Thursday June 12, 1941. Until Victory Is Won.

Winston Churchill addressed representatives of the Allied powers, as they then were constituted, and delivered this address:

In the twenty-second month of the war against Nazism, we meet here in this old Palace of St. James's, itself not unscarred by the fire of the enemy, in order to proclaim the high purposes and resolves of the lawful constitutional governments of Europe whose countries have been overrun, and we meet here also to cheer the hopes of free men and free peoples throughout the world.

Here before us on the table lie the title deeds of ten nations or states whose soil has been invaded and polluted and whose men women and children lie prostrate or writhing under the Hitler yoke.

But here also, duly authorized by Parliament and the democracy of Britain, are gathered the servants of the ancient British monarchy and the accredited representatives of the British dominions beyond seas of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, of the Empire of India, of Burma and of our colonies in every quarter of the globe. They have drawn their swords in this cause. They will never let them fall till life is gone or victory is won.

Here we meet while from across the Atlantic Ocean the hammers and lathes of the United States signal in a rising hum their message of encouragement and their promise of swift and ever-growing aid.

What tragedies, what horrors, what crimes has Hitler and all that Hitler stands for brought upon Europe and the world! The ruins of Warsaw, of Rotterdam, of Belgrade are monuments which will long recall to future generations the outrage of unopposed air bombing applied with calculated scientific cruelty to helpless populations. Here in London and throughout the cities of our island and in Ireland there may also be seen marks of devastation. They are being repaid and presently they will be more than repaid.

But far worse than these visible injuries is the misery of the conquered peoples. We see them hounded, terrorized, exploited. Their manhood by the million is forced to work under conditions indistinguishable in many cases from actual slavery. Their goods and chattels are pillaged or filched for worthless money. Their homes, their daily life are pried into and spied upon by the all pervading system of secret political police which, having reduced the Germans themselves to abject docility, now stalks the streets and byways of a dozen lands. Their religious faiths are affronted, persecuted or oppressed in the interest of a fanatic paganism devised to perpetuate the worship and sustain the tyranny of one abominable creature. Their traditions, their culture, their laws, their institutions, social and political alike, are suppressed by force or undermined by subtle, coldly planned intrigue.

The prisons of the continent no longer suffice. The concentration camps are overcrowded. Every dawn German volleys crack. Czechs, Poles, Dutchmen, Norwegians, Yugoslavs and Greeks, Frenchmen, Belgians, Luxemburgers make the great sacrifice for faith and country. A vile race of Quislings-to use a new word which will carry the scorn of mankind down the centuries-is hired to fawn upon the conqueror, to collaborate in his designs and to enforce his rule upon their fellow countrymen while groveling low themselves. Such is the plight of once glorious Europe and such are the atrocities against which we are in arms.

Your excellencies, my lords and gentlemen, it is upon this foundation that Hitler, with his tattered lackey, Mussolini, at his tail and Admiral Darlan frisking by his side, pretends to build out of hatred, appetite and racial assertion a new order for Europe. Never did so mocking a fantasy obsess the mind of mortal man.

We cannot tell what the course of this fell war will be as it spreads, remorseless, through ever wider regions.

It will not be by German hands that the structure of Europe will be rebuilt or union of the European family achieved. In every country into which the German armies and Nazi police have broken there has sprung up from the soil a hatred of the German name and contempt for the Nazi creed which the passage of hundreds of years will not efface from human memory.

We know it will be hard; we expect it to be long, we cannot predict or measure its episodes or its tribulations. But one thing is certain, one thing is sure, one thing stands out stark and undeniable, massive and unassailable for all the world to see. We cannot see how deliverance will come or when it will come, but nothing is more certain that every trace of Hitler's footsteps, every stain of his infected, corroding fingers will be sponged and purged and, if need be, blasted from the surface of the earth.

We are here, your excellencies, to affirm and fortify our union in that ceaseless and unwearying effort which must be made if the captive peoples are to be set free.

A year ago His Majesty's Government was left alone to face the storm, and to many of our friends and enemies alike it may have seemed that our days, too, were numbered and that Britain and its institutions would sink forever beneath the verge. But I may with some pride remind your excellencies that even in that dark hour when our army was disorganized and almost weaponless when scarcely a gun or tank remained in Britain, when almost all our stores and ammunition had been lost in France, never for one moment did the British people dream of making peace with the conqueror and never for a moment did they despair of the common cause.

On the contrary, we proclaimed at that very time to all men, not only to ourselves, our determination not to make peace until every one of the ravaged and enslaved countries was liberated and until the Nazi domination was broken and destroyed.

See how far we have traveled since those breathless days of June, a year ago! Our solid, stubborn strength has stood an awful test. We are the masters of our own air and now reach out in ever-growing retribution upon the enemy. The Royal Navy holds the seas. The Italian fleet cowers, diminished, in harbor and the German Navy largely is crippled or sunk.

The murderous raids upon our ports, cities and factories have been powerless to quench the spirit of the British nation, to stop our national life or check the immense expansion of our war industry. Food and arms from across oceans are coming safely in. Full provision to replace all sunken tonnage is being made here, and still more by our friends in the United States. We are becoming an armed community. Our land forces are being perfected in equipment and training.

Hitler may turn and trample this way and that through tortured Europe. He may spread his course far and wide and carry his curse with him. He may break into Africa or into Asia. But it is here, in this island fortress, that he will have to reckon in the end. We shall strive to resist by land and sea.

