Looking for Constantinople and Rome.

Catholic, Orthodox theologians agree on first new text since 2016

This is huge.

It's a long document, we'll just skip to the conclusion.

Conclusion

5.1 Major issues complicate an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in the Church. The Church is not properly understood as a pyramid, with a primate governing from the top, but neither is it properly understood as a federation of self-sufficient Churches. Our historical study of synodality and primacy in the second millennium has shown the inadequacy of both of these views. Similarly, it is clear that for Roman Catholics synodality is not merely consultative, and for Orthodox primacy is not merely honorific. In 1979, Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios said: ‘The dialogue of charity … has opened up the way to better understanding of our respective theological positions and thereby to new approaches to theological work, and to a new attitude with regard to the common past of our Churches. This purification of the collective memory of our Churches is an important outcome of the dialogue of charity and an indispensable condition for future progress’ (Joint Declaration, 30 November 1979). Roman Catholics and Orthodox need to continue along that path so as to embrace an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in light of the ‘theological principles, canonical provisions and liturgical practices’ (Chieti, 21) of the undivided Church of the first millennium.

5.2 The Second Vatican Council opened new perspectives by fundamentally interpreting the mystery of the Church as one of communion. Today, there is an increasing effort to promote synodality at all levels in the Roman Catholic Church. There is also a willingness to distinguish what might be termed the patriarchal ministry of the pope within the Western or Latin Church from his primatial service with regard to the communion of all the Churches, offering new opportunities for the future. In the Orthodox Church, synodality and primacy are practised at the panorthodox level, according to the canonical tradition, by the holding of holy and great councils.

5.3 Synodality and primacy need to be seen as ‘interrelated, complementary and inseparable realities’ (Chieti, 5) from a theological point of view (Chieti, 4, 17). Purely historical discussions are not enough. The Church is deeply rooted in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and a eucharistic ecclesiology of communion is the key to articulating a sound theology of synodality and primacy.

5.4 The interdependence of synodality and primacy is a fundamental principle in the life of the Church. It is intrinsically related to the service of the unity of the Church at the local, regional and universal levels. However, principles must be applied in specific historical settings, and the first millennium offers valuable guidance for the application of the principle just mentioned (Chieti, 21). What is required in new circumstances is a new and proper application of the same governing principle.

5.5 Our Lord prayed that his disciples ‘may all be one’ (Jn 17:21). The principle of synodality-primacy in the service of unity should be invoked to meet the needs and requirements of the Church in our time. Orthodox and Roman Catholics are committed to finding ways to overcome the alienation and separation that occurred during the second millennium.

5.6 Having reflected together on the history of the second millennium, we acknowledge that a common reading of the sources can inspire the practice of synodality and primacy in the future. Observing the mandate of our Lord to love one another as he has loved us (Jn 13:34), it is our Christian duty to strive for unity in faith and life.

This doesn't resolve the schism, but it's really edging up on it.  The Pillar notes that in the head of the Greek Orthodox Church had his way, the schism would likely end immediately.

We're getting pretty close.

The final break, more or less, between the Catholic and Easter Orthodox Churches can somewhat be dated to 1453, making it only a few decades older than the start of the Reformation in 1517.  We've written in regard to the collapse of the Reformation here recently, and here's an example of how that's playing out.

Conservative Anglicans Call for Break With Archbishop of Canterbury Over Same-Sex Blessings

African bishops have emerged as leaders of the church’s conservative wing

African bishops are indeed the leaders of the conservative branch of the Anglican Communion, with the Anglican Communion's conservatives being very close in their outlook to Latin Rite Catholicism.  Indeed, the theological point they assert is that they are a separated church, like the Orthodox, a position that Rome does not agree with.

Anyhow, it's interesting to note that as the Reformation more and more collapses due to the seeds of individuality it inserted into Western Culture in the first place, the more conservative branches pull more and more towards Catholic orthodoxy, something liberal Catholics may wish to take note of as they sometimes try to tack in the opposite direction.

The End of the Reformation II

I started this thread some time ago, put it aside, and then oddly a few weeks later, heard a Parish Priest make the observation during a homily.

Synchronicity at work?

I've since linked the theme in to another post, which then ends up being published, as it were, prior to what should have been the original entry, that entry being here:

The End of the Reformation I. Christian Nationalism becomes a local debate. . .

So we return to finish our original thoughts.

St. Augustine of Hippo, in The City of God, describes the fact and the era of the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Rome, it is often noted, wasn't built in a day, and it didn't collapse in one either.  People living through the horrible experience knew things weren't going well, but they wouldn't have necessarily thought that "well, it's 450 and Rome is over".  They wouldn't have thought that in 500, or 600 for that matter.

And they might not have really noticed that a lot of old things were passing away.  Christianity was only in its third century when Augustine was born in 354 and still twenty years away from Rome's disastrous 450 when he died in 430.  All sorts of heresies and competing religions flourished in the era.  Indeed, the Council of Nicea had occurred as recently as the summer of 325 and the birth of Mohammed was only a little over a century away at the time of his death.  Looking outward, it would have been hard for Christians of the era to appreciate that many of the early heresies were about to pass away along with the European pagan religions and Christianity explode as the religion of Europe, North African and the Middle East.

Clearing out the thick weeds of the Roman era turned out to be necessary first.

Human beings, having fairly short lifespans, tend to see all developments in terms of their lifespans.  In True Grit the protagonist Maddy Ross states, "a quarter-century is a long time", but in real terms, except for our own selves, it isn't.  Things that occurred only a century ago, and I used only advisedly, didn't really happen all that long ago in terms of eras and changes, although here too we are fooled by the fact that the last century has been one of amazing technological development, which is not the human norm, with this being particularly true of the middle of the 20th Century.

I note this as the entire Western World is in turmoil right now, seemingly without any existential or metaphysical center, which explains a lot of what we're enduring in the world.  How did we get here?

There's a good argument that it's due to the end of the Reformation, or rather, it's collapse.

St. Augustine lived at the beginning of Rome's death throes.  That same era was the birth of the Catholic world, and I say that advisedly.  Some would say the Christian world, but they'd be wrong in the way they mean it.  Christianity, all of it, was Catholicism.  It would be right up until the Reformation.  Even the Great Schism, which was a schism, really only had its final act in 1453, quite close to Luther's famous apocryphal nailing on the Cathedral door in 1517.

The English-speaking world is a product of the Reformation, and while it now seemingly regrets it, the English-speaking world was the major, influencer of the world's history and cultures.  By extension, therefore, the Reformation influenced the entire globe.

