A few years back, say, a century or so, Monsignor Robert
Hugh Benson wrote a
short biography of St. Thomas à Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose
shrine was one of the four great pilgrimages of the Middle Ages, as anyone who
has ever read Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales can (or should be able to) tell you. This being the anniversary of Thomas’s murder
at the instigation of Henry II Plantagenet, it seemed appropriate to interrupt
our regularly scheduled posting for some alternative entertainment.
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| Becket's Murder |
No, this isn’t a lead in to a slightly risqué story. Just a risky
one, especially these days when questioning the growing power of the State
earns you the opprobrium of being labeled naïve, a conspiracy nut, or wearer of
tin pie plates (with or without pie in them).
Even mentioning Benson can get you halfway there. He is best remembered today not for his insightful historical and
mainstream novels, but for those he himself labeled “sensational,” the most
famous of which, Lord of the World
(1907), is a devastating satire on the secularism and materialism of Edwardian
England, and which is usually mistaken as some kind of apocalyptic
prophecy. (Hardly. If you want to understand Lord of the World, and its companion
“counterblast” The
Dawn of All from 1911 in context, you will find the retrospective in So
Much Generosity quite useful, perhaps even enlightening.)
So. St. Thomas à
Becket. What’s the Big Deal?
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| Robert Hugh Benson |
The introduction that Benson wrote to his short biographical
sketch indicates that his main object was to highlight the problem of worship
of the State instead of God — a deification that meant virtual godhood for the
ruling classes . . . as Thomas Hobbes and Walter Bagehot hinted. This was an ancient pagan idea that surfaced
again with the Reformation. It spawned a resurgence of the creaking
“Divine Right of Kings” so beloved of a significant number of Catholics
disappointed with the presumed failure of democratic government and the steady
march of modern civilization away from religious belief of any kind.
Unfortunately, while the faith of such individuals is undoubtedly great, they
fail to realize or understand that they are espousing a position directly at
odds with the ancient teaching of the Catholic Church. They insist, even in the face of explicit
papal and magisterial statements regarding individual sovereignty, democracy,
and the proper roles of Church and State — which have never changed, despite
the changing forms in which the roles manifest themselves — that democracy,
individual sovereignty, free will . . . even the venerable doctrine of the
separation of Church and State, the very issue that both Saint Thomas à Becket and Saint Thomas More died supporting, is anti- or non-Catholic.
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| "Law is Reason, not Will" |
There is, of course, a deeper problem in all this, but one
that we will only touch on here. That is, a great many people today of all
religious beliefs insist that faith must rule over reason. Most likely rooted in a
reaction against the rapid growth of secularism, the fides solo — “faith alone” — stance is itself a non-Catholic
doctrine, deriving from the great debate of the Middle Ages over whether God’s
Will or God’s Nature (“Intellect”) was preeminent. Yet another Saint Thomas — Thomas Aquinas, the “Angelic Doctor” — won
the debate for the Catholic Church in favor of God’s Nature. That is, we are to
understand Revelation and Tradition in light of what little we can know of
God’s Holy Nature, which we see reflected
analogously in human nature.
That is, if we interpret a passage in the Bible or an encyclical as meaning that we may take
property from the rich to redistribute to the poor, we
must “measure” that interpretation against the standard of the natural law. When we see that the human race has always and
everywhere condemned theft — a violation of private property — we must conclude that private property is proper matter of the natural law. Theft cannot be justified, any more than the
killing of an innocent human being — whether or not the State recognizes that
human being as a “person.” As the
solidarist political scientist and jurist Heinrich Rommen explained,
“It
follows from the fact of natura vulnerata
as well as from the ethical character and goal of community life, and of the
state in particular, that positive human laws are absolutely necessary for
determining the further inferences from the first principles in the interest of
a more exact and readily discernible establishment of order and for the setting
up of institutions needed for community life. The natural-law prohibition of
adultery implies at the same time an affirmation of marriage and of the general
norms that are most needed for its functioning as an institution. ‘Thou shalt
not steal’ presupposes the institution of private property as pertaining to the natural law; but not, for example, the
feudal property arrangements of the Middle Ages or the modern
capitalist system. Since the natural law lays down general norms only, it is the
function of the positive law to undertake the concrete, detailed regulation of
real and personal property and to prescribe the formalities for
conveyance of ownership.” (Heinrich Rommen, The
Natural Law. Indianapolis, Indiana:
Liberty Fund, Inc., 1998, 59.)
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| Even good thieves are punished. |
There is, of course, a strictly determined set of
circumstances — much more rare than many people today like to believe — when,
due to immanent danger of death or permanent disability, it becomes licit to
take what you need (not want) for
yourself or your immediate dependents from the superabundance of another.
“Superabundance” means that which the nominal owner clearly does not need, will
ever need or, even, in some instances, want in order to maintain himself and
his dependents in a manner befitting his station in life. In that case, the
absolute minimum that is needed
(again, not simply desired for an
improvement in the “quality” of life) becomes “common property.” The needy
individual may take only what he or his dependents need . . . after exhausting
all other recourse. Yes, and it must be
repaid if and when the opportunity presents itself. There's also nothing to say that civil authority won't punish you — and legitimately so, for setting a bad example, however just your cause . . . remember Billy Budd?
What has this got to do with Becket? Quite a bit, actually. As we will see, Becket’s presumed
intransigence stood in the way of Henry II getting what Henry wanted, and that
he believed was in the best interests of the State (meaning the best interests
of Henry). Becket didn’t break any
law. What ticked off Henry, in fact, was
Becket’s insistence that Henry obey the law when Henry believed it was not
expedient. Solution? Give a few stupid people the idea that you
would be pleased if someone would rid you of this innocent, albeit
inconvenient, person for reasons of State.