We shall be on his track wherever he goes. Our air power will continue to teach the German homeland that war is not all loot and triumph. We shall aid and stir the people of every conquered country to resistance and revolt. We shall break up and derange every effort which Hitler makes to systematize and consolidate his subjugations. He will find no peace, no rest, no halting place, no parley. And if, driven to desperate hazards, he attempts invasion of the British Isles, as well he may, we shall not flinch from the supreme trial. With the help of God, of which we must all feel daily conscious, we shall continue steadfast in faith and duty till our task is done.

This then, my lords and gentlemen, is the message which we send forth today to all states and nations, bound or free, to all the men in all the lands who care for freedom's cause. To our Allies and well-wishers in Europe, to our American friends and helpers drawing ever closer in their might across the ocean, this is the message-lift up your hearts, all will come right. Out of depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind.

On the same day Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu met Hitler in Munich where they reached a deal for Romania to participate in the upcoming invasion of the Soviet Union.

Antonescu in 1941, wearing two German Iron Crosses.

Antonescu's Romania is mostly unique in the history of the Second World War in that it not only participated on the German side, right up  until Antonescu fell from power late in the war and Romania switch sides, a rather self serving and belated effort to avoid the inevitable, but it's anti Jewish pogrom's were homegrown.  Certainly they fit into the overall history of the Holocaust but the other Axis nations that participated in them did so under some measure of compulsion or fear of the Germans.  Romania, however, lead by the anti Jewish Antonescu,  acted on its own, although certainly in the evil spirt of the times introduced by the Nazis.

As it would turn out, Romania's army was not very good.  It was antiquated and its uneducated peasantry was not well suited for a modern war.  Officers treated their enlisted men like serfs, which they nearly were, and themselves lacked the professionalism that modern armies had.  Ultimately the Germans tended to coopt Romanian troops and provide them with German officers and NCOs, under whom they preformed well, but which reduced them to a type of cannon fodder.

Antonescu was executed for his role in bringing Romania into the Second World War.  King Michael I of Romania, the titular sovereign, was allowed to go into exile by the Communist government installed by the Soviet Union.

The United States activated the Navy Reserve:

Today in World War II History—June 12, 1941

This doesn't mean quite what it might seem to.  There were serving reservists in reserve units, in 1941, and some states had Naval Militia, a marine version of the National Guard.  But the Navy lacked a vast reserve system like the Army had in the National Guard.  For that matter, the Army Reserve, which was also in existence, was likewise lacking the large standing structure it now has.

The concept at the time was to basically prepare officers and specialists for service n the time of war. As with the Army, however, the Navy came to a system during the war during which nearly all commissions into the Navy were in the Reserve, not the Regular Navy, giving the Navy Reserve technically a vastly largely structure than the Navy itself during the war.  Post war, this situation would continue on for many years as well as many Cold War officers in any branch of the service were technically reservists.

By some measures, the U.S. Navy Reserve fired the first shot of the United States during World War Two, as the USS Ward was commanded by reservists who detected a Japanese mini submarine very early in the morning of December 7, 1941 and engaged it, sinking it, although the meaning of that was not appreciated at the time, nor was it fully grasped that the submarine had been sunk.  Indeed, doubts about the sinking persisted until 2002 when the stricken vessel was located.  Be that as it may, Ward's taking the first shot only would be correct if earlier engagements in the Atlantic that same year were disregarded.

Also on this day, President Roosevelt nominated Harlan F. Stone to be Chief Justice of the United States. Stone was serving already as an Associate Justice.

Stone's elevation was made possible by the retirement of Charles Evans Hughes.  He was a supporter of the New Deal, and would remain in this position until his death in 1946.   Given the vacancy, Roosevelt also nominated Robert H. Jackson to the court as well.

Rhiannon Giddens: "Julie" (original)

Maddie Groves administers the dope slap

Let this be a lesson to all misogynistic perverts in sport and their boot lickers - You can no longer exploit young women and girls, body shame or medically gaslight them and then expect them to represent you so you can earn your annual bonus. Time’s UP

I don't know who Maddie Groves is, really.  After this story broke it became clear that she's an Australian Olympic swimmer.

She's obviously had enough, and while the details aren't fully spelled out, the gist of it sure is.

Good for her.

Wednesday, June 11, 1941. The RAF at night, Hess' outside interests?, the US and Portugal

The RAF bombed the Ruhr and Rhineland in a nighttime raid. They would do so for the following nineteen nights in a row.

The RAF had determined as early as 1940 that daylight raids were too costly to be undertaken, something the Germans had also concluded during the Battle of Britain.  It would not be until the American entry of the war that any major belligerent would reengage in daylight strategic bombing over Europe.

The first RAF raid had been a reprisal for a German raid on an urban target which the Luftwaffe actually hit by accident at night, a frequent problem in night bombing.  What it rapidly demonstrated, however, is that pre war RAF planning, which was similar to that of the United States Army Air Corps, had resulted in a fleet of heavy strategic bombers, something the Germans lacked. The Luftwaffe, having more limited resources, had developed all tactical aircraft for the most part which were largely unsuitable for industrial and strategic targets.

On the same day the German Government arrested Christian Scientists, astrologists, fortune tellers and faith healers due to their ostensible influence on Rudolph Hess.

Today in World War II History—June 11, 1941

None of which I was aware of but for the entry linked in above.

Hess was an oddball, to be sure, but did all these varied groups really have an influence on him?  I have no idea. And what on earth would Christian Scientists have to do with some of these categories?