That's not praise for the Reformation.  Indeed, I'd have preferred it never have had happened. That's just a fact.

The Christian Era is usually calculated to have commenced at the time of the Crucifixion of Christ, which occurred sometime in the 30s, but it might be more instructive for our purposes to look at the 200s or the 300s, but a person could go earlier. The very first council, a general gathering of Bishops of the Church, occurred in about the year 50, and is reflected in the Book of Acts.  It dealt with some issues that had come up in the very early Church, but for our purposes one of the things worth noting is that it was a Council of Bishops, which means that there were Bishops.  This shouldn't be a surprise, but due to the way the Reformation attacked the history of the Church, it might be to some.  Peter, the first Pope (that title of course wouldn't have been in use) was there.  

The Council of Jerusalem is not regarded as an ecumenical council, as Church historians would note.  The first one of those was the aforementioned Council of Nicea, which occurred in 325.  Some Protestants would date the founding of the Catholic Church to that date completely erroneously, a Reformation era lie, as it's been one that has been particularly attacked by Reformation Protestants at some point. The reasons are fairly obvious, really.  The Council gathered to address heresy, put it down, and it did.  It's noteworthy as a Council for the additional reason that it was the first to occur during the reign of a Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, who stayed out of it, as is often not appreciated either.

Indeed, going forward, that reflected much of the history of the Church.  If we date the Christian era from, let's say, 100 and go forward to 1517, generally the Church was independent of the state and defined the metaphysical.  

This is significant in that it was universally agreed that there was a metaphysical, or an existential, that was outside human beings, greater than it, independent of it, and which humans had to conform themselves to.  In other words, it was accepted that reality defined humans, and not the other way around.

Luther didn't mean to attack that core principle, but his actions set a revolution against it in motion.  Luther didn't even really mean to separate from the Church at first, but rather to criticize what he saw as abuses.  Things took off, however, mostly as German princes saw this as an opportunity to say that they could define certain things locally, rather than the Church.  After a time, Luther, who didn't find German bishops following him, claimed in essence that the clergy could independently interpret all matters theological, although he himself only attacked a limited number of principals.

Luther was a cleric, of course, and he didn't really start off to, and in fact did not, establish a Church that departed from the Catholic Church in all things.  Indeed, Lutheran services today strongly resemble Catholic ones. But following "reformers" did.  The logic was fairly inescapable.  If Martin Luther, who wasn't a bishop, could tell the bishops what doctrine ought to be, anybody could, or at least any Christian could.  More radical species of revolution, therefore, followed Luther.

In the English speaking world, the Reformation got started with King Henry VIII's desire to secure an annulment, not a divorce, from his wife.  When the Church found the marriage to be valid, he declared that it was he, not the Church, who was the supreme religious figure in England.  That was really a different position than Luther had taken, but Henry opened the door to challenging the Church, which would play out in a particularly odd form in England as various regimes teetered between radical Protestantism and Quasi Catholicism, before settling in on an uneasy truce between the two in the form of the Church of England in England.  In Scotland, which England had heavy influence over, Presbyterianism set in as a form of more radical Protestantism.  In the form of the United Kingdom, coming officially into existence in 1707, the Crown would spread both faiths around the globe, with the unwilling Irish taking Catholicism with them.  In Europe south of the Rhine, of course, Catholicism remained, so French and Spanish colonialism took Catholicism with them as well.

English-speaking colonists were often religious dissenters early on, holding to the more radical form so Protestantism, while later English colonists tended to bring in the "established" church.  In neither instance, however, was it ever the case that there was a rejection of Christianity.  The Enlgisih had, through their leaders, rejected Rome, but they hadn't rejected all variants of the faith.  Be that as it may, the concept of rejection based on independent belief was firmly established, first in 1517, and then in 1534.  The door was open.

When the United States came into being, it did so as a Protestant country.  Canada as well, in spite of a large, but marginalized Catholic population, and so too Australia and New Zealand.  Indeed, anywhere the English went, and they went everywhere, Protestantism went with them.

This is so much the case that American Christians tend to think that Catholics are simply a minority all over the globe and that "Christians", which is how many define themselves, represent the Christian Faith. 

Far from it.

Conservatively, 50.1% of the Christian population of the globe is Catholic.  Another 11.9% of Christians are Orthodox.  Given this, over 60% of Christians are Apostolic Christians who, while not united, generally recognize each other's Holy Orders as valid, and who moreover share the overwhelming majority of their tenants of their Faiths.  I've seen estimates, however, that place 80% of all practicing Christians as Catholics.  Indeed, while Protestant missionaries frequently work to convert Catholics in poor countries, calling into question really their status as real missionaries, the Catholic Church has large numbers of underground Christian members in its ranks all over the globe, and local Protestant conversions in some areas are in reality probably often conversions of convenience and not really all that deep in any form.

Protestants are estimated by Pew at 36.7% of the Earth's Christians, if the Pew figures are otherwise correct.

Maybe that's right, but as noted I've seen other figures that skew the Catholic figure upwards significantly, and the Protestant figure downward.

In the U.S., however, 48.9% of the population is Protestant and 23% are Catholic.  That makes Catholics a large minority, but a minority.  Orthodox are an even tinier minority at .4% of the population.  It's most strongly represented, not surprisingly, in Alaska.  It has been growing, however, due to what we're noting in this threat. As the Protestant faiths collapse in on themselves, some abandoning them go into Orthodoxy.

Indeed, one entire congregation in Gillette did just that.

Luther's biggest accomplishment, one that is acknowledged and celebrated today in some European countries that underwent the Reformation, was to bring about the modern world of individualism.  Reformation Day, for example, is a public holiday in five German states and even Lego put out a Lego variant of Martin Luther in 2017 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.  What's really being celebrated isn't so much his theology, but the concept of radical individuality.

That same individuality, however, has led to the collapse of Protestantism, or at least a massive contraction from what it once was.  This is constantly in the news, but rarely understood.  In the English-speaking world the urban British began to lose their attachment to the Church of England long ago, which after all had a strong connection with the English establishment, not the English underclass, something that was really the opposite of the oppressed Catholic Church.  Put another way, Henry VIII did not destroy the monasteries to benefit the poor, and they didn't.

Elsewhere, British imported Protestantism was strong, with this particularly being the case in North America, with this most particularly the case with the United States which had large numbers of adherents to Protestant faiths that the British Crown had oppressed.  But by the turn of the 19th/20th Century, things were very slowly changing.  The collapse of the Progressive movement, which was strongly tied to Protestantism, accelerated it as more radical reformers on the hard left pitched for social change.  This trend was strongly in place by the 1930s. 

