Tag: Patriotism

CCCI – Ethnicity vs. Nationality

I had a conversation with a colleague about something and some subjects related to it. My colleague is from Afghanistan, and is the same age as me, and lived there when America invaded and has offered some interesting insights into the situation there now.

My colleague shared that there is a part of Pakistan–Balochistan–that historically and ethnically has been a part of Afghanistan. Due to the Durand Line established by the British colonial Empire, the region and people were separated. Now Afghanistan has a long standing historical claim on the territory and their ethnic kinsmen, but the people have been there long enough to now identify with Pakistan as their nation.

Both Ethnicity and Nationality represent “family” on some level. I have written a lot about the Sovereign as a paternal influence, being one flesh with his people. This is kind of like Nationality. Ethnicity is a deeper level of kinship, being structured around a personal commonality to another person and even to a sovereign, whereas mere nationality represents a geographic commonality to another person. The first nations were Ethno-nations, and with very good reason: If someone looks like me, talks like me, worships like me, they probably think like me, and I can trust them to support me the way I support them. Mere nations are more common since the colonial era, as political boundaries have been drawn around territory without any real regard for ethnicity. This is why Africa is such a conflict prone continent, and why Balochistan is alienated from Afghanistan and remains a source of tension in Afghan-Pakistan relations.

Where Ethnicity and Nationality overlap–or spill over each other–there is conflict. Ukraine (for example) is Ethnically Slavic but has a distinct national identity. Russia views itself as the father of all slavic peoples, so seeks on the one hand Ethnic unity at the expense of national identity. Ukraine seeks to preserve it’s national identity at the expense of ethnic unity. There will always be conflict on these grounds.

This is part of why America has some cultural instability. There is no ethno-nation upon which the supra-nation was built. All the ethno-nations that compose America must actively choose to accept their national identity and make it a priority. America doesn’t have a unifying culture. There are some cultural elements that are competing to be dominant but nothing central, nothing unifying.

These forces can be in tension in a positive way. The Philippines is composed of many sub-ethnic divisions but there is a common culture to all of the constituent ethnicities, enough to make their National identity strong and prevent ethnic conflict. As I understand it one of the main sources of internal conflict is where that common culture is different–namely, between the Catholic majority and Muslim minority. The Philippines have successfully harnessed their diverse ethnicities and created a national identity from it.

Any kind of nation–be it Ethno- or not–can be stable. But there must be some unifying element to give it stability. Ethnicity is the unifying element. Culture can be the unifying element, It could even be religion. But stability must be intentionally cultivated from the ground up, from the top down. Without an intentional effort at stability, there will be internal conflict which destabilizes the nation until either the various nations split apart from each other or one totally dominates the other.

AMDG

CCXXXVI – On Patriotism

I recently learned that none other than Mark Twain wrote a biography on St. Joan of Arc. He spent twelve years in research and two years writing, he considered it his best and most important work. I have only just begun to read it but it is a fantastic read so far. The narrative got me to thinking about how St Joan was inflamed for love of her Country, and how ardent patriotism nowadays is rare but no less beautiful.

My political thought these days has been trying my best not to think about politics. I didn’t realize how effective it had been until my family started telling me about news and I hadn’t heard anything about it. My political antipathy is driven by a desire to protect my peace and forego grievance about things I cannot control. I am sure my antipathy will give way over time to apathy, but for now I find political news distasteful.

When I was in undergrad, I took a Spanish class and had a professor who was a Cuban expatriot. Towards the end of the semester, an anti-Castro and anti-communist journalist was assassinated, and the professor led us all in a moment of silence. We would enter parts of our textbook that talk about the cuisine of Havana, and he would reveal to us that just outside the tourist parts of Havana lies extreme poverty and starvation. His perspective was extremely moving to me and highly influential–it made me realize what true patriotism looked like. This professor did not wave flags and sing songs and wear patriotic symbols, but he felt deeply the pulse of his country. St. Joan reminded me of this professor–she wept following Agincourt, and felt injustice when the Queen made the Treaty of Troyes to disinherit the rightful King Charles VII. Because of my recent political antipathy, I realized I don’t presently have the same emotional attachment to my country; I realized I do not feel any sense of personal loyalty to my national leaders.