The United States sent a diplomatic note to Portugal that if the Azores or Cape Verde Islands, both Portuguese territories, were threated by a "belligerent" power, the US would reserve the right to occupy them first.  What the US really meant is that if the Germans went to occupy them that the US would strike first and occupy them instead.

Portugal held a very peculiar status in the war at this time.  It's status would actually change late war, but it would still remain odd.  The country was governed by the Salazar dictatorship, an arch conservative non democratic government that was nearly personal to Salazar himself, but it had no sympathy with Germany and it feared Francoist Spain.  Early in the war it reaffirmed an alliance it held with the United Kingdom publicly, which it had held since Napoleonic times, but noted that as the British had not invoked the treaty, it had no obligation to do anything.  The British moreover wisely abstained from invoking it as it could not realistically defend Portugal and having done so would have merely invited a German, or perhaps Spanish, invasion.  The country greatly feared that Germany would unilaterally act to take the Azores or the Canary Islands as it was.

During the war the country became a legendary port of passage out of Nazi occupied Europe and a central location for intelligence operations of both sides.

Portugal is really notable in the war for its nearly complete lack of sympathy for the other authoritarian European regimes.  Portugal had contributed a division strength number of volunteers to the nationalist during the Spanish Civil War, but only about 150 Portuguese citizens volunteered for German service, serving in the Spanish Blue Division during the war.

Saturday, June 11, 1921. The story continues

The Country Gentleman ran a second Rockwell illustration that completed the story started by last week's illustration.

On the same day, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy opened an Italian parliament that included new territories that were annexed following the 1920 settlement of Italian claims.  He welcomed the new members.

His counterpart in Greece, King Constantine I departed for Turkey to personally take command of the failing Greek effort against the resurgent Turks.

R.L. Burnside: See My Jumper Hanging On the Line (1978)

Tuesday, June 10, 1941. Words and Deeds.

The United States contracted to purchase Bolivia's entire production run of tungsten, thereby depriving the Japanese of the same, which was the goal.

Bolivia was the largest supplier of tin to the Allies during World War Two.

Today in World War II History—June 10, 1941

Mussolini delivered a speech in which he stated that the United States was effectively already at war with the Axis powers, which while an exaggeration, had some measure of truth to it, given that the US was clearly acting beyond what strict neutrality would provide for.  He claimed not to be worried and stated that the United Kingdom would fall anyhow.

At this point in time its debated on whether or not Mussolini was aware that Germany was just days away from launching at attack on the Soviet Union.

French  vice premier Darlan delivered a speech in which he warned Frenchmen not to listen to the words of the leaders of the Free French, whom he felt were merely disrupting and disquieting the French.

At this point in time Admiral Darlan, who retained his office in the French navy, was the de facto head of the Vichy government.  He would relinquish that position to Laval the following year.  He was in Algiers when Operation Torch commenced and quickly struck a deal with the Allies which effectively caused the French in North Africa to switch sides.

Darlan has been referred to as a man of "failed destiny" in that he was clearly opposed to the Germans and threatened to take the French navy over to the British during the time of the French collapse.  He was a loyal officer, however, and personally loyal to Petain and therefore collaborated with the Germans in his role as vice premier, at which time he seems to have been resigned to a German victory in Europe.  Personally a republican, when the Allies landed in North Africa his sentiments came back out and he fairly quickly negotiated a French defection to the Allies which would have long lasting as well as immediate consequences.

He wouldn't live to see them as he was assassinated by monarchist Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, a member of the resistance, who hadn't forgiven Darlan his Vichy role. 

The ironies, and indeed the tragedy, of Darlan are simply epic.  A believer in the French republican and republican values, he ended up serving in the government that opposed them,  A loyal servant of the French navy, he'd end up essentially leading a coup against Vichy that would in the end cause it to become more of a puppet than it already was and which would lead, in part, to the full German occupation of France.  His most significant opponent after switching sides was DeGaulle, who saw the Free French cause as personally belonging to him, which the republican Darlan did not, and DeGaulle was a monarchist at heart.

Friday, June 10, 1921. Money.

The Bureau of Budget, the founding organization for what is now the Office of Management and Budget, came into being.  Likewise, so did the Government Accountability Office, hence ushering in a full century of fiscal accountability and wise use of Federal funds.

And a group of automobile dealers visited President Harding.

The late Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, was born on the Greek island of Corfu.

Torture

That is, to be stuck all morning in a hospital waiting room in which a trucking company owners keeps turning up the volume on Fox News and then gets on his cell phone to conduct business. . . .loudly.

And, frankly, as a person who is not a fan in any sense of Kamala Harris, I really don't see why there needs to be two hours of news coverage on her not going to the Mexican border.  What's she going to do there? Check out a shotgun from the Border Patrol and walk the beat or something?

Mid Week At Work: THIS IS HOW TECHNOLOGIES END, WITH A WHIMPER

 THIS IS HOW TECHNOLOGIES END, WITH A WHIMPER

Sunday, June 8, 1941. The British Commonwealth invades the French Empire

On this day in 1941, Commonwealth forces and Free French forces invaded French Syria.

Today in World War II History—June 8, 1941

Britain invades French occupied Syria

The campaign is remarkable for a variety of reasons, including the use of cavalry by both sides.  The action was made necessary by legitimate British fears that Vichy would allow the Germans to occupy Syria, a threat made credible, if only from the Allied prospective, by the airborne invasion of Crete which had just occurred and by Vichy allowing the Luftwaffe airport rights in Syria.  Indeed, the action had been proceeded by Royal Air Force strikes on French airfields and retaliatory French raids on British ones in Transjordan.