It took the post-war economic boom to really set it in, however, even thought that, like so many other things, was not apparent at the time. Following World War Two, in fact, main line Protestant churches grew, as newly monied middle class Americans went into them.  The last gasp of Catholics converting to main line Protestant churches as they'd economically arrived occurred, something that came to an end with John F. Kennedy arrived.  By that time, however, the Baby Boom children were coming into their own.

Raised in a Protestant culture but coming into massive societal wealth, much of the Boomer ethos amounted to nothing other than being allowed to do what they wanted to without hindrance.   The table was already set for that by the increased wealth of the post-war era and the arrival of the Playboy era starting in 1953.  They took it and ran with it, rejecting anything that got in the way with license.  Protestant churches, which already had the concept of being democratic, responded by getting on board in many instances.  "Liberal" theology spring up and took root in some, followed by the widespread turning of a blind eye to many other things.  

For example, as late as the 1930s the Anglican Communion rejected divorce to the same extent that the Catholic Church does. As the Sexual Revolution came in, it started to turn a blind eye to this, and now it'd be extraordinarily difficult to find any Protestant Church that cares anything about divorce, something clearly prohibited by the New Testament, at all, save for some very conservative Protestant denominations or semi denominations.

This, in fact, provides a good example.  Christ prohibited divorce.  St. Paul condemned not only sex outside of marriage, but listed specific sex acts and behaviors.  The Anglican Communion now has bishops who engage in the very activities that St. Paul condemned.

It can't really be justified, but it's occurred as these institutions are, at the end of the day, democratic. Religion is not.  And those sitting in the pews, in their heart of hearts, know the difference. The leaders, like leaders of democratic institutions, attempt to do the obvious, which is to modify doctrine to satisfy the cravings of the electorate.

Because religion is existential by its nature, it's not working.

This has seen the massive drop-off of membership in some Protestant denominations.  I'ts also seen ruptures in others, as "conservative", by which is really meant those adherent to basic tenants of the Christian faith, split off.  At the same time it's seen the growth of "non-denominational" churches, some of which chose not to challenge the behavior of the congregants and focus instead, broadly, on the theme that everyone is going to Heaven, something that the New Testament doesn't support at all.

Naturally, as part of all of that, people have been just dropping out, with WASPs dropping out most of all. The white upper middle class, which reflects more than anything else the spirit of the 60s and the Boomers, would rather sit comfortably behind imaginary gated walls and not be bothered with having to have restrictions of any kind.  Not all of them, of course, but enough to have impacted and still be impacting the culture.

It shouldn't be imagined that Catholics have been immune from this, in European cultures.  The spirit of the age took hold to a very large extent, but not the same universal degree, in the 1970s, impacted it as well, with the stage being set, in the U.S. in the Kennedy election of 1960.  Kennedy's election heralded the end of open public prejudice, for a time, against the Catholic Church in the U.S. and Kennedy's Catholic on Sunday declaration essentially muted differences in the Faith from Protestant faiths, which were and are very real, to private ones, rather than the open and obvious public ones they had been. The spirit of the age that took hold in the late 1960s led to blisteringly poor catechesis in the 70s, and a generation, or more, of Catholics that didn't understand that there really were massive differences between Apostolic Christianity and Protestantism. The term "Cafeteria Catholic" came in, in no small part as younger Catholics weren't told they weren't in a cafeteria.  Catholics were almost informed that major tenants of the faith, including the need for Confession, and the prohibition against marrying outside the Faith, were merely options in the 70s and 80s.  Clawing the way back from that has been difficult and massive damage has been done.  Moreover, as Western Catholicism suffers from the same Baby Boomer control that so many other things do, the process of recovery has been slow as those who came up during that age have yet to yield control.

At any rate, this is where the spirit of our age comes from.  It turns out that given time, and money, people's thoughts don't go to higher things, but only to themselves.  Even people immediately around them can be a bother.  Ultimately the generation that had calimed to be for "Love" turns out to be for self love in every way describable, including to its own destruction.

Of course, as noted, people know that something is wrong and that's creating massive social disruption. The problem ultimately comes to be that reconstruction is very difficult.  People lead down the road so far, that then realize they're being led to where they don't want to go, will often just sit down and demand that the new world be built right there.  I.e., divorce was okay. . . but we'll stop here.  Or, homosexual marriage was okay, and we'll stop there.  The problem is that you really can't stop anywhere you want, as it suffers from the same intellectual deficit that going further on the road that you are on, if it's a false road, does.

Hence, as noted, the inaccurate contemplation of Susan Stubson in the NYT that we wrote about the other day.  Not realizing it, her departure from Apostolic Christianity didn't go deeper, as she believes it did, but took her on the path to where she is right now, and where's she's now uncomfortable.  Some roads get rocky.

At the end of the day, however, what this really is, is the collapse of the Reformation.  It's in its final stages.  Having attacked the existential nature of the Church in favor of clerical liberty, and then that in the name of individual theological liberty, it ultimately has to be for radical individual liberty.  But, as we don't actually exists as planetary mammals of our own description with our own universe, to which the laws of the existential must bend, that can't work.

And it isn't.

Collapses are horrific messes.  

At the time that Augustine wrote City of God, the collapse of the Roman world wasn't close to being worked out.  The long slow developments that gave rise to the Great Schism still hasn't been worked out, and it started prior to the Reformation.  The Reformation was a revolution, and looking back from a distant future, it will have been seen to only now being playing itself out.

Revolutions cause causalities. There have been many, and there will be many more to come.  The entire Western World was impacted, to some degree, by the Reformation, some of it more than others.  Its collapse is being particularly felt in the English-speaking world, and interestingly also in the Lutheran world.  This will get worse before it gets better, but as the Reformation turned out to be anti-natural in the end, or took that turn at some point, it will get better as a new Counter Reformation correct the errors now being inflicted upon us. That too is already starting.

Related Threads:

The End of the Reformation I. Christian Nationalism becomes a local debate. . .

On the Coronation of King Charles III

Since the Act of Union in 1707, there have been only thirteen British monarchs, the first being Queen Anne.  The current royal family, if we discuss direct and not remote ancestry, dates back only to William of Orange, who was king from 1689 to 1702, prior to the Act of Union.  Anne was his successor and reigned until 1714.  She was in ill health most of the time.