So this raises the question: What is the proper object of patriotism? It seems to me there are three options: A people, a territory, or an office. A patriotic love of a people is a kind of cultural unity. A patriot might say “I love these people because they are my countrymen”. A patriotic love of a territory makes me think of the phrases “fatherland” or “motherland”, a love for the land in which one lives. A patriotic love of political office is like a love of tradition–this land has had a King for time immemorial, and will continue in that way.

A love of people, a love of place, a love of leadership. This calls to mind the image of a family. The place where I live is my home, I love it and take care of it and want it to be hospitable and comfortable and clean and nice. The people who live in my home are my family, and I love them and want to take care of them. The people who lead my family are my parents, and I love them and listen to them. Patriotism is loving your country as if it is your home, loving your countrymen as if they are your siblings, and loving your sovereign as if he is your father. This is why Joan was incensed that Charles VII was disinherited–her “father” was insulted and a stranger declared himself step-father. This is why my spanish professor felt so deeply for his country–he was homesick, and misses his “family”.

It is easy to take ones house and home for granted when you live comfortably in it and are not called to defend it. My antipathy towards politics stems in part from a series of bad “fathers” (ignoring for a moment the confusion of who exactly the sovereign is in a democratic state such as ours). But I have no ill will towards my countrymen, and certainly an affinity for the territory. Patriotism is a virtue because it is a demonstration of filial love, obedience, and charity. It is a higher order of love than mere love of symbols, like most meme-patriotism is represented these days.

Cultivating patriotism requires growth in all the related virtues, and wishing that growth on ones countrymen.

AMDG

CLXXXIX – Accidents and Essences of Authority

Is Authority accidental or essential? Something that is essential is irreducible, something that is accidental is not important to the core thing in question. I am male, that is an essential property of Scoot because maleness cannot be separated from who I am. My weight is accidental, because it can change. There’s nothing about Scootness that requires a certain weight to be true. I am just as much Scoot as I am at both double my weight and half my weight. Said another way, weight can be taken away from Scoot and Scoot will still remain. Maleness cannot be taken away from Scoot and still leave behind Scoot.

If we were to argue that Authority is essential, it would mean that we cannot be conceived without that authority. A priest, in his ordination, is metaphysically changed such that he transcends being just a man and becomes a priest. This is why Priests can’t retire or “quit”–they have been consecrated to their Holy purpose, and that cannot be undone. When a man is united to his wife in the sacrament of marriage, he becomes a husband. It is metaphysically impossible to separate that man from husbandness. He is a husband. This is why, in the Catholic Church, for a couple to be separated it requires an annulment. This says that the marriage did not happen, because it was invalid or illicit, not that the marriage is reversed.

Likewise, then, for Fatherhood: When a man conceives a child, he cannot un-conceive that child, he is and will always be that child’s father. These are examples of essential things. There are, in each of these cases, certain elements of authority which come with the essential change which has happened; with the authority comes a context for that authority. A father may instruct and nurture his child, but may not, say, appoint admirals to the Turkish Navy. That is outside his context and so outside his authority.

But there are examples of Authority that make it seem accidental. The office of the American Presidency, for example. One man can be inaugurated into the office and another man removed from office–this makes it sound like an accident. But inauguration is a rite similar to ordination, it is a ceremony through which authority is transferred. While holding the office of the Presidency, a given man cannot be separated from his office. He holds all that is presidentness while he is validly in office until he validly leaves office.

Employment can seem accidental as well. While I am employed at my current employer, let me call it “ACME”, I have the authority that comes with my employment. But if ACME were to terminate me, I would no longer have that authority. My job and my self are separable. But at the same time, while I am employed, there is no concept of Scootness that does not include employment at ACME. The rite that changes me is called being hired.

Obviously, employment is a lower order of essence than maleness is, because it comes from law rather than nature.

