Fealty & Omertà

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What have the Church of England - and for that matter The Church of Rome - the upcoming Trump government and the Mafia have in common? Loyalty and Omertà is what. Swearing fealty to one's chosen overlord - be it/they/she/he corporeal or divine - no matter what, and keeping one's counsel over transgression as a matter of duty. The Church of Rome and Anglicanism have a sorry track record over - usually sexual and often deeply institutionalised - transgressions against the most vulnerable of their respective flocks, something that is currently in the full face of public scrutiny at present. What this actually means to the ordinary person of these faiths I don't know, as Christians seldom intersect my orbit, and those that occasionally do tend to be of an evangelical leaning anyway, and that's another kettle of rotting fish in my book.

The Mafia - pick your flavour from the many varieties available - demand absolute loyalty from favours lent: with interest and on pain of suffering and death on default. As will Trump - maybe not the death thing, but you never know - offering access to the US government's resources to the sundry ill-suited misfits he's carefully selected for high office. They will owe him their fealty in return for loyalty and omertà, much as the adherents of High Churches do to their 'representatives of God Almighty', when faced with the institutionalised sexual and mental abuses that have been a commonplace within the so-called sanctity and sanctuary of their spiritual communities.

The fear of God? Rather the fear of the church itself and God's self-appointed 'representatives on Earth'. The same goes for Trump. Accepting his 'favours' is a dangerous path to tread. As with the Church, faith in Trump is a trust that will inevitably be broken by the realities that lurk beneath the surface veneer: in the case of the established church, of piety; in the case of Trump, capability. We saw both emerge in the Post Office Scandal in the person of former Post Office Limited CEO Paula Vennells; an ordained priest who is the exemplar of both strands of today's thought: absolute loyalty to the institution and omertà regarding its egregious transgressions against its vulnerable flock. The sine qua non of tyranny...

Comments

  1. Anonymous17 November 2024 at 08:29

    Did you kno: The Royal Navy "created" the Mafia? Have to try VVhard to not type Maffia!!
    ATB
    Joe

    ReplyDelete

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