James Bogle's View on Means and Ends

If the Monarch were to attempt to seize such a veto power, he would be subverting and destroying the very Constitution that he had sworn to uphold and protect. It would, in effect, be a coup d’etat by the King against the State and thus a form of immoral and illegal sedition which St Thomas Aquinas condemns as seriously sinful[8]. If the present King were to try to do so then he, Charles Mountbatten-Windsor, would, in his private and personal capacity, be raising a rebellion against both Parliament and the Crown, i.e. against King Charles III in his official capacity. It would be hard to imagine a more seriously illegal and immoral sedition than that.

St Thomas also teaches us that “accordingly the sin of sedition is first and chiefly in its authors, who sin most grievously”[9].It is also the teaching of the Catholic Church that the ends do not justify the means and that we may not do evil that good may come of it.

Source:
Rorate Cæli : James Bogle: was Queen Elizabeth to blame for the Abortion Act?
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/11/james-bogle-was-queen-elizabeth-to.html

Now, if the Parliament and Crown are a righteous régime, it is obviously illegitimate to raise any kind of rebellion against them.

If it's a moderately corrupt one, equally.

But the question changes if the régime is actually doing the contrary of what a régime is there for.

What does St. Thomas say about resisting tyranny? That those resisting tyranny are not seditious, but rather the tyrant is seditious, rebelling against the common good. We'll come back to it. Meanwhile, what about the case? Were we talking of the King taking up arms, by a militia? No, we were talking about the king using his legal right to veto, that is to withhold his assent to a law. Does this right legally exist? Leaving the word to Bogle esq again:

The very last time that a Monarch, acting alone on her own discretion, refused Royal Assent to a Bill was in 1708 when Queen Anne, the last of the Royal Stuarts (allowed by Parliament to accede to the throne because she was a Protestant), refused assent to the Scottish Militia Bill. Since then, the British Constitution has so far developed that, today, the Monarch may not now refuse assent to any Bill at all unless advised so to do by his ministers.

The British Constitution has developed ... through what exact texts? According to the wikipedian article, it's not one, just an expectation:

Royal assent to bills generally came to be viewed as a mere formality once both Houses of Parliament had successfully read a bill three times, or a general election had taken place.

This was taken from precisely the article on the Scottish Militia Bill.

And indeed, the essay by Bogle confirms this view about "a mere formality" ... back to Bogle:

Indeed, the procedure today for giving Royal Assent usually involves Lords Commissioners, nominally appointed by the Monarch “on advice” of ministers (and thus actually appointed by the Prime Minister). They call upon the clerk of the House of Lords to signify the Royal Assent with the words “Le Roi le veult”, meaning, in Law French, “the King wishes it” and the clerk duly speaks those words openly in the House. However, the Monarch has, in reality, almost nothing to do with it.

So, mere formality or not, it is still a necessary formality.

However, the common view of constitutional lawyers is that there is one exception to the general rule that the Monarchy cannot, on his own discretion, veto a Bill passed by Parliament and it is this: the Monarch may refuse Royal Assent and so veto a Bill, against the advice of ministers, if it is a Bill that attempts permanently to destroy democracy e.g. by extending the life of Parliament indefinitely or by gerrymandering the electorate so that the government can never be removed.

This is the one time the Monarch may refuse Royal Assent, and so veto a Bill, acting on his own discretion and against the advice of ministers. The Monarch is permitted so to do because obviously ministers are not going to advise vetoing their own Bill attempting to abolish democracy. This is the one and only rare exception where the Monarch may veto a Bill on his own discretion[7].

James Bogle has landed himself in the approval of the thesis "it is more important for a monarch to uphold a democratic constitution than to uphold the ten commandments" ... let's hear St. Paul on this one, Romans 13:

[1] Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. [2] Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation. [3] For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good: and thou shalt have praise from the same. [4] For he is God's minister to thee, for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God's minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. [5] Wherefore be subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake.

[6] For therefore also you pay tribute. For they are the ministers of God, serving unto this purpose. [7] Render therefore to all men their dues. Tribute, to whom tribute is due: custom, to whom custom: fear, to whom fear: honour, to whom honour.

