Dilemma

The central dilemma of any sort of counterrevolutionary cause, whether it's me and my fellow monarchists wanting to restore monarchies, distributists yearning for a more localist, agrarian, and organic society, environmentalists and animal welfare advocates appalled by factory farming and deforestation, "identitarians" and populists horrified by the demographic transformation of the West, traditionalist Catholics wanting to roll back Vatican II and bring back the Latin Mass, architectural traditionalists revolted by modernist buildings and cities, pro-lifers desperate to ban abortion, Christians dismayed by secularism, Brexiteers wanting Britain to be free from the European Union, or whatever it is that "Make America Great Again" was supposed to mean, is that even if we're right in principle that the way we'd like for things to be would be a more natural and satisfying way to live for many people, so many people today strongly disagree and don't see it that way that there's really no way to get back to where we want to be without massive division, anger, and even violence. That's one reason why the 20th century was so violent, and why fascism and Nazism happened: traditional civilised Christian patrician conservatism, which is what I would ideally like to identify with, was totally incapable of resisting Bolshevism, so those who hated the Russian Revolution felt compelled to turn elsewhere. I see no reason to hope that the 21st will be any better.

RIP Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg (1921-2019)

The Grand Ducal Court of Luxembourg announced that HRH Grand Duke Jean passed away early this morning. I am sorry to learn of the death of this model constitutional monarch and beloved father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Reigning from 1964 to 2000, he was the last surviving head of state who had fought in World War II. Grand Duke Jean abdicated on October 7, 2000, just over a week after I started my website in New York on September 29. Therefore his was the first royal reign whose end I "reported" on, as I now report on the end of his long life. Obituaries: European Royal History Journal, Telegraph. A state funeral will be held on Saturday May 4.

I think this four-generation photo from last summer captures the joy Grand Duke Jean took during his retirement in being surrounded by his family. Standing: Antonius Willms (b 1988) holding his son Zeno (b 2018), his wife (Zeno's mother) Princess Marie-Gabrielle of Nassau (b 1986), her father Prince Jean (b 1957).
Seated: Grand Duke Henri (b 1955), Grand Duke Jean (1921-2019), Grand Duchess Maria Teresa (b 1956).