A papal palace in Jerusalem

The idea of such a project is enough to get each and every hair on each and every conspiracy theorist's head to stand on end. But, apparently, someone in the early 20th Century did not think the project entirely too far-fetched. Glancing through my copy of The Master Drawings of Otto Wagner the other day, on an entirely different errand, I discovered these beguiling watercolors. The proposal was authored in 1912 by Josef Heinisch, an Austrian architect who was very much a devotee of the Jugendstil, as was Wagner. Further commentary and background information are not provided.

I suspect that this was simply a student project, rather than any sort of official proposal sanctioned by the Holy See. However, at that time Pope Pius X was on the Chair of Peter and the papacy was still essentially a "prisoner of the Vatican". Relations with the Kingdom of Italy were chilly at best, and there was some talk throughout the years previous of the papacy moving. The Ottomans, who controlled the Middle East at the time, were not favorably disposed toward Italy, a stance which could have theoretically engendered an alliance with the popes. In any event, there was enough back story to make this pass muster as a decent theoretical project for a student to undertake.

An aerial view of the complex

The plan, as a whole, resembles that of one of the great French Gothic cathedrals

The elevation. Note the inscription. Rather interesting considering our current Jesuit Pontiff.

Section through the church.

The eleven nations of North America

I've written before on various regional differences I've encountered by living in different places at different stages of my life. I've always puzzled over the pre-packaged "regional maps" that the Census Bureaus and other such agencies use to conveniently compartmentalize states. For instance, how do you define the Midwest? On the surface, I'd say you might first include all of the Great Lakes states, but then what? If you throw in Iowa, I'd say Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Kansas have to be included too. And if you add those four, do you include Missouri and Oklahoma because they are mostly agrarian states as well? Stopping there seems appropriate, but the result is a region so large as to be almost meaningless. Can we really compare the culture of metro Detroit with that of Wichita?

In the final analysis, our state borders usually do not encapsulate regional differences very well. In the Great Lakes region alone, I can think of a few microregions. Stretching from Buffalo through Cleveland, Toledo, South Bend, and Chicago, up to Milwaukee is a largely urbanized region commonly called the Rust Belt. A spur of this region reaches up through southeast Michigan to encompass Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, and Jackson. The midsections of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio are rather Great Plains like in their history and settlement. The southern reaches of those same states are very much oriented toward the Ohio River and the cultural patterns found in Kentucky and West Virginia. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and northern Michigan form a Scandinavian bloc, in terms of ethnic makeup, culture, and even weather.

Enter Colin Woodard and his very enlightening book, American Nations. Woodard names and describes eleven distinct nations that each have distinct histories and cultures - all within the current borders of the United States. We must recall that nation and country are not synonyms, though they are often used interchangeable. A nation is a group of people who identify with one another and share a common history and culture. Sometimes nations have their own countries (the French have France), and sometimes nations find themselves without a country (think of the Kurds, the Palestinians, or the Basques). Woodard posits that there is no American nation like there is a French nation, but, instead, our country is made up of eleven, somewhat hidden, nations, whose particular values and worldviews continue to shape our politics.

When I opened the book and first saw this map, it was as though the scales fell from my eyes. No, not all of what I described above vis a vis the Midwest shows up perfectly, but it is a clarifying diagram regardless. I'd like to consider just a few interesting spots on the map.

Firstly, there is my current situation in Washington, DC. I'd say the District itself is rather a-regional, but it is situated at the nexus of three regions. To the north, encompassing the Maryland suburbs is the Midland nation, which has its origins in the pragmatic, pacifistic efforts of the Quakers and Germans in Pennsylvania. To the east and south is the aristocratic Tidewater nation, which was founded by the younger sons of English nobles as a manorial, class-based society built on the tobacco trade. And, finally, to the west, starting just past Arlington, is the Greater Appalachian nation. Originally a lawless and individualistic land, Appalachia was settled in the 17th Century by Scotch-Irish who had left behind their war-torn lands of Northern Ireland and the Scottish border.