Had the throne passed to Anne's nearest relatives, it would have gone to a member of the House of Stuart, who were Catholic. Anne was an Anglican, but she was the daughter of Charles II who became Catholic on his deathbed and who harbored strong Catholic sympathies, in spite of living a wild life, his entire life.  Indeed, his father Charles I was a High Church Anglican who teetered on that edge himself.  George I was chosen over 60 Stuart claimants simply because the Whigs had taken control of parliament, and he was a protestant.

I note this as people not familiar with the English monarchy, or perhaps more accurately the monarchy of the United Kingdom, seem to assume that the throne has always been inherited.  Not so.  It's been inherited since George I, when he was crowned the King over Catholic claimants who held undoubtedly better claims.

The second item of interest there is that the British monarchy is, therefore, by recent tradition, and by law, "Protestant", which his to say, Anglican.

Those watching the coronation yesterday, if they were not familiar with the process, would have been struck by how deeply religious it was.  I don't think people, or perhaps more accurately Americans, expected that, as Americans have the stupid Disney view of monarchy, in which there'd be a two-minute coronation involving beautiful people, rather than an hours long service.  Moreover, people with some religious knowledge, but not familiar with the process, would have been surprised that it was recognizable as a Mass, in Catholic terms.

Indeed, some commentators, including the Catholic Cardinal who participated in it, noted that it has "some" Catholic elements. 

"Some"?

Baloney, it's 100% Catholic in form save for the King having to take the mandatory oath that he support the United Kingdom's Protestant faith.

That became a topic running up to this because, in spite of the impressive performance, the Church of England is in real trouble in England.  It does remain strong in some places, but not in its old footholds.  In the United States and Canada, its North American expression, the Episcopal Church, is in really deep trouble.  In the UK, more Catholics attend services weekly than members of the Church of England, which is really something given that Catholics are a minority religion in the UK and have been at least since Elizabeth I forced the "religious settlement" on the country.  Lest that seem too encouraging for Catholics, all devout religious adherence has been on the decline in the UK for a very long time, a product of the disaster of the Reformation, which is playing out presently.

Be that as it may, at least to Catholic eyes, the absurdity of the English Reformation is brought to full light by such events.  The ceremony was so Catholic that the question has to be asked why the Church of England doesn't just come back into the fold, something which is becoming increasingly difficult in light of its recent accommodations to popular social trends.

Which brings me to my next observation.

I know one fallen away Episcopalian who is deeply anti-Catholic.  It's interesting how that tends to be the last thing that those raised in the "main line" Protestant Churches retain.  The Baby Boomer children of adherent Main Line Protestant churches may have chosen to ignore their faiths in favor of the world and its delights, but they remember the fables and hatred that the Reformation used to justify its actions, and still cite it as if they were buddies with John Calvin himself.  Odd.

I know that I'm personally tired of it.  But in part, that's because I'm tired of having to listen to two people I personally know debate religious topics as if it's a sport.  It isn't.  It's serious.  But then maybe I'm tired of people who argue just for sport as well.

Profoundly Christian, and frankly about as close to Catholic in form as you can get and not be Catholic, another interesting aspect of the coronation was reinforcing the United Kingdom's Christian heritage. 

And that's a good thing.

The Coronation really brought the monarchy haters out in droves, which was interesting.  Lots of "Not My King" and "Not My Queen" individual protests were here and there. Well, unless Parliament abolished the monarchy, if you are English or a resident of the English Commonwealth, he is your king.  You don't have to love him, but that doesn't mean he isn't the king.

This also brought out a lot of sanctimonious blathering by people who hail from former imperial possessions about the horrors of the British Empire. Well, whatever they may be, King Charles III and his mother Queen Elizabeth II weren't responsible for any of them.

Indeed, it's been eons since there was a king or queen really had extensive power.  Maybe since King Charles II.  The UK has been a constitutional monarch at least since Queen Anne.  If monarchy had been what people imagine, one of her Stuart relatives would have been the next monarch, not King George I.  So if people have a beef with the British Empire, it shouldn't really be with Queen Elizabeth, whom some proclaimed they could not mourn, or with King Charles III, whom some proclaim they cannot celebrate.

Let's make no mistake.  Colonialism in general was bigoted and racist by its very nature.  The underlying premise of it was that the European colonial power, and here we will limit this to European powers, was empowered by some sort of superior value which gave it a right to take the land of others and rule its people. That was the underlying thesis of colonialism everywhere. Generally the "superior" something they had was technology, which made it possible, but which didn't make it right.

But before we get too self-righteous about it, we probably need to take a look at in context, and over time, and then ask if the compulsion that gives rise to it is a universal human norm. That would not mean that it was right, but it might lessen the overall guilt.

Indeed, in spite of what people might now wish for claim, when European colonialism started the concept of one nation ruling over another was not only common, it was the norm.  In the early 17th Century when British Colonialism really started, Ireland and Wales were already unwelcome members, to some extent, of the United Kingdom, and Scotland wasn't all that keen on it. Figuring out who governed in the Low Countries and the German Principalities requires an epic flow chart.  Russia ruled vasts lands with no Russians. This condition would go on well into the 19th Century, and even to some extent into the 20th Century.  Contrary to what people claim, national feelings existed, but people didn't regard empires and monarchies that ruled over a collection of nations to be abnormal.

And it would have been extremely difficult for Europeans, early on, to be confronted with foreign cultures beyond their seas and treat them as equals given the varied states of development.  It's easy for us to say that the British should have landed at Jamestown in 1607 only after asking for permission, but frankly, it would have been impossible for them to have conceived it that way at the time.

This might not be the case for later European colonial efforts, but by that time competition between European powers nearly mandated acquiring colonies and a person would have to be naive to imagine that if the British had abstained, the French, Dutch, Germans, Spanish, and so on, would have done so also.

Indeed, frankly, if we were to land humans on Mars today, and find something waddle up and address us in some bizarre Martian tongue, I don't believe we'd abstain from colonizing the planet now.

Which gets to this point.  I can't really think easily of a people anywhere that had the power to colonize, and didn't do it.  Everyone did.  It seems to go back to our earliest days.  That doesn't make it right, once again, but it's obviously a common human trait.

Which means in turn that the only really valid criticism of empire that mean anything today has to come in terms of relatively recent historical context.

A conversation on this point the other day made me realize how different my "relatively recent" is.  The actual conversation was on British primogenitor in the monarchy.  I sincerely regard everything after 1066 as recent in terms of the British monarchy.  

