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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2014/04/joseph-pearce-the-enthusiastic-immigrant.html
How I Became An American: Confessions of an English Immigrant: http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/04/became-american-european-view-of-america.html
Although I am now a citizen of the United States, I was for most of my youth virulently anti-American. Back in the 1980s, I could be seen demonstrating outside U.S. airbases in England, carrying a placard demanding that the “Yanks Go Home”. At the time I knew nothing about the “Yanks” or their home. I knew nothing except what I’d seen on television and in Hollywood movies. I was outside looking in.
The problem is that you can’t see in when looking from the outside. The real America can only be seen from the inside. I only realized this after I moved here and discovered the real America, or what Chesterton called the “unknown America”. In his essay of that title, Chesterton complains that people are always talking about “Americanization” but “nobody ever says a word about the real virtues of America”. The essay ends with “the final paradox that the best things do not travel, and yet we must travel to find them”. In this “final paradox” is to be found the first problem afflicting the European perspective of the United States. The fact is that we Europeans do not know the United States because we have not traveled to America. We sit at home and watch our televisions and our Hollywood movies. Those few who do travel to the States visit places like Disney World at which the real America is decidedly absent or, at least, is present only as a grotesque caricature.
The public face of America, the face that it shows to the rest of the world, is a combination of the triteness and trash of Hollywood, the simulated copulation of MTV, and the vagaries of U.S. foreign policy. This is the face that America shows to the world, and this is the only face that the rest of the world sees. Is it any wonder that the European perception of the United States is so skewed? I remember with a lingering sense of nausea listening to a talk-show host on local radio in Michigan, shortly after I first moved to the United States, in which he remarked that the American government should send topless dancing girls to Baghdad to show the Iraqis what they were missing by not accepting the American way of life. Is this all America has to offer the world?
At this juncture it is necessary to insist that the hostile view of the United States that is held by many Europeans is not solely the fault of the United States. Much of the hostility is rooted in Europe’s own decadence. The fact is that modern Europe is blinded by its own secular fundamentalist prejudice. It has abandoned the Christian faith which is not only at the very root of all that is best in European culture but is the very heart that pumps the lifeblood through it. For the past few hundred years, Europe has systematically abandoned its own priceless inheritance for the ignoble savagery of Rousseau, the nastiness of Nietzsche, and the excreta of existentialism. In consequence, it has nothing to offer but a sneer of cynicism. Such modern European criticism of the United States might be likened to a drunk and drug-addicted débauché lecturing his Christian cousin about morality. It need not, indeed it should not be taken seriously.
Ironically enough, considering my earlier disparaging remarks about Hollywood, there is an excellent film that serves as a metaphor for America’s troubled relationship with modern Europe. It is Unfaithful, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane. Ostensibly an erotic drama surrounding a woman’s adulterous relationship, it highlights the abyss that separates the healthy innocence of America, represented by the marriage between the characters played by Gere and Lane, and the perverse self-centered existentialism of the Frenchman, played by Olivier Martinez, who seduces the wife. The film’s subtlety is rooted in the fact that the wife is seduced as much by the Frenchman’s philosophy as by his physical charm, his sophistry seeming sophisticated in the face of the wife’s native naiveté. The fatal attraction between old world decadence and new world naiveté has disastrous consequences for all concerned, not least, and most tragically, on the future of the young son who remains oblivious of the way that his parents have ruined his life in the ruination of their own. There is no escaping the obvious moral that the American way of life, centered on marriage and the family, has been seduced and then corrupted by the nihilistic narcissism of postmodern Europe. This overarching moral is buttressed by the unexpected appearance of a woman representing Planned Parenthood whose total lack of morality and utilitarian attitude towards sex prophesies the destruction of the marriage. It is weird indeed that this pro-life message should emerge in the midst of a movie that otherwise seems to wallow in the gutters of its own degradation. Aesthetically speaking, it illustrates that the sordid can be edifying when it shows the true ugliness and destructiveness of sin.
