"Stepping Up, Stepping Away"

In the riveting 2008 film Doubt, Meryl Streep plays Sister Aloysius, who is convinced—but without proof—that a local priest is molesting a young boy. She seeks the aid of her fellow sisters in her attempt to build a case against the priest. One of the younger sisters confesses that she doesn't like to harbour suspicions about people as it makes her feel distant from God.

"When you take a step to address wrongdoing, you are taking a step away from God, but in His service," Sister Aloysius replies.

That's not right. To confront evil, to address wrongdoing, is not to step away from God at all. It requires the virtues of wisdom and courage, strengthened by grace. To confront evil is a holy thing. Yet Sister Aloysius was on to something, for even though confronting evil is a holy thing, it frequently does not feel the same as doing other holy things, such as worshipping God, visiting the imprisoned or delivering hampers to the hungry.

All of which is relevant to the sexual abuse scandal that broke at Pennsylvania State University last November. . . . . . . .

"The Diamond Jubilee"

Cross-posted in the National Post (February 6, 2012)

In the life of dynasties, it was not that long ago when, in 1897, Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. Britain then was a rather different place. Her Imperial Majesty presided over a vast empire, not entirely benign but remarkably so as empires go, and peace and prosperity prevailed as the norm, not the exception. Queen Elizabeth II marked 60 years since her own accession on February 6 this year, with the official celebrations scheduled for June. Lord Salisbury, chairman of the Diamond Jubilee committee, announced a grand pageant for June 3, complete with one thousand boats upon the Thames. It will cost some £10 million, to be raised through private donations and corporate sponsorship. Apparently fundraising was looking rather bleak last year, given the European debt crisis, but things are looking up now, with supermarket chain Sainsbury's leading the way. Something is not quite right about that. One would think the exchequer would not have to resort to passing the hat (crown?) to arrange a suitable celebration of 60 years of service by Her Majesty, Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

It matters little who pays for the party, but it is a sign of changing times and an indication that Elizabeth II's most remarkable achievement may well be that she is still here, an enduring figure in tumultuous times. On her Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Victoria ruled over Britain—and Canada since 1867—to a large degree in continuity with the realm she inherited in 1837. Elizabeth II become queen in 1952 while at the Treetops Hotel in the Aberdare National Park in Kenya, her father George VI having died while she and Prince Philip were on a colonial tour. Elizabeth's coronation in June 1953 was one of the first great television spectacles; in the United Kingdom, the number of television licences doubled in anticipation of the event, to some 3 million.

Britain today is a very different place than it was in 1952. Given the shambles into which so many great institutions have fallen, that Elizabeth marks her Diamond Jubilee with the crown strong and held in high esteem is a testament to her extraordinary service. As Senator Hugh Segal notes in this issue, that service is continuing and substantive, as the Queen demonstrated last year at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, prodding them to be bold in strengthening the Commonwealth's role in the promotion of human rights, the rule of law and democratic government.

The institution has its own power, but the incumbent these last six decades has been essential. Imagine, horribile dictu, if the Queen had died prematurely after a respectable 30 years on the throne in 1982. It is quite likely the whole thing would also be a shambles by now, a smoking wreck under the unsteady hand of Charles, the hapless heir. He represents her greatest and most consequential failure, the damage of which has been contained by her formidable longevity.

The failure of Charles is a subset of her greatest challenge. How to preserve the role of the monarchy in promoting unity, stability, piety and tradition in times of great social upheaval? Elizabeth proved an innovator in the 1960s when she permitted the new media technology to make the royal family a more prominent part of British life. Contrary to the oft-quoted 19th century advice of Walter Bagehot, she allowed "daylight in upon the magic." In 1981, when Charles wed Diana, it all seemed a magnificent triumph: the modern monarchy as master of a television age. The Queen could not have known that it would all come to ruin. The Diana disaster, for which Charles bears the greatest responsibility, was an inversion of all that the monarchy is supposed to be: rivalry rather than unity, chaos instead of stability, glamour dislodging piety, and innovation trumping tradition. The model of celebrity as sovereign was doomed to fall, and great was its fall. The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997—one hundred years after Victoria's chaste and restrained Diamond Jubilee—produced an orgy of excess, in which the Queen was told that the times had passed her by. They were unsteady days, but the steady sovereign saw them through, knowing perhaps that there is nothing that passes so quickly as the times allegedly passing you by.

