Arise Sir John
Readers of the splendid British Catholic weekly, The Tablet, will be delighted to hear that its editor, John Wilkins, was recently made a papal knight. The Tablet is notable for distinguishing between fact and advertorial, and for allowing its writers and correspondents to say what they believe, provided they write clearly and charitably. More precisely, John was made a knight of the Equestian Order of Pope Saint Sylvester I. Since, like any magazine that believes that the truth will set us free, The Tablet has often been accused of disloyalty, the citation that praised the editor for showing loyalty in difficult times is particularly pleasing.
Reward irony
Examined carefully, all awards are exercises in irony. Papal knighthoods are no exception. Pope Sylvester I, for example, never felt any need of horsemen.
He was famous for not going anywhere. Although he was Bishop of Rome when Constantine embraced Christianity, he declined to take part in notable Councils at Arles and at Nicaea. He said he was too old. But Roman stories later placed him at the head of the Councils he had missed, and had Constantine put him over all the other patriarchs, as well as over bishops and secular rulers in the West. This useful legend was punctured by the fearless investigative reporting of the Renaissance scholar Aeneas Sylveas Piccolomini, later himself to become pope. He changed his name to Pius, after Virgil’s hero, Pius Aeneas. He also changed his opinions, and in one of his Bulls urged his readers to ‘Reject Aeneas, listen to Pius’.
The knights of the Equestrian Order of Saint Sylvester I, as every Catholic schoolboy knows, were first put on their saddles by the 19th century Pope Gregory XVI. Gregory ruled the Papal States with severity, and used to call in the Austrian army to sort out dissent there. Papal knighthoods presumably helped secure loyalty and finance for his campaigns. But Gregory may also have had a sentimental attachment to the old order of things, represented by horses, riders and knights. He hated those new fangled railway lines and banned them from the Papal States. In a nice pun, he referred to them, not as chemins de fer, but as chemins d’enfer—Hell’s roadways.
So long, farewell
Voyager 1 is our real-life Starship Enterprise. As it has now passed 90 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, or 13.5 billion kilometres, it earns its place as the ‘most distant human-made