(LifeSiteNews) — Not a day goes by without reports of serious friction in our world. Many of these confrontations have their roots in expressions of longstanding hatred or revenge and are not restricted to countries, but can also arise in our communities and in most institutions,
When our family owned a smallholding in the depths of rural Somerset, England, we found ourselves caught in the crossfire of a miniature but long-lasting feud between neighbouring farmers. Farmer Stallion, who owned land and horses to the north of our property, possessed a spring from which emanated the only water supply to all the adjacent properties, including our own. To the south of us lived a dairy farmer whom we shall name Bull, whose livestock were also dependent on this supply of water. Much to our distress, when the weather was warm, we discovered that our water supply suddenly dried up. Obviously, there was now no liquid refreshment for our home or our own animals and, needless to say, Farmer Bull’s cows also went thirsty.
Owing to the existence of a battle between Stallion and Bull, the cause of which was lost in the mists of antiquity, the switching off of the water supply by the former was an attempt by him to turn up the heat in their conflict. I should add at this juncture that many Somerset farmers are inarticulate and, being unable to settle their grievances in a civilized manner through reasonable dialogue, resort to foul language and unconfined rage which leads to rash acts such as the one just described. Driven to desperate measures as a result of the water shortage, Farmer Bull arrived on Stallion’s property with a mechanical digger and a group of muscular farmhands. Disregarding Stallion’s angry and outraged protests, Bull and his men drove the digger to the spring, dug a trench and laid a new pipe, bypassing Stallion’s property, reconnecting eventually to the existing pipe which supplied the other properties, including our own.
Stallion’s house was set back from the road and at the front was a patch of lawn on which were situated some heavy mushroom-shaped staddle stones which were set solidly into the ground. Shortly after the incident with the digger and the spring, imagine my surprise when I saw all these stones uprooted and scattered over the road. It would have taken a very powerful excavator to achieve this, and I can only assume that this was yet another vengeful attempt by Bull to pay back his adversary.
The hatred between farmers, which I came across, was in sharp contrast to the idyllic and peaceful life which is supposed to exist in the countryside. It is no different in other parts of the world. Archbishop Lefebvre, when he was apostolic delegate to French West Africa, remarked on the centuries-old animosity between tribes in Gabon where the combatants had often long forgotten the original causes of their conflict, as they were lost in the mists of time. Hatred, grudges and suspicion have common currency, particularly in Africa, where politics is superimposed on tribal lines. We only have to see how, when a certain tribe gains the ascendancy and wins political power, they operate on a ‘winner-takes-all’ basis and reward their friends and persecute those outside their own favoured tribe. All promises to repair the roads and better the lot of the common man are soon forgotten in the attempt to consolidate absolute power. In Zimbabwe, as soon as he became Prime Minister, Robert Mugabe began the wholesale persecution of his enemies, especially white farmers who were driven out of their farms only to be replaced by Mugabe’s allies who had remained faithful to Zanu PF. Such people, known as “war veterans,” ran down the farm businesses and wrecked the industry. It was impossible for most Zimbabweans to buy basic foodstuffs, such as grain, unless they could show their Zanu PF membership cards at the stores.
Here, in the United Kingdom, the voters elected Kier Starmer and his Labour Party into office as, being utterly sick of the Conservative government which had reigned for 14 years, they decided to give “the other lot” the chance to resolve our heap of problems. Now, I am not suggesting that Starmer is to be compared with Mugabe or Farmer Stallion, but, yet again, he is picking on his political enemies. Still with farmers, Labour is conducting a pointless and vindictive campaign against family farms. Any farm which passes to the next generation will be subject to Inheritance Tax at 40% on any properties valued at over £1m. That covers most of them, and in the first year it is estimated that at least 500 will be affected. This measure is calculated to raise approximately £500m in revenue for the taxman. To put things in context, that is enough money to pay for only one day in the life of the National Health Service. And yet Kier Starmer maintains that the money is needed to fund the public services.