In local terms, this means that there's quite a difference between Maryland and Virginia (beyond the fact that Marylanders are terrible drivers). Even closer to Washington itself, "national" differences can be felt. Alexandria and Georgetown, the oldest settlements in the area, were settled from the south, from the Tidewater culture. This can still be felt in the strong attention to social class still attached to these areas. Kennedy once called Washington the "city of Northern charm and Southern efficiency." I think this statement is essentially founded on the swirling of national cultures that exists in the Potomac lowlands.

The second interesting spot is Indiana. Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and South Bend are all in different nations. I have always sort of suspected as much. South Bend is a Yankee city, aligned with the industrial, pro-government, pro-union sensibilities of the rest of Yankeedom - from Maine to Minnesota. Fort Wayne, though an industrial city, is definitely in the Midlands. There is a mind-your-own-business attitude throughout central Indiana, where government is often seen as more of a problem than a solution. This attitude has its roots in the Quakers and the German Protestants who founded the Midlands around Philadelphia as a refuge from repressive governments in Europe. Finally, southern Indiana (including, I think, most of Indianapolis) is definitely a part of Greater Appalachia, where there is a more intense reliance on family connections alongside a very intense suspicion of authority.

As for where the borders are, exactly, within Indiana, is a question unto itself. I'd say Indianapolis and south are Greater Appalachia. Muncie is a Midland city, as is Lafayette. The Region (the northwest three counties of Indiana) are definitely Yankee.

In any event, Woodard's analysis, though very interesting, leaves out a few considerations. While the historic narrative is well done, the author avoids the current urban/rural sociological differences. Additionally, Native Americans and African Americans are generally not a part of the conversation. While it's true that both groups have never had "nation" prominence in this country, they do influence the culture and society of the United States. In any event, it's a fascinating book.

Wheel in the sky keeps on turning

During class this evening, for whatever reason, the vision of Ezekiel the Prophet came up in conversation. Lest it's been awhile since you've cracked open that corner of the Scriptures, I'll remind you that it's the almost hallucinogenic-seeming description of the angels, the heavenly temple, and God himself. The relevant point comes to us in Ezekiel 1, verse 15ish:

"All at once wheels appeared close to them, one at each of the four sides, [...] and each looked like a wheel within a wheel. Moved they, it was ever one of the four ways the living figures looked; and they did not turn round in moving. As for their size, their height was terrible to look upon; and the whole frame of them, all round, was full of eyes."

This portion of the vision has been traditionally explained as a revelation of God's omnipresence - nothing escapes his sight. This fact, of course, is testified to throughout the scriptures, such as in Proverbs 15:3: "Go where thou wilt, the Lord’s eye is watching; good nor evil escapes his scrutiny."

However, this vision stirs to mind some ideas from a class I took a few years back. Ostensibly, the class was an honors symposium on the advanced sciences and mathematics, but really it was a sort of math, quantum physics, ethics, and philosophy class all rolled into one. We read Jorge Luis Borges alongside Heisenberg. One thing that I distinctly recall is the unpredictability of quantum particles. According to Schrodinger and others, particles change their behavior depending on whether they are observed or not. There was one experiment that was left overnight with no one watching that seemed to show light acting as a wave. Whereas, when the same experiment was observed, it seemed as though light was acting as a particle.

In any event, at the quantum level, it becomes very tricky to get down to what more naturalistic types would call "reality", because sometimes reality is incredible odd. To get back to Ezekiel's rather terrifying vision of God, we once had a class discussion on whether or not the universe needs to be observed by something outside of it in order to exist. The all-seeing eyes of Ezekiel's wheels seem to hint that the operation of the universe is intrinsically tied into the observation thereof.

Dante's vision of the Empyrean

This little thought experiment begs the question of whether its acceptable to read modern sciences into ancient scriptures. Some may accuse me of playing the "God of the gaps" game, wherein we simply place our idea of God into the increasingly smaller gaps that science leaves in our understanding of the world. In taking this particular class, however, it became abundantly clear that there are many more gaps and uncertainties than we tend to think of on a daily basis - especially once one delves either too deeply or ascends too highly in the scale of the universe.

