The world was better off when Germany was a geographic term rather than a political entity.
The Good Old Days
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
“The world was better off when Germany was a geographic term rather than a political entity.”
with Europe dominated by revolutionary and later republican France? No fan of Bismark, but the status quo wasn’t a bed of roses.
The main purpose of Germany, including Prussia, during the Napoleonic era was to serve as a doormat for Napoleon.
Quaeritur: what has brought this concern about Germany up now? At the current time Germany strikes me as weak, beholden to the greenie-weenie feminists, they’ve completedly denuked their energy infrastructure, their economy as a result has been shot in the heart, their military spending is among the lowest in Europe (has that changed?), and even France seems to do better.
Is there something going on of which I am woefully ignorant?
In secular terms, I can’t think of much German damage recently, but in the Church…
I understand the problem many have with a unified Germany. As I have mentioned previously, both sides of my family left after unification as their loyalty was with their state rather than a Prussian hierarchy. As for the present, the possibility of a Yugoslavia of the center of Europe composed of separate German states is not very enticing either.
The “Reformation” was a Germanic disaster that was not dependent on GDP or divisions in the field. The Germanic synod threatens without any accompanying secular might
There seems to be so few European Catholics left. Why does a Church hierarchy obsessed with demographics care what the German “reformers” want?
It was a dubious proposition from the get-go. There was never a “King of Prussia,” for example, only a “King in Prussia.” Likewise, Wilhelm I refused the title of Kaiser until it was disassociated with Prussia or any other territory, in effect becoming “Kaiser in Germany.” Everyone knows the real Kaiser was the Holy Roman Emperor. The unification of Germany was inevitably tied to the fall of Catholic Austria. A.E.I.O.U!
“There seems to be so few European Catholics left. Why does a Church hierarchy obsessed with demographics care what the German “reformers” want?”
Good question, TBO. I will don my amateur psychologist hat and guess that the answer is one or both of: 1- the money flowing to Rome from the German Kirchensteuer, the Federal tax that supports the Bishops’ Conference, which presumably the Conference could cut off if sufficiently provoked, or 2- the oft-demonstrated tendency of Francis the Merciful™️ to be, shall we say, irritated by anyone perceived as being disobedient to him. In this case, this manifests as a “do it my way, or not at all” approach.
My two pfennigs. 😁
Frank- I’m afraid your two pfennigs are true currency in this situation 😐
Quaeritur: what has brought this concern about Germany up now?
The German state is a perennial issue with me. Except under Adenauer, I regard it as an inherently destabilizing force in Europe as well as a locus of anti-Americanism. If there is a bad idea knocking about the Germans are bound to embrace it. I agree with Waugh:
“I think it a great cheek of the Germans to try and teach the rest of the world anything about religion. They should be in perpetual sackcloth and ashes for all their enormities from Luther to Hitler.”
“I understand the problem many have with a unified Germany.”
Well, if the Holy Roman Empire was the First Reich, the Kaisers were the Second Reich, and the Nazis were the Third Reich — Hitler intentionally used the term “Reich” to harken back to the glory days of a unified German Empire — then technically the current unified Germany could be the “Fourth Reich” although no one would dare call it that for obvious reasons.
I’m not seeing how the world would be a more agreeable place with a jumble of 26 states with a wretched set of boundaries rather than a couple of federations of those with contiguous territory. The pathology from which the occidental world suffers is omnipresent and has the upper hand just about everywhere but Hungary and a few other places.
I haven’t read enough or lived long enough to have any negative views on a rearmed Germany. But I hope that the stereotype of a belligerent Germany is wrong.
. . .on another point, I do like the term, “Carthaginian Peace”!
There was never a “King of Prussia,” for example, only a “King in Prussia
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No, the title was changed to King of Prussia.