Things can be bleak in February
We have no grounds to be surprised. God warned us about kings and rulers, and anybody else with earthly authority. It’s all laid out in the Book of Samuel.
So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking a king from him. He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your menservants and maidservants, and the best of your cattle and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. (1 Samuel 8:1-18) And that’s not the worst of it, because that is just what kings demand rightly; it can and does get much worse when they take even more.
We have been warned, yet for some reason, we are taken aback when we learn of rulers and authorities using their office and responsibility to obtain personal gain, or to channel public funds to private interests that do not serve the people well, or at all. Shocked as we are, we carry on by telling ourselves that they are outliers, not the norm, and our government, our leaders generally can be trusted.
But there comes to mind a word I learned long ago, probably when I was studying the history of the Soviet Union and its associated regimes: kleptocrat. It’s a combination of Greek particles that could be rendered a thief who is in chargeor one who governs by stealing. Even worse is a kleptocracy, which is a whole governing class characterized by thievery, that is, taking for themselves what belongs to the people or nation or group they govern.
When a culture of kleptocracy lays hold of a society, it is difficult to shake free. So many foreign places that Americans visit come with the warning that officials at every level expect bribes to do what one would expect of them because of their offices. We may go along with it if we must for the sake of our vacation, but we shake our heads at the prospect of living like that. We assume better of American officials, not least because we see how such a culture of thievery degrades the life of the society and impoverishes the people. As long as we are prosperous and productive in our own country, we assume we are mostly free of the economic and social drag of kleptocrats. But we are mistaken.
In the day of Samuel the Prophet, civil governance and religious governance were the same, and religious power just as likely to corrupt. When Samuel warned the Jews about insisting on a king, and what they would get if they did, it was because his own sons were venal priests, and nobody wanted them to be judges, that is rulers, of Israel.
When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his first-born son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beer-sheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, "Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint for us a king to govern us like all the nations."
The criminality of his own sons disappointed but could not have surprised Samuel, and not simply because he knew well the logical result of hereditary authority and power. No, Samuel had come into his own position as religious and civil leader of Israel when the sons of his own predecessor, Eli the priest at Shiloh, proved to be rotten:
Now the sons of Eli were worthless men; they had no regard for the LORD. Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the LORD; for the men treated the offering of the LORD with contempt. ... And this which shall befall your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be the sign to you: both of them shall die on the same day. And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind; and I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever. (1 Samuel 2:12, 17, 34-35)
The drag of kleptocracy is heavy wherever there is power, authority, and money, be they civil or religious. Christ the King and Universal High Priest is our unique rescuer, with whom there is only the surprise of perfection and delight.
Monsignor Smith