Furthermore, as a Catholic, I believe that there is Truth, with a capital T, which exists, a priori to ourselves. If God is creator, than creation testifies to this truth just as much as His revelation of Himself in the scriptures. Saying that God is an omnipresent observer necessary for the cohesion of quantum mechanics does not diminish what God said through Ezekiel in quite a different way. We have each foot in a different realm of knowledge at this point.

To muse further, I wish to consider the Medieval (well, Aristotilean originally) conception of God as the primum mobile - the unmoved mover. To the knowledgeable men of those ages, the universe was a series of revolving spheres that descended from God, though the heavens, to the earth. God, the Prime Mover, causes each sphere to rotate, which gives order to the sphere below it and so forth. Dante explains this perceived celestial hierarchy completely in the Paradiso, the final third of the Divine Comedy. In the final Canto, when Dante had reached the Empyrean (the fixed "sphere" wherein God abides) he describes it thus:

"In the profound and shining-clear Existence / Of the deep Light appeared to me three circles / Of one dimension and three different colors. / One seemed to be reflected by the other, / Rainbow by rainbow, while the third seemed fire / Breathed equally from one and from the other. / O how pale now is language and how paltry /  For my conception! / And for what I saw / My words are not enough to call them meager. / O everlasting Light, you dwell alone / In yourself, know yourself alone, and known / And knowing, love and smile upon yourself! / That middle circle which appeared in you / To be conceived as a reflected light, / After my eyes had studied it a while, /  Within itself and in its coloring / Seemed to be painted with our human likeness / So that my eyes were wholly focused on it. / As the geometer who sets himself / To square the circle and who cannot find, / For all his thought, the principle he needs, / Just so was I on seeing this new vision / I wanted to see how our image fuses / Into the circle and finds its place in it, / Yet my wings were not meant for such a flight — Except that then my mind was struck by lightning / Through which my longing was at last fulfilled. / Here powers failed my high imagination: / But by now my desire and will were turned, / Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly, / By the Love that moves the sun and the other stars."

Dante's description of God clearly blends Ezekiel's winged wheels with the Medieval conception of the Prime Mover. God is the source of the turning of the spheres of the physical universe ("The Love that moves the sun and the other stars").

Perhaps we might further compare such an idea with that of the modern conception of string theory. The overly-simplified version states that all matter is composed of strings (of probability, essentially) which vibrate in the tenth dimension and give being to sub atomic particles. It is easiest to think of the tenth dimension as the realm of possibility - it is the sum total of all possible outcomes in all possible universes. Thus, strings are not bound by changes in reality, so to speak, since they exist in a non-(directly)-observable realm of all-things-are-possible.

Pantheism is a false belief, as God is not present in all things in an immanent way, but it is interesting to consider these strings as a way of bridging God's omnipotence and omnipresence. Since God is infinite, he is not bound by time, space, or, presumably, any dimension we could think up. But, it is intriguing to imagine the tenth dimension, wherein the strings vibrate, as a sort of modern primum mobile. It is a sort of Empyrean. If God were in the tenth dimension, He would see all (thus fulfilling the need for a universal observer), but also see all possibilities and all of their possible outcomes. This, I think, preserves our free will, but still allows for God's sovereignty and intervention.

*     *     *

I don't really know why I felt the need to write all of this out, and I'm certainly not sure that I believe it all, but, I think it can be fruitful to start drawing these connections, if only for a way of generating thought experiments. Does all of the above line up with historic Christian doctrine? I suppose it could. But, my purpose was not theological so much as philosophical. As we approach the limits of what we can know definitively about the deepest mysteries of the universe, I think it's sort of fun to jump from the empirical to the spiritual and consider the one's effect on the other. As a Catholic, the unseen is just as real as the seen after all.

On death and the soreness of feet

It is simultaneously a delight and a detriment to one's health to reside in a city such as Washington, where constantly exists an ebb and flow of various friends and acquaintances. On the happier side, one's social calendar is manifestly enlivened, and excuses are made in order to spend the entire afternoon masquerading as the most maligned DC denizen - the tourist. On the painful side, one's feet tend to ache after a weekend of such traipsing.