The campaign was short, but it was marked by notable French resistance to the Commonwealth invasion and a decline of an offer of German Luftwaffe assistance.  The action overall is one of several that cast some legitimate doubt on the common concept of all Frenchmen being pro Ally at the time.

Surprisingly, the action did not result in a Vichy declaration of war against the United Kingdom and in fact Vichy's forces in Syria fairly rapidly fell in spite of their stout resistance.  The British had battlefield superiority, but this required diversion of Commonwealth forces from Libya, where their loss was keenly felt.  The action also, however, saw the deployment of Free French forces in what might be regarded as a near civil war being fought, and really for the first time, in a French colony.

The Free French were given military administration of Syria and Lebanon following the Allied victory, something that more or less made it clear that the British at least were recognizing a rival claim to the governance of France.  That administration, in keeping with the spirt of the age, recognized the independence of Lebanon and Syria, with Lebanon achieving a real measure of independence that Syria did not.  Lebanon declared war on the Axis powers in 1943.

DeGaulle, who was effectively the head of the Free French state by the war's end, was not sympathetic to Syrian independence and as with Algeria, the end of the war brought on demands for immediate statehood. Demonstrations in Damascus turned violent in May, 1945 which resulted in French troops being deployed inside of Syria to quite the demonstrations.  This didn't work and the British intervened with their troops having authorization to fire on the French if necessary, which it did not turn out to be, one of two instances of the British intervening in favor of a post war independence movement against a European colonial power (the other being in the Dutch East Indies).  This ended with the French leaving and the British briefly staying, until they were able to withdraw.

Monday at the Bar. The Predictable decision in Miller v. Bonta results in public freaking out.

 Nothing is more enjoyable than latching on to a single line in a written opinion and then flying into righteous if misbegotten public indignation.

Such is the case with the decision in California in Miller v. Bonta.

As you can see, I've linked in the 94, yes, 94, page decision so if people want to actually read it, which they largely do not, they can.  Reading such things, and then applying the required pondering to really grasp what they mean, requires effort, and it's much more fun just to rely on the press grabbing a single line and running with that. That's what's occurred here.

The line the press grabbed was one in which the Court compared the AR15 to the Swiss Army Knife for its utility, making the point it was useful for everything.  Personally, I think the AR15 is a lousy rifle, but that's besides the point.  The Court goes through an extremely lengthy analysis and concludes that California's ban on "assault rifles" is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.  That's because it clearly is.

None of which has caused people from decrying the Court and accusing the jurist of bias and resorting to political arguments, the latter of which have no place in a legal opinion.

And all of which give advance notice of how the press and public will react to the United States Supreme Court's upcoming dismantling of Roe v. Wade, which was a terrible decision from a legal prospective and which any rational consideration of would demand for its removal. That doesn't say how that issue will ultimately end up, but the decision is simply a bad one.

Friday, June 6, 1941. Advancing towards a wider war.

The war was marching day by day to expansion, with day seeing several steps.

German troops arrived in Finland to stage for Operation Barbarossa,  having received permission from the Finns just the prior day.   The Finns were by this time aware of the intended German invasion and for their part were planning on participating in it to the extent that they could recover territory lost in the recent Winter War, a goal far different and far short of what the Germans were preparing for.

On the same day, Hitler issued the order proclaiming that any Commissar captured by German forces in the upcoming invasion of the Soviet Union were to be executed immediately.  A prior set of instructions already had made it plain that Commissars were to be executed and that Jews were equated with Commissars and likewise to be given lethal consideration.

Also on this day, President Roosevelt signed a statute that allowed the US to seize foreign ships "idling" in American ports and selling them.  The same day was an extremely heavy one for Axis submarines.

Louis Chevrolet

Louis Chevrolet, founder of the Chevrolet automobile manufacturing company, and a Swiss born race car driver died at age 62.  He had been ill for some time.  His company had merged with General Motors decades prior.

The symbol used on Chevrolet automobiles is a stylized outline of the borders of Switzerland.

Monday, June 6, 1921. College pudding.

Caption says it all, from this day in 1921.

Bill Gatewood of the Detroit Stars pitches the first no-hitter in the history of the Negro National League, defeating the Cuban Stars, 4 - 0.  The black leagues are now incorporated into the National League for history and statistical purposes, an omission that was only recently corrected.

Gatewood was already 39 years old at the time and had been involved in baseball for many years.  He'd go on to be a manager in the black leagues but at some point he slipped into obscurity.  He died in 1962 at age 81 and was buried in an unmarked grave, something that was only corrected in 2010.

On this day, the British government declared an end to reprisal burnings of houses in Ireland as they tended to end up burning manor houses, which tended to belong to wealthy Protestant loyalist.

Oops.

Veterans of the Great War, in the US, were already turning into "old vets" and participating in those things that old vets participate in.

 

Veterans of 2nd Div. Reviewing Division, at Camp Travis, Texas, June 6th, 1921.

Somewhere, probably outside of Washington D. C., the DAR was adding an annex.

Passengers onboard the Canadian Pacific's Melita ship, yes the CP had ships, had this menu for this Monday in 1921.

 

Menu from Reddit's Menu subreddit.

College pudding?   A recipe is here:  Foods of England.

Churches of the West: BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.

Churches of the West: BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.: 

BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.

A Medieval wedding.

Boris Johnson and his longtime girlfriend, Carrie Symonds (now Johnson) married.

