On the death of Prince Philip

We received the DVD set of Downton Abbey for Christmas and are now watching it a second time. We just finished (the 2nd time) the episode where the letter between the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Dudley Ward (his mistress for 16 years) was stolen by a card shark and recovered by Mr. Bates, the valet of Lord Grantham. A thief stole it from a thief who was going to use it as blackmail.  With the death of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, we are reminded that Elizabeth wouldn't be the Queen if the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) hadn't abdicated the throne for another lover, not Mrs. Dudley Ward, but a twice divorced American socialite, Wallis Simpson.  So Elizabeth's father became the King.

Downton Abbey the third time

We received a gift boxed set of the British TV series Downton Abbey for Christmas and are watching it for the second time. We watched all the bonus shows after we finished the series and then the movie, and so went back to see what clues, music, fashion, etc. we had missed.   I had first seen it 10 years ago, but had forgotten most of it.  Now we just finished watching the 3rd season (2nd time) and Matthew Crawley dies in the last scene. It was a shock the first time, and still is.  If Daniel Stevens hadn't wanted out of his contract, you do wonder what direction the series would have taken.  His departure caused a huge uproar among the fans, but his career has gone well.

 There are a few things we’ve noticed and commented on. We think if the series were made today—2020 instead of 2010—they wouldn’t have begun the story with a homosexual as the bad guy. Thomas Barrow is a gossip, a coward during the war, and gets into the post war black market, even though he fails. He’s nasty and sneaky and no one likes him. He is redeemed somewhat for being so mean as the series progresses. But also, we noticed that except for the rape story involving Anna, most of the overt sexual aggression was from the women. Edith, Sybil and Mary, all go beyond proprieties to get their man—especially Edith is aggressive. Mary’s shame influences the family’s fortune for years. Then Rose is also quite the sex kitten. Old lady Grantham had almost run off with the Russian prince in the 19th century when she was young, and was prepared to give up her two children. Then there are 3 house maids who go after men socially above them, and the one gets pregnant and then becomes a prostitute after her baby is born. I don’t think I noticed that thread so much the first time I watched it in 2011. We’ll probably watch it again when we’re at the Lake house this summer. 

Liberal protestants and Catholic bishops--where are you?

Churches have always been involved in helping the poor, sick, hungry and imprisoned. It's part of Jesus' command and promise.  See Matthew 25.   It's why the Granthams of British television fame lived in an Abbey (former monastery taken by Henry VIII from the Catholics--payback to the Lords who supported him). Before the huge government intrusion into social welfare programs in the 20th century, churches were the social safety net. The Roman Catholic church is still the largest humanitarian and educational institution in the world. However, in order to decrease the size of the official bureaucracy, a lot of that responsibility that the government had assumed with the War on Poverty, was shifted to non-profits, mainly churches, under GHW Bush, thousand points of light. Now many churches are financially dependent on government grants for housing renewal, job training programs, prison reforms, food pantries, etc. It's very useful in keeping the churches silent.

Downton Abbey—a look back

Downton Abbey was a delight as a TV series, and I hope to see the movie. But have you ever wondered why the Grantham family were living in an abbey? Definition of an Abbey: a monastery under the supervision of an abbot or a convent under the supervision of an abbess. I don't claim to know anything about the British aristocracy or what the titles Countess, Earl, or Lady mean, but I do know they aren't priests, nuns or abbots. Our status symbols in the U.S. are all about money and celebrity, not titles--Jeff Bezos for instance is the richest man the world--and that means more power than a title handed down from his father. Even the wealthiest and most admired dynasties in the U.S. disappear in a flash when the money is gone, or the government takes it away. Movie stars who have a different admired status become wrinkled and don't get the good roles.

So why did Anglican British royalty and lesser folk live in buildings built by Roman Catholics? It goes back to the English Reformation and is one of the nastiest and unloving chapters in Christian history. King Henry VIII stole the wealth of the monasteries, had the owners killed off, chased off or imprisoned, and gave the lands and buildings to his supporters. The church had traditionally taken care of the poor and sick (as Jesus told them to do)--they were turned out also, and we had the seeds of the terrible poverty, wealth and abuses of the industrial revolution.

Doc Martin and Downton Abbey

I thought Doc Martin the series on PBS was over, so I obviously missed season 8 (spring 2019). Now I see it's been cancelled after season 9.  My friend Bev says I can get it at the library.  I think 9 should be on soon.  The U.S. gets these later than U.K.

And then there’s Downton Abbey the movie.  Several Facebook friends have seen it and thought it quite good.  I guess we’ll miss that one too since it seems to be a limited engagement.

The English Reformation was like Mao’s Cultural Revolution of the 20th century

Did you ever wonder why the Crawley family of the fictional Downton Abbey TV series lived in an abbey?  “There are many old country houses in the UK called "xxxxx Abbey", due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538, after which the land and the buildings themselves were sold to the wealthy.”  (Quora) “In Apr 1536, there were over 800 monasteries, abbeys, nunneries and friaries that were home to over 10,000 monks, nuns, friars and canons. By April 1540 there were none left. Much of the property was bought by or granted to landowners; monastery churches were sometimes converted to parish churches, while some buildings, such as Tintern Abbey, were left to ruin.”

“One of Eamon Duffy’s key resources [The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580] are the extant last wills and testaments. By collecting the data from wills he was able to trace the changes in English religion that Henry VIII and his officers enforced. Put simply, the wills made by Catholics before Henry VIII’s break with Rome expressed simple belief and enthusiasm for the Catholic faith.