The Friday 7:15pm train brought our good friend Nick down from old Baltimore, wherein he is engaged in the architectural profession on a semester internship with a firm of some repute. With him came our friend Taylor who also works in that venerable city, but resides in the capital with his wife, Heidi, who graduated with me and Nick from Ball State. Having met the pair at Union Station, the sole boast of America's train network, we strolled through Capitol Hill to Taylor and Heidi's home, where dinner awaited. Conversation naturally focused on things architectural, and we had a good laugh about the many war stories we've each collected since we all last conversed. In an intriguing twist of fate, my studio professor this semester is Heidi's current boss and happens to live two doors down from her and Taylor. Sometimes I think DC has just as many overlapping connections as some of the small towns that people come to DC to escape from.

In any event, studio will be an interesting endeavor. The project centers on a new interpretive gallery and visitor's facilities at the Congressional Cemetery - an oft overlooked burial ground on the southeastern edge of Capitol Hill, along the Anacostia River. The cemetery's heyday was during the Antebellum period, when all congressmen who died while in office were buried there. Notable graves from more modern eras include those of John Philip Sousa and J. Edgar Hoover. Elbridge Gerry, Vice President under James Madison, is also interred there - the only signer of the Declaration of Independence to be buried in Washington.

Nick and I, unlike the faithful departed at the Congressional Cemetery, were up bright and early Saturday morning to do a bit of sightseeing. The first stop was the ever-glorious Basilica of the National Shrine. Nick is a rather devoted Protestant, but he was very curious to learn about the Basilica and the various layers of symbolism therein contained. The evangelistic opportunities of architecture are seldom exploited in our bland era of beige, carpeted Catholicism - to our eternal detriment.

The always untrustworthy Metro, which is perpetually being rebuilt, conveyed us in an untimely fashion to Judiciary Square, from which we began the circumambulation of the various sites typical to my tours of the city. After a brief and disappointing foray into the National Building Museum (I should know by now that they're always setting up for events on Saturdays), we made our way to the National Portrait Gallery. In my opinion, it is the best museum in Washington. In addition to portraiture, there is a fantastic collection of American art, both contemporary and not, including a good bit of fine 19th Century landscape painting (the likes of Thomas Cole, Thomas Moran, and Albert Bierstadt are well represented).

The National Gallery of Art, my other place of continual pilgrimage, was the next stop. The rather uninspiring East Building, designed by triangle enthusiast I.M. Pei, is undergoing extensive renovation, so the modern collection is entirely in storage. This is no great loss in my view, apart from the room of Calder mobiles. The John Russell Pope designed West Building was fully functional, however, and could boast an excellent exhibit of Byzantine art and iconography (thronged, as it were, by Notre Dame priests in town early for the March for Life). In addition, the splendor of the rotunda was heightened by the presence of the Dying Gaul, one of the most famous Roman sculptures in existence. On loan from the Capitoline Museum, the Gaul is here until March - the first time it has left its home in at least two centuries. As is typical of most classical art, it was haunting in its realism:

So, there's two photos of death for you. The remainder of the day was fairly nonchalant, and Nick left us around 5:30. I was home and on the couch with my legs up for about five minutes before I received word that a whole company of studiomates were convening just up the road 'round Ft Totten. Alas, my aching feet would have to wait. Eric brought the chariot around and we went over to Ft Totten to have some drinks and poke some fun at the girls who take to long to get ready and never know where they want to go (these, in addition to death & taxes, are among the universe's eternal truths). At length, we ended up on the green line bound for U Street. Mercifully, the original plan to head toward Adams Morgan was abandoned. From what I understand, the place is at least three whole streets composed of the worst sort of bars full of the worst sort of people (at least, that's how it was explained). No, U Street is far better.