Apparently, other people don't.

In this context, however, i.e., that of empire, I'd probably go back to 1800 or so.  If you are going to levy guilt on the British, therefore, you might have to start in 1858 when Parliament caused the British to officially take over India.  

There's a lot to blame the English for after that, but then there's a lot to blame the French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans for after that as well.

It's really the late 19th Century and 20th Century when you get into the full-blown "shouldn't you people have known better" type of situation. The Scramble for Africa is pretty difficult to justify in any sense.

Which takes us, I suppose, to this.  In its late stages, while it was still an empire, and should have known better, at least the British did a good job of trying to administer what it was administering well. Its actions weren't always admirable or successful.  The Bengal Famine of 1943 provides a shocking example of that.  And frankly, there's no way to reconcile the claim that the British were fighting for freedom only during World War Two, except comparatively.  I.e., the Axis wasn't seeking to liberate colonial peoples, but to enslave them to somebody else less democratic yet.   But, having said that, the British, more than any other colonial power, managed to depart from empire gracefully and with some rationale hope that the best things it had given to the people it had occupied would remain.

It didn't always work out, but to a surprising degree it did.  British Dominions largely did evolve into full-blown parliamentary democracies and largely separated from the UK peaceably, although this was notably not the case with Ireland.  Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa are all democracies today due to the British example.  So, frankly, is the United States, the UK's first failed imperial endeavor.

The coronation of King Charles III probably contains within it a series of lessons that will only be evident in the coming days.  But for those who want to protest it, well you probably would better spend your time on real problems of the world, of which there are many.

Related Items:

King Charles III

Britain's projection of its hopes and gossip on its royal family may be more useful than America's projection on its presidential families

Saturday, April 14, 1923. Waiting Dates, Young Couples, Racist Organizations Where You Wouldn't Expect Them.

It was Saturday, and the Saturday Evening Post chose to run an illustration of a woman waiting, presumably on a date.

The Country Gentleman illustration depicted a young couple applying for a marriage license, with a caption below that would be regarded as racist today, but which was still common for complete independence when I was young.

The Lansing-Ishii Agreement which had defined Japanese and American spheres of influence in China was abrogated after six years of being in effect due to Chinese objections regarding the agreement.

The Tribune reported on a tidal wave in Japan, and Irish plots against the British, but the really shocking news was the visitation of the Ku Klux Klan to the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Casper at 15th and Popular Streets.  There is no church there today, that location featuring a gas station, two apartment buildings, and a traffic island..

An Emmanuel Baptist Church still exists in Casper, but it's in North Casper today.  I have no idea of there being any connection between the two or not.

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

Not the best photograph, by any means, we admit.

Emmanuel Baptist Church in North Casper, Wyoming.

Apparently the same group had visited the Baptist church located at 5th and Beech street earlier.  That Church structure is no longer there either, but a subsequent structure built in 1949 remains, however it is no longer a Baptist Church.

First Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

This is the First Baptist Church in Casper, Wyoming. It's one of the Downtown churches in Casper, in an area that sees approximately one church per block for a several block area.

This particular church was built in 1949, and sits on the same block as Our Savior's Lutheran Church.

Changes in Downtown Casper. First Presbyterian becomes City Park Church, the former First Baptist Church.

I debated on whether to put this entry here or on our companion blog, Lex Anteinternet.  In the end, I decided to put it up here first and then link it over. This will be one of a couple of posts of this type which explore changes, this one with a local expression, that have bigger implications.

When we started this blog, some of the first entries here were on churches in downtown Casper.  These included the First Presbyterian Church and the First Baptist Church, with buildings dating to 1913 and 1949 respectively.  First Baptist, it should be noted, has occupied their present location, if not their present church, for a century.

Indeed, while I wasn't able to get it to ever upload, I have somewhere a video of the centennial of the First Presbyterian Church from 2013, featuring, as a church that originally had a heavy Scots representation ought to, a bagpipe band.  Our original entry on that church building is right below:

First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of which are separated from each other by City Park.

The corner stone of the church gives the dates 1913 1926. I'm not sure why there are two dates, but the church must have been completed in 1926.

Well, since that centennial, First Presbyterian has been going through a constant set of changes, as noted in our entry here:

Grace Reformed at City Park, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This isn't a new addition to the roll of churches here, but rather news about one of them.  We formerly posted on this church here some time ago:

Churches of the West: First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming: This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of whi...

People who have followed it would be aware that the Presbyterian churches in the United States are undergoing a period of rift, and this church has reflected that.  The Presbyterian Church, starting in the 1980s, saw conflict develop between liberal and more conservative elements within it which lead to the formation of the "moderate conservative" EPC.  As I'm not greatly familiar with this, I'll only note that the EPC is associated with "New School Presbyterianism" rather than "Old School" and it has adopted the motto  "In Essentials, Unity; In Non-Essentials, Liberty; In All Things, Charity. Truth in Love.".

The change in name here is confusing to an outsider in that this church is a member of the EPC, but it's no longer using its original name.  As it just passed the centennial of its construction, that's a bit unfortunate in some ways. 

We'd also note that the sought set of stairs is now chained off.  We're not sure why, but those stairs must no longer be used for access.

The changes apparently didn't serve to arrest whatever was going on, as there's a sign out in front of the old First Presbyterian, later Grace Reformed, that starting on February 23, it'll be City Park Church.

City Park Church, it turns out, is the name that the congregation that presently occupies another nearby church, First Baptist Church, will call its new church building, which is actually a much older building than the one it now occupies, which is depicted here:

First Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

This is the First Baptist Church in Casper, Wyoming. It's one of the Downtown churches in Casper, in an area that sees approximately one church per block for a several block area.

This particular church was built in 1949, and sits on the same block as Our Savior's Lutheran Church.

What's going on?

Well, it's hard to say from the outside, which we are, but what is pretty clear is that the rifts in the Presbyterian Church broke out, in some form, in the city's oldest Presbyterian Church to the point where it ended up changing its name, and then either moving out of its large church, and accompanying grounds, or closing altogether.  I've never been in the building but I'm told that its basement looked rough a couple of years ago and perhaps the current congregation has other plans or the grounds and church are just too much for it.  At any rate, the 1949 vintage building that First Baptist occupies is apparently a bit too small for its needs and it had taken the opportunity to acquire and relocate into the older, but larger, church.  It can't help but be noted that both churches have pretty large outbuildings as well. Also, while they are both downtown, the 1913 building is one of the three very centrally located old downtown Casper churches, so if church buildings have pride of place, the Baptist congregation is moving into a location which has a little bit more of one.