Fifteen years on from the drama of 1997, and 20 years removed from her self-proclaimed annus horribilis of 1992—wherein three of the royal marriages broke down and Windsor Castle burned—the Queen marks 60 years at a serene moment. At the age of 86, she will limit her jubilee year travels to Britain, dispatching the royals to her other realms and territories.

A common remark heard about the Queen is that she has not, in 60 years, put a foot wrong. It is astonishing that for so long, in the midst of both domestic and foreign turmoil, she has been steady and sure. She has had the wisdom to know that in firmly adhering to a path well trod, and not chasing after every novelty, the footing is more secure. At the heart of her noble service has been a great humility, knowing that her duty is to serve her office, not to use the office as an instrument of her own purposes. So for 60 years she has offered counsel and consolation, encouragement and exhortation, but never a particular agenda. She has lived modestly, in a way fitting for sovereigns, contenting herself with the pastoral pleasures of Balmoral and Sandringham rather than jetting off to Mediterranean coasts in summer or Swiss slopes in winter.

Consider this extraordinary fact: Elizabeth II has been to Moose Jaw more often than Manhattan. The Queen of Canada should be in Moose Jaw, and so she has been repeatedly. She is not a celebrity queen, in need of the glitter of the international jet set, so she has no need of Manhattan's social scene, rubbing shoulders with tawdry starlets and the minor royals of Europe's fallen dynasties. She conducts herself with far more restraint than the American presidency, and never fails to bring that restrained dignity to the ordinary people she meets upon opening yet another hospital or unveiling yet another plaque.

Years ago, when in the seminary in Rome, I lived mostly with Americans. I had on my desk a marvelous photograph of the Queen visiting Pope John Paul II. My American friends made jokes about it, as people are wont to do about things they don't understand. The teasing stopped when I inquired as to where they kept the photographs of the Holy Father with their own head of state. Of course there were none, few being desirous of Bill Clinton's visage on their desk. When investing the dignity of state in a person, Slick Willie and his successors leave much to be desired.

In Canada we are blessed with the modesty of constitutional monarchy, as opposed to a presidency that is either uninspired and largely obscure (Italy, India, Israel) or vainglorious in its imperial pretensions (France, United States). There is grumbling about it, but who thinks Canada would be better off if our head of state were, say Ramon Hnatyshyn or Roméo LeBlanc, to name just two of the recent vice-regal personages? For many years now Jeffrey Simpson at The Globe and Mail has been lobbying for the members of the Order of Canada to elect from their number a head of state. That would be most congenial for him and his fellow members, as such an election would produce someone very much like, well, Jeffrey Simpson.

Sixty years on and the Queen's virtues are rather more evident now, tested by long years, than when she was only 25, flying back from Treetops to be greeted by her first prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill. The embodiment of great historical continuities, of nations, of cultures, of people, not in parchments but in persons, is an ancient intuition about the right order of things. Sometimes the person fails to embody what she ought. In our sovereign lady, Elizabeth, we give thanks for 60 years of faithful service in embodying those broad and sturdy values upon which our nation was built. The Queen knows something of this ancient intuition, confirmed and elevated by the Christian faith she, by coronation oath, has sworn to uphold.

"Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves—from our recklessness or our greed," the Queen said in her Christmas message for 2011. "God sent into the world a unique person—neither a philosopher nor a general (important though they are)—but a Saviour, with the power to forgive. Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God's love.... It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord."

God Save the Queen!

John Patrick Cardinal Foley RIP

On December 11, 2011, John Patrick Cardinal Foley died. For some 20-plus years he had been president of the Vatican's media office and before that had spent 15 years as editor of the Catholic newspaper in his hometown of Philadelphia. As a young priest, he had been sent to Columbia Journalism School—a rarity today that was even more novel then.. . . . . . .