So what, you may ask.  Indeed, dulled by the long 2019-2021 parade of bad news of one kind or another, that was my initial reaction, even though there's an obvious Christian point to this story from the onset, as by marrying, they're no longer shacking up, if you will, even though they certainly haven't been shacking up in quarters that could be compared to a shack.  

Frankly, as an Apostolic Christian, I'd normally have probably made a comment at some point about their living arrangements as its clearly contradictory to the tenants of the Christian faith, and even in Europe this would have been poorly regarded in almost any society up until, well right now.  Now, it pretty much produces a yawn, as do the majority of other serious religious tenants shared by all of the Abrahamic religions on a variety of matters related to sex.  I.e., this conduct is regarded as seriously sinful by all the Christian religions, Judaism and Islam.  In the modern world, it seems, Christians, including some serious ones but also a lot of nominal ones, have decided that most of what the Apostles wrote down was elective in nature and that people pretty much get a vote on what is and what isn't sinful.

More on that here later.

That's not what sparked the news, as soon became apparent.  What did, is that Johnson and Symonds married in a Catholic cathedral in a Catholic ceremony.  For people who like to be shocked, amazed, or scandalized, this was shocking, amazing, and scandalous.  And the press all over the English speaking world reacted with a giant "WHAT? How could this be?"  For example, the New York Time ran this headline:

Why Could Boris Johnson Marry in a Catholic Church?

The Guardian, a British newspaper that has made inroads into this US, ran this bizarre historically dim headline:

Boris Johnson’s outdone Henry VIII in having his third marriage blessed by the Catholic church

Apparently the writers at this British paper are historical dimwits.

The Irish Times, less dim on the topic, ran this one, which was actually interesting and informative.

Boris Johnson baptised Catholic and cannot defect from Church, says canon law

And the Times headline gets to the crux of the matter.

That didn't keep, however, an Irish priest from stating that the wedding made a "mockery" of the Church's laws.

Which it does not.

I don't know much about Johnson personally,  Or indeed, hardly at all.  And among the things I didn't know is that his mother was Catholic and he was baptized by a Catholic priest.  His mother raised him as a Catholic as a child, but when he was in Eaton, he was confirmed (rather late, if we look at North American anyhow) by an Episcopal Bishop.

And that makes him an Episcopalian, right?

Well, that depends.

Carrying the story forward, in the 1980s he married Allegra Mostyn-Owen. The couple divorced in 1993 after six years of marriage.  She's currently married to a man 22 years her junior who is a Muslim, which has lead Johnson to put Mostyn-Owen on a Muslim relations task force.  Reportedly, she's given her husband permission to have more than one wife as she is unlikely to be able to bear children and of course polygamy is a feature of Islam, although that would not be legal anywhere in Europe, in so far as I know. ^[1]. 

His second wife was Mariana Wheeler, a childhood friend of Johnson's.  They married twelve days after his first divorce and she was pregnant at the time.  Their marriage lasted seven years.

So, eeh gads, surely this is contrary to Catholic teaching, right?  I.e., his current marriage to Symonds, age 33 (Johnson is 56), just can't happen, right?

To read the press, you'd think so.  I've read everything, however, from this can't happen as Catholics don't allow divorce to this could only happen as Catholics don't recognize the marriages of other faiths.  

That doesn't grasp the interesting religious angle, however, of this at all.

In reality, all of the Apostolic faiths, as well as some of the Christian faiths that are close to the Apostolic faiths and regard themselves as Apostolic, take Christs' injunction against divorce seriously, although they don't all approach it exactly the same way.  Interestingly, and completely missed in all of this, the Church of England doesn't recognize divorce.  The mother church of the Anglican Communion, that is, regards it as invalid, just as Catholicism does, which isn't surprising as High Church Anglicans regard themselves as a type of Catholic, even if the Catholic Church completely rejects that assertion as "completely null and utterly void".

We'll get to more of that in a minute, but perhaps the most peculiar of the approaches to divorce is the Orthodox one.  The Orthodox allow more than one marriage under a vague application of a mercy principal that tolerates, in some cases, up to three marriages.  It's tempting to compare this to the Catholic concept of annulment, and indeed it is somewhat comparable, but lacking in the formality.  The basic approach, however, is that the Orthodox only recognize one valid marriage, but accept that human nature is frail and people goof up, so it applies some leeway essentially as it generally feels that the problem of sex in human nature makes it difficult not to.  I'm not Orthodox, so I could be off on this by quite some margin.

The Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorce at all.  It does apply the principal of annulments where it judges that one of the original marrying parties lacked something to make that marriage valid.  I don't' know what percentage of people who go through the annulment process obtain one, but frankly it seems rather shockingly high, which as been a long criticism of it, and a valid one in my view.  Outside of that, however, Catholics hold that once you are married, its until death.  No exceptions, save for the one noted, which would hold that the first marriage wasn't valid, and therefore wasn't really a marriage.

So how on Earth could Johnson and Symonds marry in a Catholic cathedral?

Well that leads to messy press analysis.

The Irish Times, not surprisingly, had it best. 

Contrary to what some of the press elsewhere would have it, the Catholic church fully recognizes the marriages of non Catholics, and for that matter, non Christians.  If two Muslims marry, the Catholic Church regards them as married.  Married and can't divorce is how the Catholic Church would regard it, irrespective of how Muslims may view it.

And also contrary to what some of the press is claiming, the Church also recognizes the marriages of people who are two different faith, or no faith at all.  Go down to the Courthouse and have the judge marry you, in other words, and you are married.  

So what's the deal here?