Private schools in the UK have long been the subject of ideological hatred by the Labour Party and, no sooner had they gained office, they imposed Value Added Tax on school fees. This means that parents will have to pay an extra 20% on already crippling amounts. Again, this is purely vindictive and is said to be the result of a desire to persecute those who were never Labour voters. They imagine that the parents of private schoolchildren wallow in riches, yet I know that most parents make great sacrifices and get into huge debt in order to do their very best for their offspring. Such parents are, no doubt, perceived as the enemies of socialism and possibly voted against staying in the European Union. This measure will clearly precipitate a sudden decline in private education, which is what Labour has been planning all along. Private businesses have also suffered a huge increase in employment taxes, which has been seen by some as an action motivated by ancient hostility and is not regarded as producing any benefit for the government as it will depress economic growth.
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On the other hand, our new Labour government has not lost any time in rewarding its long-term supporters by handing out huge and unaffordable pay rises to the heavily unionised public services, such as train drivers, teachers and doctors in the National Health Service. But the Labour Party cares little for farmers, private schools and businesses, who will now pay the price for their perceived ideological hostility to the new order.
Turning to the Catholic Church, we can observe the hostility towards faithful Catholics on the part of the new breed of reformers who hold the reins of power at the top. Ever since the 1910 encyclical Pascendi Gregis of Pope Pius X, which resulted in driving the modernists underground, they have been planning their revenge. Similar to Kier Starmer’s pointless and vindictive harassment of farmers, businesses and private schools, the Church authorities have victimized those Catholics who are attached to the traditional Latin Mass. But why? After all, most parishes who have the Old Mass boast record attendances, more baptisms and a general uptake in parish life. Just as the Novus Ordo parishes are being closed or amalgamated, traditional ones, even those which also remain faithful to the New Mass, are flourishing. Monastic orders which have returned to the old ways, even just a little bit, are experiencing an increase in entrants and many are undertaking building projects to accommodate the influx. And yet these too have been subject to the lidless eye of official disapproval. All this seems to suggest that, in common with the Labour government and others, the ecclesiastical authorities are conducting an ideological campaign, only this time against those who are participating in one of the main growth areas in the Church. This campaign is utterly blind to reason and is based on revenge for perceived opposition to Vatican II and the Novus Ordo Missae. It is certainly not based on truth or natural justice as we can see.
When St. Thomas More was asked whether he would face a fair trial of the accusations brought against him he answered that, as they had no case, then there could be no trial. It is exactly this disregard for normal juridical procedure which has marked recent events. They have no case! When Our Lord was dragged before the Sanhedrin in the dead of night, his persecutors were acting outside established procedure because, again, they knew that they had no case. Bishop Strickland was dismissed from his diocese summarily for reasons which are unclear. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in southern France, Mgr. Dominique Rey, was asked by Pope Francis to resign on January 7 this year. This model prelate allowed traditional communities to exist and flourish in his diocese, and that was the reason why the authorities sought his dismissal. About him, a cleric wrote: “He has been quite successful in many ways, and when things have gone wrong, he has never swept anything under the carpet. There has never been a question of him hiding abuse by clergy. He always dealt with these things very strictly.” Again, they had no case but were able to rely on the Bishop to demonstrate holy obedience in order to achieve their objective. It was well within Bishop Rey’s rights to make a fuss in the face of such arbitrary abuse of power, but he chose to go quietly. In most of these cases the victims were denied the opportunity to be heard in a legally established tribunal and were given no right of appeal.
From the injustices meted out to Our Lord, the pointless antagonism between Somerset farmers, the treatment of perceived enemies by politicians to the unjust victimization of the clergy in the Catholic Church, we see human behaviour at its worst. In most cases the recipients of such actions are unable to defend themselves, having no power to do so. (My farming neighbours went for tit-for-tat revenge which only made things worse!) The actions of the current Labour ministers have resulted in an almost national loathing for them, and that is bad for civilization if we end up despising those who are in authority over us, however ghastly they may be.
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The only good which can come out of this sorry state of affairs is if the victims of injustice are silent, like Our Lord before Pilate. As He said in the Sermon on the Mount: “love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.” In an increasingly godless world, this instruction is largely ignored but we must admire those clerics such as Strickland, Rey and countless others, who remain charitable towards their persecutors and continue to pray for them. In such cases, God is never outdone in generosity.
Joseph Bevan has just published his memoirs, Two Families: A Memoir of English Life During and After the Council with Os Justi Press.