This brings us, at last, the question I have been pondering and which inspired this post: If the Admiral of the Turkish Navy gives an order, and nobody listens to him, does he have authority?

The answer is that de jure, he does, because he has been validly and licitly appointed as Admiral of the Turkish Navy. De facto he does not, because no one will obey his authority. How can this be? His authority is essential to him as Admiral. He has official authority. But he has no personal authority–and this is not by any defect in him, as Admiral, but rather that no one has given him personal authority, which we established previously must be given.

But in my previous article, I argued that if a sailor ignores an order given by the Admiral he could not hope to remain a sailor for long. When all the sailors ignore the Admiral, however, the Admiral cannot hope to remain Admiral for long–that is the nature of a mutiny. So we can turn now to the other side of the question I began this article with: Is the authority to which we are subject accidental or essential?

My impulse is to say that it is also essential. I am an American Citizen: while I am subject to the laws of America, Scoot cannot be conceptualized independent of his citizenship. The rite that alters this metaphysically essential truth is immigration. If I wanted to become a citizen of Turkey, I would travel there and presumably there is a prescribed process by which I would change from calling myself an American to calling myself a Turk. Likewise, my father is as metaphysically essential to me, as son, as I am to him, as father. There is nothing about Scoot that can be imagined independently of being the son of my Father. This fact is essential by nature (and so cannot change), while my citizenship is essential by law (and so can change by law).

This I believe gets at why Patriotism is considered a virtue. Beyond just being an American, I can love America, and will its good. I don’t need to be patriotic any more than I need to be prudent or just; but it helps to do so.

So if we supposed I, Scoot, was a sailor in the Turkish Navy, and the Admiral gave me an order, what could I do? I have the option of making a free choice, because accepting authority is voluntary. But disobeying the legal authority is contrary to my being qua sailor in the Turkish Navy. If I disobey the legal authority, I act contrary to my legal essence. If I obey the legal authority, I act in accordance with my legal essence.

As a practical matter, we are not handed a list of authorities to whom we are legally subject. It can be the trial of a lifetime to determine to whom we owe fealty. That is why we have a duty to seek and follow Truth. If I am an amnesiac sailor and I don’t know to which Navy I am subject, it is imperative that I figure it out. If I begin by following the Turkish Admiral, but subsequently learn I am really an American and so subject to the American Navy, I must seek to restore myself to the American Navy and resume obeying the American Admiral. If, after that point, I continue to obey the imperatives of the Turkish admiral, I am acting against my legal essence, as I have described.

I have one final point to make. Because all authority is given, either by our office or by acclaim, that means all authority comes from somewhere else. This means authority is subject to the Prime Mover argument, where all authority comes from some other authority, and so on, until it rests at the Prime Mover, the font from which all authority flows: God. It makes sense, then, that we call Christ the King: He is the one authority to whom we are all subject, by both the law and our natures.

CL – Maybe A Little Bit of Comment

I presented my previous post without comment, but there’s a lot to think about in there so I wanted to write about it.

1 – Kinds of Revolution

Ven. Fulton Sheen presents two kinds of revolution: Self Government, and Violence. This may seem overly simplistic at first glance, but because this is Fulton Sheen lets take a minute to consider if there is some truth to this. His comparisons were the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Both revolutions ostensibly wanted self government, and both revolutions effectuated this desire by violence. The French Revolution culminated in the rise of Napoleon, an Imperial figure, while the American revolution culminated in the rise of the Republic. Can these two revolutions really be differentiated by Self Government and Violence? I think the difference here lies in something akin to intent. The American revolution established their ideals and then sought to obtain them. The French revolution sought to overthrow the monarchy first, and sought ideals afterwards, which is why it culminated in a dictatorship. Ideals impose restraint, and an idealistic revolution bears the fruit of those ideals. The fruit of a revolution without ideals will be the strongest man still standing controlling the rest.

The devil rebelled against God for want of self government, and was cast out from heaven for it. Violence itself means “to inflict injury by use of physical force” but the devil is a fallen angel, and as such does not have a physical form. A better word might be an etymological antecedent to violence, which is violation, which includes the sense of profanation. The devil profaned himself in his rebellion, and therefore if we could describe violence in this context, it would be a self-inflicted wound.