That's where you get into Canon Law.

Originally the overwhelming majority of Christians, all of whom were Catholic, married outside of a Church ceremony.  Indeed, it was extremely informal.  People just decided they were to marry, and they were.  No wedding ceremony at all.  

That first began to change with monarchs, as their marriages were also effectively treaties between nations, and they wanted it to be really clear and official in every respect possible.   But also, during the Middle Ages, things began to change with regular people as the need for marriage witnesses arose. This was principally because one member of the couple would claim they were never married, usually the man, leaving he other, usually the woman, in a very bad position.

Indeed, even with very early Christian monarchs you can see this at work.  Some early Saxon and English kings, for example, had queens who were subject to this.  Hardecanute is a famous one who married with King of England, but who had a Scandinavian queen before and during that period. What was she?  Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king of England, had a Saxon queen who was "married in the old style" and a Welsh queen to whom he was more formally married. When  he died at Hastings, it was apparently the Saxon queen, still around, that identified his body.

This presents a series of obvious problems and the Church therefore worked to clear it up, imposing the Canon law that Christians had to be married by a priest.  This served a number of purposes, one of which was that the wedding was therefore witnesses and couldn't be simply excused away.

It would be tempting to think that the current situation came about immediately upon the Reformation, but that would be in error.  Indeed, it's important to keep in mind that at the parish level, while the fact that the Church was in turmoil was obvious, the severance wasn't necessarily immediately apparent in the pews.  All of the original Lutheran priests, for example, had been ordained Catholic priests.  No Bishops followed Luther into rebellion in what is now Germany, so there was no way to ordain valid new priests in the eyes of the Catholic Church there, but in Scandinavia things muddled on in an unclear fashion for some time and the Scandinavian Bishops did follow their monarchs into a series of murky positions.

In England, the situation in the pews was also unclear. All of the original Anglican priests had been Catholic priests and most, but not all, of the Bishops followed Henry VIII into schism.  Edward VI took the country as far from the Catholic folds as he could, but then Queen Mary brought the country back into the Church, although without completely success.  Then Elizabeth struck a middle ground, most likely for political reasons more than anything else.  As late as the Prayer Book Rebellion, 1549, Catholicism was still so strongly rooted in the minds of average Englishmen that they revolted over the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer which the conceived of as too Protestant.

The point of this isn't to introduce a treatise on the history of religion in England, but rather to note that for average people this must have been distressing, but if they were going to get married, they still went to the same place, the Church, and the presiding cleric presided over it.  This is important to our story here as, at least in England, in spite of an outright war by the Crown against Catholicism, the Church did not prohibit Catholics from marrying in a ceremony presided over by an Anglican priest and no dispensation was required for a "disparity of cult".

Indeed, it's widely believed that as late as 1785 the man who would reign as King George IV married Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic.  The marriage remains really murky in terms of details, as it was conducted in secret, and was arguably invalid because George IV had not obtained permission from George III, which was a legal requirement.  The marriage did not, however, require Fitzherbert to obtain permission from the Catholic Church and its believed it was conducted by an Anglian priest.  Interestingly, while George IV would later deny that the marriage was valid, and their relationship was rocky, it never completely ceased altogether and he asked to be buried with a locket containing her image.  George IV was officially married to his cousin Caroline of Brunswick in what was pretty clearly both an arranged and unhappy marriage that he did wish to terminate.  He died first.

So when, exactly, the current canon came in requiring permission for a marriage outside of a Catholic officiation, I frankly don't know.  It may not have occurred everywhere at the same time, for that matter.  Having said that, it seems to have been first mentioned as a Church law, and therefore a legal requirement binding Catholics, in 1563, so the example given above is problematic.

Note, however, that it binds Catholics.  Not other people, and the Church has never stated otherwise.  

Additionally, it binds Catholics as its a law of the Church.  In order for a Catholic to have a valid marriage, it must be presided over by a Catholic priest or there must be some dispensation.  If that doesn't occur it isn't valid, as to Catholics.

And that's what we have here.  It's not change in the law of the Church in any fashion. Boris Johnson was baptized as a Catholic and so he is a Catholic, the way that Catholics understand that.  Carrie Symonds is also a Catholic, and indeed, press comments about her routinely refer to her as a "practicing Catholic".  Her status in that regard is problematic as she and Johnson have been shacked up, which is contrary to Catholic moral law in a major way, but with their marriage, and presumably with a Confession that preceded it, that's no longer an issue of any kind.  And Symonds' views would otherwise be evident in that she had their son, born out of wedlock (see issue above again), baptized in the Catholic faith.

So, why al the fussing?

Well, for the most part at least knowledgeable Catholics aren't fussing.  Not everyone likes Johnson politically, but Catholics pretty much take a "welcome home" view towards this sort of thing.  So, the past is what its, and Boris is back. All is fine, religion wise.

Of course, some Catholics who don't know the doctrines of their own church, or who simply want to have a fit, are. But its' a pretty misplaced one.

Non Catholics can have a fit if they're predisposed to, as they don't understand the Church's law and they are often surprised to find that the Church retains its original position that as it is the original Church, which is indisputable, all others lack in some fashion. ^[2].  So this serves to remind people that the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church have a lot of similarities, but no matter what the Anglican Communion may maintain, the Catholic Church doesn't regard it as Catholic.  Of course, not all Anglicans wish to be regarded as Catholics, but some of them are offended as the fact that the Catholic Church isn't according them equivalency with the Catholicism is offensive to them.