While it will be dealt with more in another spot, or perhaps on Lex Anteinternet, the entire thing would seem to be potentially emblematic of the loss that Christian churches that have undergone a rift like the Presbyterian Church in the United States has sustained when they openly split between liberal and conservative camps.  The Presbyterian Church was traditionally a fairly conservative church, albeit with theology that was quite radical at the time of its creation.  In recent years some branches of that church have kept their conservatism while others have not and there's been an open split.  As noted elsewhere this has lead in part to a defection from those churches in a lot of localities, and a person has to wonder if something like that may have happened here, as well as wondering if the obvious fact that a split has occurred would naturally lead to a reduction in the congregation as some of its members went with the other side.  We've noted here before that the Anglican Community locally not only has its two Episcopal Churches in town, but that there are also two additional Anglican Churches of a much more theologically conservative bent, both of which are outside of the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming.

A person can't really opine, from the outside, if something like this is "sad" or not, but it's certainly a remarkable event.  We've noted church buildings that have changed denominations of use before, but this is the first one where we've actually witnessed it.  And in this case, the departing denomination had occupied their building for a century.

In both instances, the small KKK group was there for the odd purpose of noting something they approved of.  

On the changes in the linked in article, while I'm not completely certain, I believe that no congregation is presently using the old First Baptist Church, and the old Presbyterian Church continued to undergo denominational changes.  It's something affiliated with Presbyterianism in some fashion, but I don't know how.

Amalgamated Bank, the largest union owned bank, forms.

The National League of Women's Voters voted against endorsing the League of Nations while simultaneously urging the US to associate with other nations to help prevent war, a mixed message.

Monday, April 5, 1943. Dietrich Bonhoeffer arrested.

Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested at the Abwehr.  Lawyer Hans von Dohnanyi was arrested at the same time.  Oddly, they were both members of the Abwehr even though they were dedicated opponents of Nazism.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1987-074-16 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5483382

They'd be imprisoned and executed in the waning days of World War Two.

The Abwehr, German Military Intelligence, was a center of conspiracies against the Nazi regime as well as an instrument of its policy.  Headed by the enigmatic Wilhelm Canaris, it conspired where it could with Germany's enemies during the war, although obviously not effectively enough to achieve a definitive goal.

Confusing politics with religion.

I could barely read the Trib on Sunday morning.  Not because I was disgusted by the news, but because I was so sick, for the first time in years, that it was a struggle to make it through it.  I did note that on the editorial page lawmakers are clocking in, with veterans lamenting this session as pathetic, and freshman claiming it was more of a success.

The veterans are more on target.

One of the more controversial freshmen, Jeanette Ward, had a rebuttal editorial to one run on the 10th by the local director of American Atheists.  I saw that editorial but didn't read it as I'm frankly not that interested in what the leader of an entity of a group of people who would have to practically lack leadership by definition has to say really.  Moreover, there aren't actually atheist, as denying the existence of God doesn't mean not knowing he exists.  All humans know the latter, while some maintain the former.  More and more we live in a world where certain segments of our society deny that something that obviously exists, does not, so that's really not that interesting.

I read Ward, however, in part simply because she baffles, and somewhat irritates, me.

I also read it as Ward is writing, she claims, from a Christian prospective.

Now, that's a dangerous thing to claim in the first place as most of the world's Christians belong to Apostolic Christianity, with most of them being Catholic.  If you aren't writing from a Catholic prospective, or at least an Apostolic Christian prospective, you have some groundwork to do as you are, by definition, part of a dissenting body that has some sort of major problem with the main body of Christians who date back to day one in the Faith.  Maybe this doesn't matter if you are writing on something very general that all Christians agree on, but if it's down to the specifics, maybe not so much.

On general moral principles, as long as they're really general, that shouldn't matter too much, however.

Anyhow, I read her article.  It started noting this:

In a famous October 1798 letter to the Massachusetts Militia, John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Well, I agree with that.  And what she next noted, which was:

Adams was clearly referring to the newly ratified Constitution of 1787, the one we still use and cherish today. Rather than seeking to create a religious theocracy, Adams correctly observed what once was obvious: our republic, as structured by the 1787 document, depends upon a moral, grounded society. Adams believed that a society defined by vices would destroy the mechanisms for self government as created by the Constitution, resulting in despotism.

She went on to note from there that the founders presumed a system in which people shared a set of "relatively similar, classical morals" and that,  "Today, there appears to be a widespread misunderstanding of what those morals are."

Well, while I hate to admit it, I agree once again.

So, what from there. 

Well, from there Rep. Ward went on to complain about how the Legislature failed to pass HB0066 banning vaccine and mask mandates, looping this back into her understanding of a shared set of "relatively similar, classical morals".

Eh?  How do you get there?

The founders lived in an era when quarantines, it might be noted, were common.

She noted that the Atheist group was in favor of vaccine mandates.

And hence we find a clear example of something failing due to the Self Centered Razor.  Ms. Ward, in her editorial, proclaims herself a Christian, and I'm sure she's some sort of Christian.  From there, she proclaims, in essence, that radial self-determination, within the limits that she conceives of it, or radial personal liberty, within the confines that she accepts it, are Christian principles.  They are, to the extent that most Christians hold that man has free will and is therefore free to choose good over evil, or vice versa, but the assumption that the Freedom Caucus "me and mine" view of personal liberty is a Christian one is erroneous.  

A lot of what that quarter, which flirts, in an unclear way that it doesn't really understand, with Christian Nationalism, suffers from that.  And much of it has the appearance of determining what personal rights and liberties we value first, and then attaching them to a religious faith.  People have gone so far in this direction to be able to blind themselves to the gigantic moral failings of some of their leaders. That moral failings would exist is not surprising, but to simply ignore them or excuse them does violence to the principals themselves.

And this gets back to the plank in the eye problems.  A person worried, for example, about masks mandates being a matter of law might ponder divorce, which is clearly contrary to the teachings of Christ, being allowed first, but we're too acclimated to that.  For that matter, in a society in which people seriously post paintings of Donald Trump in prayer, when he's about to be indited for having paid, in effectively, a pornographic actress to shut up about an affair. . . well.

Anyhow, the Founders were a variety of Christian faiths, with the Church of England being the most predominant.  The Church of Scotland was represented and then the more "Protestant" faiths that had been dissenting faiths, from the Church of England, in England itself.  A handful of Catholics were in the group.

