LESSONS FROM 1790

The French nobility was a privileged social class in France during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period to the Revolution in 1790. 

In the political system of pre-Revolutionary France, Catholic Clergy comprised the First Estate, nobility made up the Second Estate of the Estates General, and the bourgeoisie and peasant making up the Third Estate.

As all too often happens, those at the top of the social order become so engrossed in their own comfort and sense of worth, that they become indifferent to those over whom they exercise authority or care.  It is always the cause of their undoing.

Queen Marie Antoinette, consort to Louis XVI, would become a symbol of the excesses of the French monarchy and nobility.  She is often credited with the famous quote "Let them eat cake," upon learning that the peasants had no bread.  

Such indifference to the suffering of the people would lead to her beheading nine months after her husband was likewise executed by order of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

History has powerful lessons to teach, if we are willing to be its apt students.

There can be little doubt that Bishops have never lost their sense of nobility and aristocratic superiority over the Catholic faithful.  

That which was the undoing of the French aristocracy is playing out today within the ranks of the Episcopacy and may prove to be the undoing of the Bishops as well.


Nowhere does this corruption show itself with greater clarity than at the highest level of Church authority, the Vatican itself.

Pope Francis, an outsider to Vatican maneuverings and intrigues, has yet to prove himself capable of tearing down the walls of Curial bureaucracy which has remained completely closed to the slightest suggestion that the Church has lost touch with the Catholic faithful and needs to restore vitality in fulfilling its Divine Mandate to make disciples of all nations.

And nowhere is renewal and restoration a more pressing need than within the College of Bishops.

Like the French nobles insensitive to the dire straits of the suffering masses, the Church and the Bishops are likely to reap a bitter harvest indeed.

Up until now, Pope Francis has appeared to be a victim of the corruption and intransigence within the walls of the Vatican.  

He must act now and he must act decisively to respond to this crisis or risk the judgment of history that he was incapable of resolving the problem because he himself was the problem.

The Pope's first step in the restoration of the Episcopacy must be a commitment to justice by way of care for victims and punishment for offenders.

Not only Priests, but more importantly Bishops, who have shown that they are unfit for ministry must be removed from the Clerical state and the reasons for that removal communicated to the faithful with total transparency.

Up until the present, the Pope’s responses have been personal and removals arbitrary and largely in response to public outrage.

The Pope must establish canonical procedures and protocols which will ensure that such justice is administered quickly, fairly and without prejudice.

The French monarchy and nobility were oblivious to the rebellion which would lead to their ignominious and bloody deaths at the guillotine.

A rebellion is likewise seething within the Church at this moment. 

It will not be a revolution within the Body of Christ, but (as I continue to fear) an abandonment of it by multitudes of souls who simply lost faith, not in God, but in the institution he imparted to continue His redemptive work.

Death, to be sure, will accompany this revolution of abandonment.  But it will be the death of charity and hope, of faith and goodness, a fate worse than human death itself.

God be with Pope Francis at this critical moment in the life of Your Church.  Give him wisdom and the fortitude to do what is right and be guided by Your powerful grace.

Come, Holy Spirit, come!