As a European who lived in the Old World for the first forty years of my life, I am only too aware of the seductively seditious philosophies that are poisoning Europe and her people. And yet, having moved to the United States four days before 9-11, I have had the privilege of seeing America from the inside. I have come to know the “unknown America” and have come to love her. Five years ago, I formalized my relationship with her by becoming an American citizen, something that would have been unimaginable during the days when I knew only the ugly face of America that the rest of the world sees.
As an English American, I do not see America in the same way that a native-born American sees her. Indeed, even as an American, I still see America from a European perspective. But this makes me no different from all those Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Polish Americans, and German Americans, to name but a representative handful of nationalities who have found their home in this land. More important, America is herself a child of the same western civilization that gave Europe its very existence and raison d’etre. She has her being in the same Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian synthesis that unites Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testament, the disciples and apostles of the New Testament, and the saints, scholars and scribes of Christendom. This essential unity between that which is most truly American and that which is most truly European was encapsulated by the reception that Chesterton received at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts in December 1930 when he was greeted by seven students dressed up to represent giants of literature, namely Newman, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Chaucer, Dante, Virgil and Homer. He was also presented with “a dim print of a Greek painting on vellum, now in Athens, of the Battle of Lepanto”, the naval encounter in 1571 in which a Christian fleet defeated an Islamic armada thereby saving Europe from Muslim domination.
On the deepest level of what it truly means to be an American, we can see that all true Americans are united with all true Europeans in sharing the common bond of Christendom. As brothers and sisters in Christ, and as inheritors of the western civilization that Christendom brings, we are truly one. Those seven American students attired in the robes of Newman, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Chaucer, Dante, Virgil and Homer were wearing their true native dress. These giants of western civilization are the bridge across the Atlantic. They straddle the ocean like a colossus of culture, uniting the civilized citizens of all nations and separating them from the barbarians in their midst. They also represent the greatest and truest challenge to modern America. To whom or what do we owe our allegiance? That is the question. To be or not to be? That is the question. To be a part of Christendom or not to be a part of Christendom? That is the question. To be a beacon of western civilization and Christian virtue shining forth to a world in need of light, or to be a servile missionary of the new secular creed of godless globalism? That is the question.
The questions are clear enough but so is the answer. America must become what she has always claimed to be: one nation under God.
Books mentioned in this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin split: The pitfalls of marrying an American woman
As Gywneth Paltrow and Chris Martin announce their split, Tom Cowell, a long-serving British husband to a gorgeous American woman, runs through the lows and highs of an international union
4:54PM GMT 26 Mar 2014
470 Comments
As news of the Gwyneth Paltrow/ Chris Martin split sinks in, it’s clear which half of the couple will get more press sympathy. Gwyneth is a Hollywood superstar with a megawatt smile, bewitching charisma, and a figure so perfect it could drive a sculptor mad. Chris Martin plays the piano at a school-play level, looks a bit sad, and displays all the animal magnetism of a Carphone Warehouse.
The media picks sides, and it won’t be his. So who is going to stick up for poor old Chris? Marrying an American can be absolute torture (I have eight years experience and counting). Let’s run down some of the awful attributes that Mr Martin had to endure for 12 long years:
Here are some of the pitfalls:
Obsessed with Mexican food
For some reason, Americans believe that the constant and dirt-cheap availability of Mexican food is a human right. Tell them there is nowhere to get an affordable burrito in, say, Merthyr Tydfil, and they will gape in shock, like you just sang the national anthem in Klingon.
The idea that their country has a lot of Mexican food because, er … they share a 800 mile border with Mexico, simply does not compute. Mexican food should be everywhere. Like oxygen, or laughter. If it is not, the universe is fundamentally misaligned. Chris, Gwyneth is gone. But at least you don’t have to put up with this ridiculous behaviour anymore.
Will believe in any new age BS
There is no vaguely hippy “thing”, or laughable spiritual “practice” that an American won’t fall for. Chakras must be in alignment. Ley lines must be consulted. And at all times, one must drown any vestige of reason or logic in one’s head with gallons of kombucha. Is there any beverage more perfect for the gullible?
