Unity Is Strength I

Who now remembers that the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began as an Anglo-Papalist Octave of Prayer for Reunion with the Petrine See. If the Ordinariate really wants to do something for the wider Church, then it should resume that practice, centred on Eucharistic Adoration, and also involving the pro-life organisations, the SVP, and the Justice and Peace movement.

Still, in its present form, the Week is now observed even in Jerusalem, where it provides an opportunity air Orthodox criticisms, far from lacking in merit, of, to coin a phrase, Big Ecumenism. Again, let there be concentration on justice, on peace, and on the sanctity of life. Here is another important example.

European and other powers are preparing to recognise a Palestinian Declaration of Independence. Some, including the United Kingdom, may already have done so in secret. That Declaration must explicitly lay claim to the whole of the viable Palestinian State created on both sides of the Jordan in 1948. Furthermore, not least in pursuit of Western and other recognition, it must mirror the Constitution of Lebanon in guaranteeing the Presidency to a Christian even if it guarantees the Premiership to a Muslim (as would have happened electorally anyway), and it must mirror the Constitutions of Lebanon, of Iran, and of Palestine east of the Jordan, the present Hashemite Kingdom, in guaranteeing parliamentary representation to Christians, as well mirroring Syria is establishing Christian festivals as public holidays. And it should place the new state under the protection of each and all of the remaining sacral monarchies, there being no other kind, in Christendom.

Thus would that state, and those who looked to its creation, be placed under the protection of the world’s Christian monarchs and of all who professed allegiance to them. Those are the monarchs of Andorra, of Antigua and Barbuda, of Australia, of The Bahamas, of Barbados, of Belgium, of Belize, of Canada, of the Cook Islands, of Denmark, of Grenada, of Jamaica, of Lesotho, of Liechtenstein, of Luxembourg, of Monaco, of the Netherlands, of New Zealand, of Norway, of Papua New Guinea, of Saint Kitts and Nevis, of Saint Lucia, of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, of Spain, of the Solomon Islands, of Swaziland, of Sweden, of Tuvalu, of Tonga, of the United Kingdom, of the State of the Vatican City, and the Paramount Chief of the Great Council of Chiefs of Fiji, together with all Christian subnational monarchs throughout the world, and together with all Christian Heads of deposed Royal Houses. 18 of those figures are the same person. Guess who?

This would also be a wider appeal, an appeal to any and every country that regarded Christianity as fundamental to its identity. Does the American Republic so regard itself? Does the Russian Federation? Do the republics of Europe? Do the republics of Central America, South America and the Caribbean? Do the republics of Africa? Does any other country? In each country’s case, how it responds to this appeal would be its definitive answer to that question.

At the very least, this needs to appear over the names expressing the full authority of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Latin Patriarchate, the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarchate, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate, the Greek-Melkite-Catholic Patriarchate, the Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate, the Maronite Patriarchal Exarchate, the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, the Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate, and the Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate. That would have an immediate and a very dramatic impact in all of the countries named or referred to above. But time is now of the essence.