Many a bookshelf could be filled with volumes on Vatican
intrigues and there's no doubt that events for many future chapters are taking
place right now.
Bergoglio-Francis is himself a complicated figure with an
unclear and somewhat controversial past. If he does indeed have Right-wing
connections to the Argentinean Junta then the question is... has he abandoned
all such opinions and proclivities?
Is he really a Leftist, a modernizer? Is he something
in-between?
Regardless of where exactly Francis falls on the spectrum,
it's clear there are Right-wing and very conservative moments afoot within the
Roman Catholic organisation. The Right-ist surge taking place across the West
has also re-invigorated the various forms of political Christianity.
The Catholic Church is looking for a new kind of Risorgimento, or really Anti-Risorgimento, a revival that this time
is not secular and merely political, as in the original movement which led to
Italian Unification and the elimination of the Papal States. No, they want a
new political Black Nobility, an alliance that will reinvigorate Catholicism
and Conservatism... the two working symbiotically. They want a revival that
will largely undo the legacy of the 19th century Unification
movement.
Francis won't be around forever and the next pope will be so
very critical to this plan. The political climate is such that if they can get
the right pope in place, I'm sure they're hoping for a transformed Europe, one
re-organised and based on a different model. They will likely find many allies
in the United States, not just in the ecclesiastical hierarchy but within the
political forces and financial wells of the Christian Right.
The United States government has a long history of alliance
and intrigue when it comes to the Vatican, including the manipulation of
conclaves and the bugging of the Vatican. This story is nothing new, just a
quick glimpse into the ongoing and dynamic relationship between the Vatican and
the powers who have taken up the mantle of Western leadership.
Once again, the American Right's fascism was left-wing narrative is belied by the fact that in
Europe, it's very clear the like-minded Right is directly connected to old fascism. The Lega Nord or Northern League represents on the one hand a regional
separatist movement but on the other hand it is heavily permeated by Right-wing
and fascist ideology. Once again it needs to be recalled that Fascism should
not be equated with the Third Reich. It can and certainly did take other forms.
The Vatican always fascinates and all we can do is continue
to watch and warn. Who do we warn? The host of blind Evangelicals who have been
seduced by the Vatican and the temptations of power.
I guess it's the day of the intrigues! I didn't realise I had scheduled two articles on 'intrigues' for the same day.
ReplyDeleteCarl Schmitt, a brilliant political theorist, admitted in his work on political theology that old-style monarchical conservatism was basically dead. It was an expectation for a past that would never come, and these people were merely dragging their feet as they compromised on every issue they claimed to stand for. The future of European Conservatives, according to Schmitt, was in the figure of the dictator, the only possibly "monarcH" in secularized, disenchanted Europe. Schmitt, like many others in his frame of mind, despised the Fascists, but saw them as the only viable alternative to the threat of Communism.
ReplyDeleteHe wrote all of this in the 30's. His council is even more true than ever. The only right-wing alternative in Europe is, truly, the dictator. It might not be fascism per se, with the aestheticization of violence and valorization of race (though it is sometimes), but it's the only viable future for the European Right. It's a ticking timebomb, waiting for the right crisis to dissolve parliamentary government.