More than that, however, a long held cultural anti Catholicism that came in with the reformation is still pretty strong in certain Protestant regions of Europe in spite of the decline of their Protestant established churches.   This is very evident in England, and is very strong in Scandinavia.  It's somewhat ironic in various ways, not the least of which is that these regions have become highly secularized and as that has occurred, the Church that has remained strong has been the minority Catholic Church, which has not only survived its long Reformation winter, but which has gained new adherents.

Does this mean that Johnson has fully returned to the Catholic fold and will be at Mass next Sunday?  Well, Catholics should hope so, and frankly so should Protestants as well. And there is some evidence that Johnson, who has lived a fairly libertine life, may in fact be taking his Christianity more seriously than he did in earlier days.  His recent address regarding the Pandemic specifically referenced Christ and his mercy, something that very few politicians would generally do, and European ones even less.

So, while people can have fits if they want to, all in all, they shouldn't.  Indeed, no matter what a person thinks of Johnson one way or another, there's reason to be happy about this development, and not just in being happy for the apparently happy couple if a person is inclined to be such.

Footnotes

1.  Having said that, I don't know if polygamy is legal in Turkey, which is obviously a Muslim majority nation, and which is in Europe, depending upon how you draw the continental lines.  Turkey has become increasingly Islamic under its current leadership but had years of aggressive secularism, so the status of Muslim polygamist marriages isn't a given, and I don't know the answer as to its status there.

2. The various Orthodox Churches also stretch back to Apostolic origins, which is why the Catholic and Orthodox Churches regard each others sacraments as valid, and also regard their separation as schismatic, depending upon which you are in, rather than an outright rebellion and departure as was the case with the Protestant Churches.

Sunday Morning Scene. Churches of the West: Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming

Churches of the West: Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming: 

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming

This is another Lutheran Church, this one from a different branch of the Lutheran faith, in east Casper, Wyoming.  The church is a modern architectural structure.  I'm unaware of when it was built, but it was likely in the 1960s.

The Best Post of the Week of May 30, 2021

The best posts of the week of May 30, 2021

May 31, 1921. The Tulsa Riot.

Debating History

June 1, 1921. The Second Day of the Tulsa Massacre.

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part IV

Friday, June 3, 1921. The Pueblo Flood

Blog Mirror, Friday Farming: A 2021 Branding

Steve Earle - Mercenary Song

Steve Earle - Mercenary Song

Thursday, June 5, 1941. The US starts to occupy Iceland

4,000 Marines, a substantial number, arrived in Iceland to replace British troops garrisoning the country.

USS New York off of Reykjavik.

Iceland had not regarded the British invasion of their island, done to keep the Germans from seizing it, as a favor.  US forces were not invited either, but were better tolerated under the circumstances.

On the same day about 4,000 Chinese residents of Chongquing China died of asphyxiation in a tunnel in which they had sought refuge from a Japanese air raid.

Vichy France's status as a quasi belligerent on the Axis side increased when their aircraft bombed Aman, Jordan.   The Royal Air Force had already bombed Syrian airfields, so the move wasn't wholly unjustified, but it did signal that France was creeping up on being an outright Axis ally under the authoritarian regime of Marshal Petain.

Around 2,500 people were killed in an ammunition storage explosion in Yugoslavia.

Sunday June 5, 1921. An accident claims the life of female barnstormer, Laura Bromwell.

Laura Bromwell, a stunt pilot, became the first woman in that occupation to be killed in an areal demonstration.  The engine of her airplane stopped during a stunt over Mitchel Field, Long Island.

Czechoslovakia and Romania signed a treaty aimed at Hungary, which they feared  may seek to redraw its borders at their expensive.

 

2021 Wyoming Special Legislative Session

Yes. . . . it appears they'll reconvene in Cheyenne in July.

This will be the second in a row, the last time was last year, 2020, which was the first time since 2004.

The legislature seems convinced it needs one, and it seems it was convinced of this during the recent General Session.  There were bills it wanted to take up and just couldn't get to, and some bills that did come up, such as changing the primary system, that it seems to now wish to revisit.

June 5, 2021

And the news is, there will not be one.  A special session that is.

Blog Mirror, Friday Farming: A 2021 Branding

A 2021 Branding:  

A 2021 Branding

Wednesday, June 4, 1941. Kaiser Wilhelm II Passes

 On this day in 1941, the former Kaiser Wilhelm II died in the Netherlands where he remained in exhile.

A portrait of the Kaiser in what were, for him, better days.

Never reconciled or approving of the Nazis, whom he regarded as using "my army", it was none the less the case that his unyielding autocratic sensibilities and militarism more than helped bring about the disaster that was going on globally at the time of his death.  For their part, the Nazis were not really reconciled to him either.

"His" Luftwaffe bombed Alexandria, Egypt on this day.

The British intercepted a Japanese coded message informing their government of the imminent German invasion of Russian soil, which we'll note, in the spirt if this thread, would be the second Russo Germanic war in about 25 years.  However, due to one reason or another, it was not decoded and delivered to higher ups until after that invasion had commenced.

On this same day, British forces took Mosul in Iraq.

Saturday, June 4, 1921. Aftermaths.

The Red Cross set up in earnest to provide relief to victims of the Pueblo, Colorado flood.

 

Menshevik forces, on this day in 1921, captured Omsk in far southern Siberia.  They'd already taken Vladivostok. The Japanese were aiding anti Bolsheviks by transporting additional anti Bolshevik forces to the Vladivostok region.

And the Saturday weekly periodicals hit the stands.  Rockwell illustrated two of them that week.