It tastes like balsamic urine, looks like toxic waste and costs more than champagne. Therefore, it must be good for you! Mr Martin, you’re lucky. You can junk all that gong-ringing, yoga-farting, macrobiotic nonsense and get back to your roots: solid English scepticism, served with a Cornish pasty.
The word “woo!”
To marry an American is to accept the word “woo!” into your life. The word is not in any dictionary, but is written deep inside an American’s heart and soul. To an American, if anything vaguely good is happening, one must emit a “woo”. Perhaps a baseball team has hit a baseball. Or a tray of cupcakes successfully made it from the kitchen to a living room table. Anything dimly positive can be greeted with a overly-loud, obnoxiously out-of-context: “WOOO! YEAH! Cupcakes! Awesome!”. It is insufferable.
The “I’m An American” excuse
Americans demonstrate a perverse pride in not knowing about the rest of the world. What’s more, they justify their ignorance with a maddening defence: “I don’t know: I’m an American”. As if it’s their birthright to think Spain is part of France. Or think that Malaysia isn’t a real place.
Swapping hands with cutlery
For a nation supposedly all about efficiency, the American way of handling cutlery is enough to drive a decent person mad. They don’t hold their fork in their left hand and knife in their right, like any normal human. They cut their food that way, then put both utensils down, then switch their fork into their right hand, and only THEN begin scooping food into their mouths. And this happens dozens of times per meal. And they have the nerve to think the way WE eat is weird.
Absurd conception of distance
Americans are blissfully unaware that their country is, by any standard, rather large. Therefore, for them, driving six hours to visit a favourite music venue is perhaps not unusual. FOR THEM. But to us, travelling for six hours is the purest hell, like enduring an open wound dredged with salt while sitting in traffic on the M25. They will mercilessly mock any attempt to complain about long distances, and in the process, look and sound like idiots.
On the other hand, Americans do have wonderful qualities that can make for enormous improvements in one’s married life
And, just in case my wife reads this, here are some benefits ...
Down to earth
Americans are so wonderfully, sincerely down-to-earth, we have trouble believing it. To the cynical British mind, any genuine pleasure in meeting a new person is a sign of potential mental illness. But Americans actually want to make new friends. They want to get along with you, stranger. It makes one’s like infinitely more interesting to have an American around, because you meet EVERYONE. It’s like permanently going through life with a puppy, or the latest iPhone.
They actually enjoy sex
Every British man is scarred by adolescent experiences with some haughty deb, with more passion for her childhood horse than any part of the human male. The chance to be with a woman who actually enjoys the hanky-panky? Instead of infantilising the glorious sex act with hideous British euphemisms like “hanky-panky”? This is a gift that lasts a lifetime.
Incredible teeth
Seriously. Where are the British orthodontists? Why do we let them get away with the substandard job they are clearly doing? An American can say silly stuff, do silly things, and annoy you more than nails down a chalkboard … but at the end of the day, one flash of those perfect, pearly white chompers and you fall in love all over again. You’ll do anything for that American. Learn to like “football”? Check. Invade Iraq on false pretences? Check. Stop spelling colour with a “U”? Anything, my darling. Anything.
Chris, we both know the truth. Gwyneth may be old news. But your next girlfriend? I bet you dollars to doughnuts – she’ll be American.
Tom Cowell is a writer and comedian living in New York. He can be found tweeting @mrtomcowell
wyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin split: The pitfalls of marrying a British man
As Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin announce their “conscious uncoupling” (divorce to the layman), Sally Peck, a proud American wife to a wonderful British man, contemplates the lows (and highs) of the Anglo-American union
11:05AM GMT 26 Mar 2014
From Gwyneth Paltrow to Madonna to Wallis Simpson to Jennie Jerome, American women have been crossing the Atlantic to find spouses since shortly after the Mayflower docked. They come over to the UK with bright eyes, toned abs, a wad of cash, bags of ambition and a romantic notion of marrying a dashing Darcy, a brooding Rochester, even a brainy Miliband (bad luck, Hillary; well done, Louise): an aloof but articulate man who will fall unconditionally for their energetic, healthy New World optimism.