Following this I would reduce Ven. Fulton Sheen’s thesis to say that the two kinds of revolution are ones in which a people do violence to others, and ones in which a people do violence to themselves.

2 – Kinds of Revolutionary Violence

This is a great way to transition into a discussion of the types of violence which Fulton Sheen describes. He notes three kinds of violence: Elitism, Mysticism, and Satanism. He argues, in short, that Elitism is a powerful minority which does violence to others to enforce it’s prerogatives; Mysticism (or political mysticism) is how Sheen introduces the idea of a “zero sum” argument, wherein today’s revolutionaries demand all or nothing; Satanism is disorder because everything that is from God is good and well ordered.

To reduce these principles further, the three kinds of revolutionary violence are Violence which desires control, Violence which does not compromise, and Violence which sows chaos. I think this is a quietly profound observation by Sheen. Contextualizing control as a kind of violence is a very modern concept; but speaking about it as elitism from a vocal and powerful minority is a brand new concept to me. The American revolution was uncompromising, because where does one find middle ground between the binary options of being “independent” or being “subjects”.

3 – Majority as Custodian of the Minority

This principle subverts the Girardian concept of memetic rivalry. When two factions are rivals, they will often take contrary views and over time will become polar opposites on every issue. If the Majority was informed by a moral obligation to the Minority–this of course, referencing any kind of Majority and Minority–then the custodial dynamic would create benevolence and good will. That is part of the genius of the Electoral College in moderating the zero-sum dominance of the populous states and giving the smaller states a say in the game–thereby requiring some level of care for the minority. If political Majorities felt themselves compelled to care for political minorities, then there would be less political polarization because political majorities would care about the opinions and perspectives and challenges and successes of their corresponding minority. Ask any “rank and file” Republican or Democrat now what they think of the opinions of the other side: in many cases, you will find a desire for conquest or subjugation. This is the end of memetic rivalry, a chaotic and violent catastrophe. It requires moral restraint to deal with Justice and Prudence with ones neighbors.

4 – Patriotism as Virtue

I watched this video and noted the subjects I wanted to write about before Feser posted his article (here) on the same topic. Describing Patriotism as a virtue is a new concept to me. Sheen describes it by saying that Patriotism is aligned to Piety, which he simplifies as love of God, love of neighbor, and love of country. Piety could be rendered as “Love of God, and of that which God loves”. Love of Country is the sum of loving our neighbors, and our Sovereign. Proof by negation, if a man hates his neighbors, can he love his country? If a man hates his sovereign, can he love his country? if a man hates both his neighbors and his sovereign, could he still claim to have the virtue of patriotism? Christ instructs us through the Gospel of John that love of neighbor is the second greatest commandment, after belief in God. So Patriotism follows naturally from that.

Modern concepts of patriotism mirror modern concepts of piety, which is outward expressions of love which appear only loosely connected with love of those ideals. The Pharisee who prays loudly is displaying false piety because he does not practice reverently; the person who waves a flag but does not love his neighbor is displaying false patriotism because he does not love his countrymen.

Sheen’s argument that if one falls they all fall is interesting, but it fits. As the poem by Alexander Pope goes: “Vice is a monster of so frightful mein / as to be hated needs but to be seen / but seen too oft, familiar with her face / we first endure, then pity, then embrace.” If we allow one vice without concern, then there’s nothing stopping other vices from infiltrating our spiritual life.

AMDG

LXXIV – Resolution to the Legitimacy and Tyranny Problem

I read a great article and I think it has helped me untangle the Legitimacy Problem, which is an extension of the Tyranny problem.