Friday, June 3, 1921. The Pueblo Flood

The devastating Pueblo Flood occurred due to two torrential spring cloudbursts in the region.  Hundreds, maybe over 1,000, people were killed and downtown Pueblo was destroyed.

The local paper reported no loss of life, but the worse, much worse, was yet to come.

On the same day,Field Marshal Julian Hedworth George Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy,  was appointed Governor General of Canada.

Lady and Lord Byng.

He would hold the position until 1926 and famously refused a recommendation of Mackenzie King to dissolve the Canadian parliament in order to avoid a no confidence vote. At that time, the Governor General still retained a measure of authority that they'd later lack.

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: 100th Anniversary: The Southern Colorado Floods of...

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: 100th Anniversary: The Southern Colorado Floods of...:     A Pueblo telephone operator made this sketch after she was able to return to work. If you have spent any time in southern Colorado, you&...

June 2, 1941. The passing of Lou Gehrig.

Lou Gehrig died on this day in 1941 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) which is commonly called Lou Gehrig's Disease.  He was 37 years old.

Also on  this day, Adolf Hitler and Mussolini had a length meeting at the Brenner Pass.  Hitler ranted about Rudolph Hess but didn't see fit to tell Mussolini that a German invasion of the Soviet Union was imminent.  Mussolini knew, however, due to troop movements bordering Italy that were impossible to conceal, something that should have also clued in Stalin, who seemed blinded to the reality of what was about to occur.

After the meeting Mussolini told an aid "I wouldn't be at all sorry if Germany in her war with Russia got her feathers plucked."

Ultimately, of course, Italy would end up contributing troops to the German effort.

German paratroops executed over 20 Cretan civilians as a reprisal for Cretan civilian resistance to the invasion of the island. They also photographed the event.

CC BY-SA 3.0 de File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-166-0525-39, Kreta, Kondomari, Erschießung von Zivilisten.jpg Created: 2 June 1941date QS:P571,+1941-06-02T00:00:00Z/11

In France, the Vichy government ordered a census of the country's Jewish residents and took additional anti Jewish measures, which is noted here:

Today in World War II History—June 2, 1941

On the same day, France gave Germany port rights in Bizerte in Tunisia for the support of its army in North Africa, but restricted it to non military supplies. 

June 2, 1921. Riding the tiger.

The United States Naval Academy's Class of 1921 graduated on this day.  Dignitaries included President Harding and Gen. Lejeune.

The class was the last of the Great War accelerated classes to graduate and, given the date of its graduation, those who remained in the service were right at the twenty year mark, when military retirement was first changed to allow for retirement at that age in an effort to encourage the retirement of older officers as the US built up its military for World War Two.  Not surprisingly, therefore, this class saw a significant number of combat losses due to World War Two, although it also saw a surprisingly large number of losses due to interwar accidents as well.  

The disastrous violence in Tulsa hit the news everywhere on this day in 21.  

The IRA emerged victorious from one of the numerous raids that were a feature of the Anglo Irish War, a guerilla campaign that saw more raiding than Customshouse burnings.  In this instance, the Royal Irish Constabulary suffered 8 killed and 16 surrendered.

On the same day J. C. Leyendecker's Life magazine illustration featured a comely lady wearing what we'd call a bikini top, sitting on tigers.  Ostensibly an animal trainer, the riding the tiger and salaciously depicted female figure seems now like a sign of the oncoming, and long range, times.

Churches of the West: A couple of interesting news items.

Churches of the West: A couple of interesting news items.:

A couple of interesting news items.

It would be apparently to any long time reader of this blog, if there are any, that it hasn't been the same for over a year.  Indeed, it dramatically changed course, sort of, when COVID 19 hit.  That event pretty much changed everything, globally, and rather obviously, with one of those changes being that business travelers quit traveling.

I frankly don't think that business travel is coming back.  Video conferencing was coming in anyway and the pandemic spurred it along.  That's our new world now, even though we don't really have any idea, really, of what that new world is really going to be like.  We already know that, at this late stage of the pandemic, with COVID relief funds still operating in a lot of places, people in certain economic categories are refusing to come back to work.  This isn't just those making low wages, who are choosing to ride out the relief funds in hopes for hire wages.  It also includes a lot of professionals who have learned how to work from home and don't want to go back to their offices.  This is still paying out.

Anyhow, that means no new church photographs from afar.  And frankly, this blog was slowing down anyhow as a lot of the places I traveled to, I repeated.  There's more churches there, indeed there's more in town, but photographing targets of opportunity just don't exist like they did, although I should finish the ones in town.

Anyhow, as the number of church photographs have declined, those which are news items have seemed to increase, although that may not be fully accurate.  Some probably have seemed to increase as they're getting posted where as church photographs aren't.

Anyhow, as also noted here before, this isn't a Catholic Apologists blog. There are plenty of those and I'm not qualified to be one.  But I do comment on Christian news items from time to time and those are most often Catholic ones.

Catching my eye on Twitter yesterday was a comment by a priest to the effect that "everyone's an Apologist today".  I hadn't seen any big news items that would inspire a comment like that and I couldn't find one on Twitter.  Checking the news, I saw two, and these do turn out to be the inspiration for that comment.  One was that Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, married, and the other was that Pope Francis had issued a revision to the Church's Canon Law.  Reading the news reports I at first didn't see any reason that these were really even all that noteworthy.  But following up on it, they are, and they're interesting.  

So, following this, there will be a couple of comments on those.  Hope they're interesting.