Guy Ritchie and Madonna attending the UK Premiere of his film RocknRolla in Leicester Square in 2008 before their split Photo: PA
Guy Ritchie and Madonna attending the UK Premiere of his film RocknRolla in Leicester Square in 2008 before their split Photo: PA
And maybe it works. The strong silent type may enjoy the companionship of a woman who keeps up a running commentary from dawn til dusk.
But maybe it all goes awry when their husband fails to fall for Bikram yoga and macrobiotic diets, abdicates or gets syphilis.
Here are some of the pitfalls:
British men have the emotional intelligence of an infant
American women take their mental health very seriously. Marry one of us and British men will be forced to spend days – probably months, possibly years – of their lives engaged in a joint stream-of-consciousness assessment of how exactly their wife is feeling. Right now. They simply ain’t equipped to deal with this side of US women.
On the plus side, the British male will bring wry – sometimes nervous – humour to almost any interaction on the subject – which can occasionally help.
However, it is highly likely that he’ll have the emotional intelligence of a five-year-old. This fundamental incompatibility will take each party down a peg or two and may eventually lead to divorce.
They don’t worry about their children ‘expressing themselves’
On the subject of children, you are bound to disagree. American women will agonise for hours about their three-month-old’s emotional stability and general intelligence. Chances are, your British husband was raised not to speak in company until he was at least 12 and had something decent to add to the conversation. Whereas we want our offspring to express themselves.
When choosing schools, she’ll be looking for academics to educate the precious baby; while he’ll want to make sure the school instils good manners.
Those two left feet
The British man: can’t dance/won’t dance. Not even at home; British self-consciousness extends to the bedroom.
Their mummy knows best
Compiling your wedding gift list? Thinking about curtains for your first home? His mother is likely to have thoughts. He is likely to trust her judgement over yours because, well, “Mum puts a lot of thought into things like this”.
Their diet
Cheese on toast; beans on toast; chips on toast: these are all legitimate meals to the British male. Vegetables? Yes, he loves them: on Sundays, at midday, over-boiled with some grey meat.
‘Being a boob’
Your dashing new British husband with the sophisticated accent is guaranteed to get a bit tipsy with your parents at some point early on in your marriage and say something inappropriate about breasts – if you’re lucky, it will be about breasts that aren’t actually present.
Ok there are a few highs too:
He will never use awful American management-speak
Unless he works for Google or some other American company, your British husband will never use management-speak – such as ‘let’s connect’.
He won’t sign cards to your best friends on the occasion of their son’s birth: “Best wishes, John”, nor will he thank you for “reaching out” to his mother.
Hurray for British style
He will know that Seinfeld’s white trainers/blue Levis combo is not a real-life option. Try telling that to the men of Denver. Or Kansas City. Or Queens. The likelihood that he’ll wear sneaker-sandals in any setting is virtually nil. Marry a Midwesterner and the odds are not in your favour.
Public speaking is a real strength
Your American grandmother will think his poetry recitation skills are second to none. Thanks to his old school British education, he can actually recite (good) poetry from memory. It’s remarkable.
Enjoy an American football-free house
Unlike all of the men you grew up with, he won’t watch American football, which is the most boring and time-consuming televised sport on earth. It lasts hours, unlike the British game, which is totally manageable.
This will extend usable time on your weekends – cumulatively, over the years – by months.
(Of course, the counterpoint to the American football freedom rule is that British men are obsessed with their status as The Most Polite Men In The World. Manners count in every situation. So your British husband may pretend to like American football to get in with the in-laws. After nine years of marriage, my husband claims to now love watching it. However, I still don’t think he actually understands the rules).
To sign up for an Anglo-American marriage is to abdicate all ambition for a peaceful home life. There will be sparks – interspersed with awkward politeness. There will be drama. But it will be a special relationship.
| The Queen, the Pope, and the Mystery of Monarchy |  |  |
| By Fr. Dwight Longenecker |
| THURSDAY, 10 APRIL 2014 |
Something there is that loves a monarch. Despite the ascent of the common man, the hubris of hoi polloi, and the domination of democracy, there is still a faint and quaint nostalgia for palaces and princes, emperors, potentates, and pontiffs.