That is, a monarch and a parliament must be obeyed, but that is because they are servants of God. So, what happens if they aren't? Given that sidewalk counsellors are being treated as criminals, I think there is reason to ask the question.

At a certain point in time, all Germanic kingdoms and some other states were theoretically vassals to the Basileus in Constantinople. One liked to nickname it "Byzantium" which is a bit like calling New York "Manhattan Island" or even New Yorkers "Canarsee Indians" ... Byzantium being actually the name of a village existing in the place before Constantine built Constantinople. But if St. Andrew had visited Byzantium (well before it became Constantinople), one could still say "Byzantium" was actually respectful.

Enter the Iconoclastic controversy. Emperors or Baseileis of Byzantium (yes, I'm a Latin) were using tax money to persecute things like the original manuscripts of the Gospels (since earlier on display put there by Zenon), like icons, like icon painters. They were charging tax money from the West too, most notably from Venice. Exit the Iconoclastic controversy. Empress Irene, officially actually Emperor Irene, had her own son blinded because she dreaded he could remake the iconoclastic persecutions. She didn't exactly demand tax money from Charlemagne, but she did count on his loyalty.

What happened? Well, Venice refused to pay taxes pretty early on in the Iconoclastic controversy. Much later, Constantinople had the Doge Dandolo of Venice blinded because of his refusal to pay taxes or adher to Byzantine politics. And Charlemagne was on Christmas Day of 800 AD crowned Emperor - in other words - the allegiance to Constantinople was rebuffed. Did the Church condemn this as sedition? Not the least. Popes were not excommunicating Venetian Doges. And Pope St. Leo III was the precise person who put the imperial crown on the head of Charlemagne.

How can this be accounted for? Well, look a bit at St. Paul again:

For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil.
For he is God's minister to thee, for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God's minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil.

What was the punishment for abortion in Mussolini's Italy? If a woman did it on her own, 1 to 4 years. If a woman did it with medical help, 2 to 5 years for herself and for the physician. If someone was forced into abortion (like if parents even told a 13 year old girl to get one, as she was under 14), 6 to 12 years for the person so forcing her. To me that sounds that on this point, Mussolini was actually doing precisely that. And before you bring on racism or concentration camp La Rizziera or sending Jews to Hitler's camps, all of that came later.

What is the legal punishment for abortion in England? Nil. Most cases at least. I'd like very much to send a physician out of the medical order or even into prison for counselling "Lydia"* to have an abortion, pushing the Covid scare to hurry her into having one, but so far, he's not punished. If the abortion had been entirely her own idea, neither she nor he would have had anything to fear in England.

So, what happens, if a régime refuses to punish evil or uphold "at least some level of good"? James Bogle appealed to St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q.42. Here are objection 3 and the saint's answer to it. The question is, whether Sedition is a mortal sin.

Objection 3. Further, it is praiseworthy to deliver a multitude from a tyrannical rule. Yet this cannot easily be done without some dissension in the multitude, if one part of the multitude seeks to retain the tyrant, while the rest strive to dethrone him. Therefore there can be sedition without mortal sin.

Reply to Objection 3. A tyrannical government is not just, because it is directed, not to the common good, but to the private good of the ruler, as the Philosopher states (Polit. iii, 5; Ethic. viii, 10). Consequently there is no sedition in disturbing a government of this kind, unless indeed the tyrant's rule be disturbed so inordinately, that his subjects suffer greater harm from the consequent disturbance than from the tyrant's government. Indeed it is the tyrant rather that is guilty of sedition, since he encourages discord and sedition among his subjects, that he may lord over them more securely; for this is tyranny, being conducive to the private good of the ruler, and to the injury of the multitude.

No one is pretending that Charles III or the late queen before him or the parliament were putting up the bill in order to get more tea to enjoy with Paddington. But when it comes to "that he may lord over them more securely" that sounds like a description of preferring constitutional stability against even a mild and formally legal disruption over actually getting into the way of those harming the least children. The unborn ones.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Lucy
13.XII.2022

* New blog on the kid : Donate to Legal Costs for "Lydia"!
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2022/10/donate-to-legal-costs-for-lydia.html
where I link to:
Society of Protection of Unborn Children
https://www.spuc.org.uk/