They didn't have a problem with quarantines, which served the general welfare of everyone.

The concept that it's somehow anti-Christian, or immoral, to require the wearing of masks is simply wrong.

This is the second time Ward has made such a serious error in Christian understanding.  In the legislature, she opposed extending Medicaid benefits to mothers who had recently given birth, as she felt the answer to the question "Am I my brothers' keeper" was "No".  It's yes.

Tuesday, February 16, 1943. Mildred Harnack executed. Theresienstadt temporairly spared. Domenikon not spared. Norwegian paratroopers drop. Stalin asks for a "second front".

Himmler ordered a cessation of deportations of elderly Jews from the Theresienstadt ghetto, resulting in a complete sessaion of deportations of all Jews from there for six months.  Oddly, the ghetto had been designated as a location where elderly Jews could live out tehir lives, albeit not comfortably, resulting in the order, but a peson has to wonder to what extent the order simply wasn't practical, given the massive strain hte war had put on the German railways system, which was being compounded by German deportations.

Italian soldiers commenced reprisal murders of Greek civilians at Domenikon which would result in 175 Greek men being killed.

Norwegian paratroopers were dropped by the British at Skrykenvann in preparation for a raid on the hydro plant at Vemork, targeted at heavy water production.

East German stamp in honor of the Harnacs.

Mildred Harnack, née Fish, a 41-year-old Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, was executed by guillotine at Germany's Plötzensee Prison on orders of Adolph Hitler.  

Harnack was an academic who married Arvid Harnack, a German academic. The couple moved to Arvid's native land, and in the 1930s the couple, if not outright Communists, were at least serious fellow travelers, something not that unusual for academics at the time.  While this was the case, they nonetheless were members of the American Church in Berlin, a Protestant church which Americans attended prior to the war.

The Harnacks were members of the Red Orchestra, which lead to her arrest and execution.  

The story of her death is largely unknown in the US and was in fact suppressed by the US government due to their Communist sympathies.   The U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) concluded her execution "justified", which legally it likely was, given that the sentence for treason was death everywhere at the time. That doesn't make her effort any less noble, of course.

Josepah Stalin, who was fighting a one front, if gigantic, war wrote to Franklin Roosevelt, reiterating the need for a "second front".  The United States was, of course already engaged in a second front in North Africa, a third front in the Pacific, and a basically a fourth front on the Atlantic, none of which involved the Soviets.

The Western Allies, throughout the war, loyally plade this sharade with Stalin, who was, of course, a former German ally, none of which is to belittle the giant Soviet war effort, but which is also not to ignore that the effort was being heavily supplied by the Western Allies.  Soviet propoganda, particularly in the USSR itslef, was so effective on thsi score, hoewver, that unfortunately modern Russians still believe it.

Former slave George Washington Buckner, and later U.S. Minister to Liberia (1913 to 1915) died in Indiana at age 87.  He was also a physician.

A comment about Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hog Leg. Sunday games, rural activities, and gatherings.

Soccer, Scotland, 1830s.

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hog Leg: Nothing says America like shooting guns and watching the Super Bowl. A nice sunny afternoon was the perfect time to try out my newly borrowe...

This is interesting.

The Super Bowl used to be a bigger deal in this house than it now is. Seems like a lot of things once were.

I’m not a football fan at all, and I didn't really start watching the Super Bowl until my wife and I were married.  She is a football fan and will watch the season, and always watches the Super Bowl.  

When we were first married, there were Super Bowl parties.  We didn't have kids at first, and my wife's brothers were young at the time.  Later, however, it carried on until the kids were teens.  Then something changed, including the giving up of the farm (the farm, not the ranch), longer travel distances, and some residential changes at the ranch.  Ultimately, the parties just sort of stopped, although I'm sure my two brothers-in-law, who live in houses at the ranch yard, still observe a party, and my father and mother-in-law, who live a few miles away, likely travel to that.

Much lower key than it used to be.  No big gatherings like there once were.

Back in the day, we had a couple of them at our house.

Basically, the dining fare was always simple. Sandwiches bought at one of the local grocery stores, chips and beer.  Typical football stuff.

At some parties at the farm, there were bowling pin shooting matches. For those not familiar with them, people shot bowling pins from some distance with pistols.  It was fun.  Frankly, I don't think a lot of people are all that interested in the Super Bowl to start with, and at least at the Super Bowl parties with bowling pin matches people went out to the match, and it ran into the game, which says something.

The other day also, I wrote on community.

I note this because, at one time, Schuetzen matches were big deals in German American communities.  And while they involved rifles, and indeed very specialized rifles, they were also big community events.

And such things aren't unique to just those mentioned.  In parts of the country, men participating in "turkey shoots" were pretty common.  

Of course, shooting clubs and matches still exist nearly everywhere, and lots of men, and women, participate in matches.  

Less common, however, are the rural informal matches.

All sorts of rural activities were once associated with holidays, and events.  I guess that the Super Bowl is some sort of large-scale informal civil holiday, even though of course it always occurs on a Sunday.  Indeed, the playing of the game on a Sunday is curious.  I put a little (very little) time looking into that, and found this CBS Sports comment on it, which it must be first noted explained that football really started being popular in the 1920s.

Sunday was a free day during a decade where it was common to work on Saturdays, so the APFA played most of their games on that day. Fast forward 30 years to the advent of television networks, who were desperately looking for programming on Sundays in the 1950s.

That makes some sense to me, as I still work on Saturdays.

I'd note, however, that is this makes sense, it doesn't quite explain why baseball games occur all throughout the week, and I think there are Monday night professional football games as well, albeit televised ones.

I wonder, however, if it has deeper roots than that. American football is the successor to Rugby, and Rugby and Soccer were hugely popular in the United Kingdom.  Prior to major league fun sucker Oliver Cromwell taking over the English government, in the United Kingdom, Sunday had been a day for church and then games.

This went back to Medieval times, before the Reformation.  People worked, and worked hard, six days out of seven, but on the seventh, they rested. And resting meant going to Mass, and then having fun, and fun often meant games and beer, as well as other activities.  In spite of their best efforts, major Protestant reformers weren't really able to make a dent in village observance of tradition until Cromwell came in and really started ruining things.  To Calvinist of the day like Cromwell, Sunday was a day for church and nothing else, although contrary to what some may suspect they were not opposed to alcohol.  Cromwell's Puritan government banned sports.

It's no wonder he was posthumously beheaded.