Up bright and early for mass at the Basilica. The afternoon, as it was a pleasant one, included a walk around the neighborhood over toward Rock Creek Church and its cemetery. My neighborhood is one of the highest in elevation in DC, which is made all the more apparent in the wintertime, now that the trees are denuded of their leaves and unexpected vistas open up as you walk along. After a bit of a circuitous route, I ended up at the cemetery, and wandered over toward the Clover Adams memorial, which features a fine sculpture by Saint-Gaudens. Though the sculpture was originally titled "The Mystery of the Hereafter and the Peace of God that Passeth Understanding", it has been commonly referred to with the less unwieldy title of "Grief" since its completion. This renaming apparently upset Henry Adams (the deceased's husband, and famed man of letters) deeply. I can't say I blame him. "Grief" certainly does not capture the full panorama of meaning found in the original title, and indeed, does not accurately the sculpture itself, which appears more peaceful than grieving:

Goodness, that makes three photos of death. I swear, I'm not attempting morbidity on purpose, but, my goodness, when your studio project is in a cemetery, I suppose things just go that way. Sunday ended with a good dinner of spaghetti, which, quite frankly, is about as fancy as I get with my cookery these days.

Today, due to the holiday, was a day off of classes. I naively assumed that I'd be able to sleep in and not have to walk to the four corners of the city for the third day in a row. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and man often go awry. I was awakened around 8 by a text informing me that the contingent of March for Lifers from my high school were to be arriving at the Basilica for a tour at 9:45. Having been a three year participant in the March for Life trip, I of course wanted to meet up with the trip leader and others. So, I hiked down to the Shrine and caught up with the group. Then, after having a chat with Mr Nugent and the others, I was shanghaied into accompanying them to Georgetown this afternoon.

It has been the plot of every group of girls that comes on the West Catholic March for Life trip to convince Mr Nugent to let them go to Georgetown Cupcakes. Every year, they giggle and plot and plead and whine, and every year he has held steadfast in his denial of their requests. Apparently he had a weak moment this year - perhaps due in part to the unseasonably warm weather here today - and he announced to me that "they've finally convinced me to go to that infernal cupcakery, or whatever it is!"

And so all fifty of us descended on Georgetown and made our way to the infernal cupcakery for an afternoon bit of sugar. By all accounts, it was a perfect day for a stroll in the most desirable neighborhood in the capital. I wandered over to the C&O Canal to see some of the older parts of the area.

So, in any event, my feet are sore and I'm looking forward to a slower weekend next. Of course, with the National March for Life and the first studio deadline of the semester intervening, I'm sure I'll be busy til then.

Two Saint-Jeans

We remarked at winding length on these pages a few days ago about the seigneurial system of New France, and its semi-feudal underpinnings. Since then, I have come across two beautiful relics of those days which now function as museums. They both exhibit typically French features in their architecture, and look as though they would be just as comfortable in Normandy as in Quebec. The first is the seigneurial manor of Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, located on the south side of the St Lawrence, downriver (which is to say, northeast) from Quebec City:

Red, white, and beige do seem to be the dominant palette in La Belle Province. And, look at that steep sloped roof, managing to keep the inundating Canadian snow at bay. The second manor is also in a place called Saint-Jean, but this Saint-Jean is located on the Ile d'Orleans, the large island that sits astride the St Laurence immediate north and east of Quebec City. This is the famed Mauvide-Genest manor, which was completed in 1734:

This house is certainly more manorial in its bearing, being a full two stories and exhibiting more detail in terms of door and window openings. This manor was the seat of a seigneur who possessed a portion of one of the most ancient areas of French Canada. The Ile d'Orleans, due to its proximity to Quebec City and its fertile soils, was one of the first places to be colonized. Many of my own ancestors can be found among the island's records. Some, in fact, even came from Saint-Jean. It is interesting to think of them working the land for the gentleman who resided in this very house. Their residences would probably be more akin to his type of home (also located on the Ile d'Orleans):

This is a typical example of the small cottages built by the habitants in New France. They are simple, but certainly have an elegance about them. The fine view of the Laurentian Mountains in the background certainly does not hurt their case either.

Caldwell

A photo of Caldwell Chapel from last semester

I had missed being able to go to daily mass at Caldwell Chapel. I went today at 12:30. They didn't turn on the lights today, as it was very sunny in Washington, and the Chapel was dappled with warm light streaming in from the kaleidoscopic stained-glass windows. The priest spoke very eloquently about the liturgical year, tying today's beginning of Ordinary Time in with the beginning of our "ordinary" time at school. Though we are back in the swing of our routine, it is God who sanctifies time by His presence, imbuing each ordinary day with extraordinary graces.

