CONSEQUENCES

Imagine!

Imagine that hundreds of thousands of people could fail to understand why a nation’s history could possibly have any effect on the present day.

Imagine!

Such is the case with folks who express shock that there could be anything other than an entirely fulsome welcome by the British public for the Pope’s September visit to the United Kingdom.

Britain holds the dubious reputation of being the most secular nation of what is known as Western Europe, even tho Anglophiles argue that Britain is not really part of Europe.
We at The Study agree with the tongue-in-cheek newspaper headline: “English Channel fogbound. Europe isolated.”

Anyway, Britain’s supposed, conscious and/or unconscious prejudice against the visit by the head of the Roman Catholic Church is easily understood when one considers that Rome and London have engaged in numerous conflicts over the centuries, conflicts which at the time were bloody, costly, and bitter.
The modern folk of Britain have perhaps largely forgotten most or all of the details, but there doubtless remains a cultural memory, even unconscious if you will, that affects millions of them.

And they don’t even know it.

And to that memory you can add a host of very current complaints, complaints which I will not insult you by listing.

And so it goes.

Folks often do not know their history but they are rarely unaffected by it.

Fact, My Dear, fact.

Ignorance is a sad state indeed.