Cromwell and his ilk did a lot of damage to the Christian religion in the Untied Kingdom, and if you really want to track the decline in religious observance in the UK to something, you can lay it somewhat at the bottom of his severed head.  Indeed, while hardly noted, what we're seeing going on today, in some ways, is the final stages of the Reformation playing out, and playing out badly.

Anyhow, after Cromwell was gone and the Crown restored, games came back, and they came back on Sunday.  Not just proto-football, but all sorts of games.  And games became hugely associated with certain religious holidays in the United Kingdom.  The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, is one such example, as is New Years, the latter of which is a religious holiday in and of itself.

I suspect, however, that this had a lasting influence.  I don't know for sure, but I think football is on Sunday as Sunday was the day of rest, and watching the village football game and having a tankard of ale was all part of that, after church.  I also suspect that this is the reason that some American holidays are associated with football, such as Thanksgiving, which had its origin as a religious holiday, and New Years, which as noted also is.

Now, of course, with the corrupting influence of money, it's become nearly a religion to some people in and of itself.  People who dare not miss a single football game never step foot in a church.

Also lost, however, is the remaining communal part of that.  Watching a game played that's actually local, rather than corporate national, to a large extent.  And one free of advertising.  Indeed, the Super Bowl has become the number one premiere venue for innovative advertising, some of which isn't bad.

Anyhow, maybe the Super Bowl Party, in some form if properly done, is a step back in time to when the game was more a vehicle than an end in and of itself, and when it wasn't such a show that a big freakish half-time performance was expected.

We can hope so.

Thursday, December 21, 1922. Catholic Justices, and others, of the United States Supreme Court, Catholic Presidents of Lithuania. Women Vetrinarians.

Pierce Butler was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a Justice of the Supreme Court, 61 to 8, after sixteen days of hearings.  

We discussed Justice Butler here:

President Harding nominated Democrat Pierce Butler to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace William R. Day.  Nominating a Democrat assured Harding that he could get his nomination past the then Democratic U.S. Senate.

Gee, it's almost like politics played a role in Supreme Court nominations back then. . . 

While he was a Democrat, he was also a staunch conservative, this being a day when conservatives still existed in the Democratic Party.  He was one of the justices that proved to be trouble for Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.

Butler was also a devout Catholic. Today he's partially remembered for issuing the only dissenting opinion in Buck v. Bell, a case which permitted compulsory sterilization of the intellectually disabled and which is regarded now as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time.  Bell's dissent, was, interestingly, without a dissenting opinion, but it was a dissent.  Oliver Wendell Holmes attributed his dissent to his Catholicism.

Butler also dissented from Olmstead v. United States, which upheld Federal wiretapping.

He died at age 73 in 1939.

His religion was noted in our earlier entry, but this does make for an interesting topic.

Prejudice against Catholicism was intense for much of American history, and indeed it remained so at least up until the post World War Two era.  The Oval Office was effectively barred to Catholics for that reason, but interestingly the United States Supreme Court was not.

Just Roger B. Taney was the first Catholic appointed to the Supreme Court, with that appointment coming in 1836 via President Andrew Jackson's nomination.  Taney would serve all the way until 1864, when he passed away in office.  Taney is unfortunately remembered today for being the author of the Dred Scott decision, not a good way to be recalled, and he interestingly died during the Civil War.  Somewhat ironically, the next Catholic justice, Edward Douglass White, served in the Confederate forces during the war.   Since White's appointment, there's never been an occasion when there wasn't at least one Catholic on the bench.

Theoretically, there's been a total of fifteen Catholic justices, including the six currently serving on the bench.  Having said that, Justice Sotomayor is not an observant Catholic.  Justice Thomas is a Catholic "revert", having been an Episcopalian at the time of his appointment.

Catholicism is a large, but still a minority, religion in the United States.  The impact of Catholic jurists has been noted, but not always very accurately.  An interesting observation on this is that Catholics are heir to an intellectual tradition that suits legal inquiry.  The same observation has been made about members of the Jewish religion, and there have been eight United States Supreme Court justices who have been Jewish over the years, a fairly substantial recognition in light of their minority status.

It's often noted that the Court today has a Catholic majority, which is true, but it's less of a majority than it might seem given Sotomayor's ambiguous status.  Having said that, it'd be a bare majority even without Sotomayor.  This hasn't always meant predictability, however, in spite of what critics like to assert, as Catholic justices have taken positions that are at least facially contrary to Catholicism, such as Justice Kennedy's decision in Obergefell, and certainly Sotomayor was in Dobbs.

Thirty-three Supreme Court justices have been Episcopalians, reflecting that Protestant denomination's massive standing in the United States up until the 1970s.  Once the dominant Christian denomination, culturally, in North America, it's suffered a huge decline to which it's reacted by moving to the left on social issues, which has seemingly accelerated the decline.  Eighteen have been Presbyterians, which likewise was a Protestant faith of wide influence for many years.  Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism reflect the country's early settlement, with both being religions that hailed from Great Britain and which descend from the Church of England and the Church of Scotland respectively.

The Lutheran faith, which is widely represented in much of the United States, interestingly has contributed only two Supreme Court justices.  The Baptist faith has contributed only one more than that, even though it is currently the largest Protestant denomination.  Five justices have been Methodists, which make sense in that it descends also from the Church of England and once called itself the Episcopal Methodist Church.

Fifteen Justices have been non-denominational Christians whose religious affiliation is not really known, and who may have not all been dedicated in their faiths.  The religious background of one Justice, James Wilson, has been debated, but it seems likely that he was a Christian of the same type that some of the founders were, who seemingly favored various Christian denominations without being clearly of any particular one.

Nine justices have been Unitarians, which is somewhat surprising. 

Generally, the religious affiliation of Supreme Court justices has been nearly wholly uncontroversial, save for Catholics and Jews, both of whom continue to be subject to prejudices that date back to the country's founding and early colonial history.  Prejudice against Jewish justices tends not to be openly spoken, but prejudice against Catholic justices is.

Aleksandras Stulginskis was elected President of Lithuania.  He was already serving in the role.  He'd serve in that role until 1926.

Stulginskis had started off with the intent of being ordained a Catholic Priest, but abandoned that pursuit in favor of agriculture.  He retired from politics in 1927.  In 1941, he and his wife were arrested by the Soviets, and he was held as a Soviet prisoner until 1956 when he was released following Stalin's death.  He died in Kaunas in 1969 at age 84.

Aleen Cust became the first licensed female veterinary surgeon in the United Kingdom.  She'd been in practice for twenty years at the time.