We love the ceremony, ritual, and romance. How dull life would be without some pageantry, pomp, and circumstance. But is that all there is to it – no more than the love of a good parade?
I was twenty-three when I left my native America to live in England. I was a three-piece suited snob – wary of the crassness of the crowd and the mediocrity of the masses. I was also afflicted with Anglophilia – the love of all things English. Having read the great writers, I was determined to become an Anglican country parson like the seventeenth century poet George Herbert.
By a stroke of good fortune and a touch of divine providence I went up to study theology at Oxford, was ordained into the Church of England and ended up as a country parson. I lived in a big vicarage and even wrote some poetry.
During my sojourn in England, I adapted to English ways. I drank tea and got used to being damp. I learned to say “trousers” instead of “pants” and “semi-articulated lorry” instead of “truck.”
I was delighted and dismayed by the English habit of saying one thing and meaning exactly the opposite. I grew to love the countryside all gold and green, the mellow villages, Kings College Cambridge, wacky English comedy, stodgy food, warm beer, and the BBC. I also came to love the Queen.
At first, I regarded HMQ with a mixture of mild amusement and curiosity. She was the age of my mother and was a bit like her. With her hats and handbags she managed to be majestic and down to earth all at once.
Despite her palaces and limousines the Queen seemed approachable and ordinary. Her humanity showed through as she watched her children make disastrous marriages. She viewed the disintegration of British society and the decay of the Church of England with a kind of stoical detachment. She did her duty with dignity. She turned up and continued to turn up.
 Her Majesty and His Holiness
When she met Pope Francis, I considered how the two of them hold historical offices far greater than themselves. The curmudgeonly champion of the common man would grunt and say, “She’s just Mrs. Windsor, and he’s just Father Bergoglio. They put on their undergarments one foot at a time like the rest of us.”
Yes, yes. We know. But perhaps there hovers above Mrs. Windsor and Father Bergoglio another mystery: the mystery of monarchy.
Queen Elizabeth has always managed to retain both her regal air and her common touch. She wears a headscarf or a crown according to the occasion. Everyone lauds Pope Francis for moving out of the Apostolic Palace and adopting a simple style, but even the pope must realize that the papacy is bigger than himself, and that the traditions and trappings of the monarchical papacy developed for a reason.
The successor of the Prince of the Apostles is the Steward of the King of Kings. It is right that he should live in a palace and process as a prince, just as it is right that the Queen of England should travel in the state coach, wear the crown, and ermine and bear the scepter and orb at her coronation – and for the opening of parliament. At those times Mrs. Windsor and Father Bergoglio cease to be ordinary and assume an extraordinary role in the drama of history. They should play their part.
The role of monarch is ancient, rich and deep. Every society has a kind of king – a figurehead who stands as the representative for the whole society’s identity and ideals. When she wears the crown Mrs. Windsor is not Mrs. Windsor. She is England. When Father Bergoglio wears the miter he is not Father Bergoglio. He is Catholicism.
Furthermore, the symbolism of monarchy is written deeply into the Judeo-Christian story. God’s servant Samuel anoints David the King, and God’s servant John the Baptist anoints the one who inherits the throne of his father David. Jesus the anointed speaks of the coming kingdom (not the coming republic) and the vision of heaven is always one in which the blesséd circle around the throne of the everlasting king.
This is why monarchy is important, and why it is a sad and shallow gimmick to throw it away in a misguided attempt to be “just an ordinary guy.” One could argue that the mystery of monarchy is even more important in an egalitarian age, and the universal affirmation, and affection given to the Queen and the Pope would support that argument.
There is more: the mystery of monarchy reminds us that we all have a part to play in a larger, more mysterious drama, which only occasionally is seen. When Mrs. Windsor and Father Bergoglio don their robes and crowns and assume their greater roles, we who believe are reminded that we too are adopted sons and daughters of the great King of Kings. We are all prophets, priests, and kings – princes and princesses in the court of the everlasting king, and one day he will return to claim his own.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s latest book is The Romance of Religion – Fighting for Goodness, Truth and Beauty. Visit his blog, browse his books, and be in touch at dwightlongenecker.com
The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.
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