In their wills the English provided for Masses to be said for the repose of their souls. They left funds for the maintenance of the church and her services. They left money to build extensions to churches and monasteries, provide for bells, vestments, altar cloths and candles. They provided funding for the poor, left money in their wills for schools and hospitals, and left endowments for colleges and orphanages.

In short, the wills are evidence of the health and vigor of the Church in England just before Henry VIII enforced the destruction of English Catholicism.

Similarly, the wills after the break with Rome reflect the new understanding of the faith. The old clauses granting funds to the Church and all her good works began to disappear. Being taught that Masses for the repose of their souls were pointless, they stopped providing for them in their wills. Being taught that religious art, vestments, stained-glass windows and statues were vain or idolatrous, they stopped leaving money for such things. They no longer left money for the poor, but left it for their relatives.

England in the Middle Ages was referred to as “Mary’s Dowry.” The churches, cathedrals, monasteries, convents, colleges and shrines were wealthy. There was corruption, certainly. Wherever there is a concentration of money and power there is bound to be corruption. But Duffy shows that the state of the monasteries and of religious life in England was robust, dynamic and strong.

Henry VIII’s depredations were about more than wanting to marry his mistress and have a male heir. He and his commissioners had also spotted that the monasteries and churches provided rich pickings. The king himself grabbed vast amounts of land for the crown and he awarded his faithful subjects with rich prizes of religious houses and their lands and goods.” Catholic England

Fake history as well as fake news

Shocking isn’t it how most of us were taught fake history, for me beginning in 5th grade in Forreston, Illinois?  There was no Dark Ages after Rome fell to the barbarians. In fact, those barbarians were Roman citizens enjoying a  fairly high level of culture and more likely assimilated Rome. There was no Enlightenment where suddenly the world of learning exploded.  There was no scientific revolution, only a group of secularists who denied the truths the church had taught all along. And what about that awful Spanish Inquisition? More people died from the death penalty in the first 70 years of the 20th century in the U.S. than in 350 years of the Inquisition.  To bring us up to today’s headlines, there is also no HIV Pandemic, just very risky behavior by a small segment of the population in multiple countries, mostly young, gay and bisexual males, which spreads disease and death around the world.

There were incredible advancements in technology, science, agriculture, literature and art all through the era I was taught to call “the Dark Ages.”  And without an era that had gone  “dark,” how could there be an era when the lights suddenly came on--the Enlightenment--a time when Europeans looked back and copied what the Greeks and Romans did.  How could scientists of the 18th century pat themselves on the back if they had to be standing on the shoulders of the giants of science of the middle ages? They needed the myth of a Scientific Revolution. There was slavery in ancient Rome, but it had virtually disappeared in Europe by the time of the so-called Enlightenment.  So where did it go?  Changes in technology, agriculture, war and economics made it useless.

But who can we blame for all this misinformation about darkness and slow progress? Why were we taught this? Christianity, of course, say the atheist academics, and specifically the Roman Catholic Church say the non-Catholic academics. The United States arose from the English Reformation view of world and European history, so that’s what we were taught; most of our colonies excluded Catholics owning land or building churches. That’s why the religious history books on my office shelves begin around 1517 for Lutherans and Reformed or 1600 for Baptists, or 1850 for Restorationists and 1900 for Pentecostals and Charismatics, and 10 years ago for the Rock City Church, the fastest growing Christian church in Columbus, Ohio.  That’s why we could watch five seasons of Downton Abbey without asking why aristocratic Anglicans in the 20th century were making their home in an abbey built by Catholic monks who lost their home, life’s work and probably their lives for Jesus in the 16th century.

The other day I looked through the introduction of a book of evangelical Christian literature, “Valiant for the truth,” by David Otis Fuller (c. 1961). Let me quote, “It has been said that after the close of the Apostolic Age theology fell over a cliff until restored by the great formulated creeds of the church. . . “ And that’s pretty much the mother’s milk we were all nourished with whether mother was a Lutheran, Calvinist, Mormon, Congregationalist, secularist or atheist.

Why is Downton Abbey called an Abbey (monastery)?

                            

 Along with millions of other Americans, tonight I'll be staying awake to watch PBS' Downton Abbey, now in its final season.  Why is it called an Abbey when it is obviously the home of very wealthy people with a lot of servants? Maybe PBS explained it with a sentence, and I missed it. I certainly missed it in school, or ignored it, after all, what did it matter to me if King Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife, split with Rome, started a new church and then stole all the land in England owned by Catholics? The King gave the land to those who supported him. People who didn't get along with the hierarchy in the new church became those who settled in the U.S. They were the descendants of that church whether Church of England or Methodists or Baptists.

 http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106122.html

 http://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/the-vortex-stolen-property

 http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/tudor-england/the-dissolution-of-the-monasteries/

"In that [16th] century, land was the primary source of wealth and political power. At the dawn of that century, the Church, through its cathedrals, parishes, hospitals, colleges, monasteries, and other embodiments, owned perhaps one-third of the acreage in England, more even than the Crown. Much of the Church’s income was used for aid to the needy, care of the sick, help for travelers, provision against poor harvest, and education."

 http://www.culturewars.com/2011/Whig%20Plunderers.html

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3439293/Hampton-Court-Palace-chapel-holds-Catholic-service-Henry-VIII-broke-away-Rome-16th-century.html