I think, given the foibles of my wandering mind, that I often get more out of daily mass than I do out of Sunday mass. The succinctness and silence help keep me focused. At Sunday mass, I often get distracted. Or I notice that there are twelve extraordinary ministers of holy communion when only three would suffice. Or I notice that the priest is wearing his stole outside his chasuble (Seriously, Reverend Fathers, why?!). Or I notice that purple of the Advent candles doesn't match the purple of the vestments, which doesn't match the purple of the altar frontal. Perhaps it is a curse of architectural education; at this stage, I am so attuned to noticing detail - specifically from a design standpoint - that it fills up my attention sometimes.

Of course, "getting something out of it" is not why the Church has been given the mass to celebrate. We have it to obtain the immeasurable graces of Christ's redeeming sacrifice of His Body and Blood on the Cross. This is a struggle I have when I attend mass in general. I struggle to resist wanting to get some profit out of it. This struggle reveals the paradox of making the mass intelligible. If the mass where more often in Latin, I would be less disposed, from the start, to want to intellectually digest every little bit.

UPDATE: It seems that we have pondered such things before, back when our beloved pontiff Benedict XVI was on the Throne of Peter.

Canadian Feudalism

We in the United States tend to myopically view the western hemisphere through the lens of democracy, as if every republic on the continent sprang forth fully-formed from the mind of Libertie herself. Reality, of course, tells a quite different story. While the English colonies were certainly more egalitarian, the French and Spanish possessions were often more reminiscent of the old world. New France, in particular, imported a peculiar brand of Gallican feudalism from the ancien regime.

The seigneurial system was used throughout Quebec, Louisiana, and Acadia as a means of encouraging settlement. Much like the feudal system of the Medieval period, the King would grant fiefs, called seigneuries to nobles, called seigneurs, who would take possession of the land in person and parcel out land to commoners who would pay him a small rent. The people who lived upon the land were known as habitants. Cardinal Richelieu, the administrative mastermind of Louis XIV, devised the particulars of the seigneurial system for New France, which began with the granting of the Seigneury of Beauport just outside of Quebec City to Robert Giffard, a surgeon from Mortagne-au-Perche in Normandy.

Charles Le Moyne, Baron Longueuil

The seigneurial system was one means by which the French middle class was able to ascend social strata. This, in itself, encouraged emigration from the old country. Following their countryman Giffard, dozens of people from Mortagne and other villages in the Perche région made their way to Quebec. My own ancestor, Michel Messier, left Rouen and settled in Montreal, where, after a strategic marriage and successes in the fur trade in Michigan, he was made Seigneur de Cap-Saint-Michel et de La Guillaudière, encompassing much of the land around Varennes, the ancestral home of my maternal grandmother's family. More interesting, perhaps, is the story of Messier de La Guillaudière's wife's family. Anne Le Moyne was the daughter of an innkeeper from Dieppe in Normandy. Her brother, Charles, came to Quebec with her and, after beginning at age fifteen as an indentured servant in the service of Jesuit missionaries followed by a distinguished military career in the service of the colony, was named Seigneur de Longueuil et de Châteauguay. He had twelve sons, many of which reached illustrious heights in the government of New France. Among them were Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, the great soldier, tradesman, and explorer; Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the founder of New Orleans, Mobile, and Biloxi, governor of Louisiana; and Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil, who was governor of Montreal and was made a baron - the first native born Canadian to be so named.

*     *     *

Not only are these stories interesting from a personal point of view, since they compose a part of my family's history, but, I think they illustrate several useful points. The first is they help abolish the misconception that the class divisions of the ancien regime were completely static. The case of the Le Moynes, for instance, shows how, with a lot of work and a little luck, it was possible to go from an innkeeper to an indentured servant to a baron in three generations. In general, hard work - whether military or otherwise - was rewarded in the colony. Even the habitants were not the hovel-dwelling, dirt-scraping peasants of popular imagination. Many of them - sometimes even women - became quite wealthy in terms of land and possessions (I think of Adrienne Du Vivier-Hebert, widow of the first colonist of Montreal, who expanded her family's landholdings in her own name). Some even had hired servants. 