My writings so far:

  • Article XVI – Establishes an early definition of Legitimacy
  • Article XVII – Explores some consequences of that definition
  • Article XVIII – What happens when things go wrong?
  • Article XIX – Clarifying the definition of Legitimacy
  • Article XXIV – Realizing that defining Legitimacy creates problems for Democracy
  • Article XXV – Civil and Spiritual Obligations of a Sovereign

As you can tell it’s been a while since I’ve written about this. Lets see what has changed:

The Legitimacy Problem

Conceptions of sovereignty were easy during the Monarchy period of western civilization. A King ruled over a people, his authority granted by God (by birth or otherwise) to rule in God’s name and keep God’s peace. Easy! The rise of democracy complicated things somewhat. The ruler gains his authority from the people, but also rules over those people, so the reasoning appears somewhat circular. The problem lies when evaluating what exactly Tyranny is. Can a democratically elected ruler still be illegitimate? Can a democratically elected ruler be a tyrant? How do you know when a ruler ought to be forcibly removed by revolution? The Legitimacy problem is an attempt to answer these questions.

Patriotism is a Virtue

I linked to an article in the beginning, make sure you read that first, because the rest of this is predicated on information contained therein.

Obedience to civil authority is good, virtuous even. Acts of creation–even creation of a state–is done with God. Therefore, we owe to our civil authority a similar kind of obedience, but one subordinate to obedience to God. The Constitution establishes the legitimate authority of the United States of America. The Constitution itself was written in a valid and licit way, therefore it is a Legitimate legal document prescribing our particular means of self governance.

A Civil leader, who is raised to their position by the valid and licit means prescribed by the legitimate legal procedures, is the legitimate civil sovereign of a democracy. The Chain of Legitimacy still flows from God, but gets not at the raising of a sovereign but at the foundation of the democracy, in our case being the Constitution.

Back to Tyranny

This conception allows us to revisit the Tyranny problem with some coherent strategy. Tyranny is a quality of governance. A validly, licitly, and thus legitimately elected democratic sovereign is essentially the legitimate authority. Their decisions can be essentially for good or for ill. The means of rule are accidental to a democratic sovereign; that is to say, whether ruling by fiat or by precedent does not define either the legitimacy or tyranny of a sovereign. However, The same way that a person that chooses unvirtuous choices more often than not can be said to be essentially immoral, so too a sovereign that chooses poor choices can be said to be essentially a tyrant. This is again regardless of the accidents of their reign.

So how do we tell whether a choice is poor? I have previously described that a Tyrant might violate civil law but must violate natural law. I argue now that mere indifference to law does not rise to the level of Tyranny. Tyranny is a positive assertion contrary to natural law, followed by an effort to codify or enforce that assertion civilly. This may ring a bell if you remember Zippy Catholic, who said: “Tyranny is a false pretense of Authority, frequently accompanied by enforcement of the false claim.”

To phrase my new conclusion as an axiom: Tyranny is an exercise of authority which is contrary to natural law, and the attempted or actual enforcement of that authority.

Resolution

A Tyrant may be legitimate or illegitimate, but a Tyrant definitively acts contrary to Natural law, and definitively enforces it. Said another way, a Tyrant compels evil, whereas a saintly leader compels good.

It is not enough to ignore the law, civil or natural. A Tyrant must actively subvert and reject the law, claim untruth as truth. A government which ignores truth or is indifferent to it’s character is merely negligent, and is a vice unto itself. A Tyranny subverts Gods law, and attempts to legitimize that subversion in civil law.

Quotes, On the Occasion of 4 July 2019

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

The Declaration of Independence

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation

It was by one Union that we achieved our independence and liberties, and by it alone can they be maintained.

James Monroe

We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them–they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Their’s was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ’tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How then shall we perform it?–At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?– Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!–All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin — just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” “There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” And this — this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said, “The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits — not animals.” And he said, “There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

Ronald Reagan, A Time for Choosing

We send to you by this letter a renewed expression of that good will which we have not failed during the course of our pontificate to manifest frequently to you and to your colleagues in the episcopate and to the whole American people, availing ourselves of every opportunity offered us by the progress of your church or whatever you have done for safeguarding and promoting Catholic interests. Moreover, we have often considered and admired the noble gifts of your nation which enable the American people to be alive to every good work which promotes the good of humanity and the splendor of civilization.

Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae

AMDG