Thus, in New France, there was a sense of Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité within a hierarchical, monarchical system. People who deserved to be honored were given honors that then became associated with the entire family. Those who lived average lives were not "oppressed", but they were not elevated beyond their rank for no reason. This, I think, is one of the virtues of aristocracy.

I came across this quote earlier this week by the conservative Colombian philosopher Nicolás Gómez Dávila, which, I think, sums it up quite nicely: "In societies where everybody believes they are equal, the inevitable superiority of a few makes the rest feel like failures. Inversely, in societies where inequality is the norm, each person settles into his own distinct place, without feeling the urge, nor even conceiving the possibility, of comparing himself to others. Only a hierarchical structure is compassionate towards the mediocre and the meek."

I think of our current culture when I read this quote. I think we have the worst scourges of aristocracy without the graces of nobility. We have fabulously wealthy and influential families and people in this country, yet we refuse to honor them in the way that the ancien regime would have. We pretend that "all men created equal" erases the fact that some men are born to higher stations than others. As if the Medieval monarch thought he was a "higher being". He knew, as all Christians know, that rights come from God, and that souls are equal, though station in life may not be.

I am reminded of the burial custom of the Habsburg monarchs. When the body of the deceased is brought before the Franciscan Church in Vienna, where the family crypt is, the steward of the church knocks on the door three times. The monks inside inquire thrice as to who is begging admittance. The first two times, the steward responds with the full list of titles of the deceased. The door remains unopened. The last time, the steward simply announces the first name of the deceased, followed by "a humble, sinful man." The door is than opened.

*     *     *

So, let the Le Moynes keep the Baronetcy of Longueuil. Give a duchy to the Kennedys. Make the Vanderbilts Viscounts of Asheville. Name George H.W. Bush the Earl of Kennebunkport. Give Americans the benefit of having a codified upper class to lampoon. Give them little privileges and little responsibilities. Like the seigneurs of New France, let them have a nice house, but make them build a grist mill for the community. Let the President name new nobles for meritorious service to the nation, so that people have a goal to aspire to above and beyond the jet-set lifestyle of Malibu and Miami.

The Holy Name of Jesus

The Monogram of the Holy Name of Jesus

"But Moses still pleaded with God: How if I appear before the Israelites with the message that the God of their fathers has sent me to them, and they ask me, What is his name? What answer shall I make? And God said to Moses, I am the God who IS; thou shalt tell the Israelites, THE GOD WHO IS has sent me to you. And he charged Moses again, That is what thou shalt tell the sons of Israel, that he who bears this name, the God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has sent thee to them, and this is the name he will be known by for ever; it shall stand recorded, age after age." - Exodus 3:13-15

"And she will bear a son, whom thou shalt call Jesus, for he is to save his people from their sins." - Matthew 1:21

"So that everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth must bend the knee before the name of Jesus, and every tongue must confess Jesus Christ as the Lord, dwelling in the glory of God the Father." - Philippians 2:10

"The beast is a number, and makes men numbers. But God has a name, and God calls us by our name. He is a Person, and he seeks the person. He has a face, and he seeks our face. He has a heart, and he seeks our heart. For him, we are not some function in a "world machinery". On the contrary, it is precisely those who have no function that are his own. A name allows me to be addressed. A name denotes community. This is why Christ is the true Moses, the fullfiment of the revelation of God's name. He does not bring some new word as God's name; he does more than this, since he himself is the face of God. He himself is the name of God. In him, we can address God as "you", as person, as heart. His own name, Jesus, brings the mysterious name at the burning bush to its fulfillment; now we can see that God had not said all that he had to say but had interrupted his discourse for a time. This is because the name "Jesus" in its Hebrew form includes the word "Yahweh" and adds a further element to it: God "saves". "I am who I am" - thanks to Jesus, this now means: "I am the one who saves you." His Being is salvation." - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), The God of Jesus Christ: Meditations on a Triune God