Not only Minamoto's "Dissenting View" but also conversation in the Chronos tells us something about life on Earth after the Chaos.
Jean Broberg says:
"'My family was well-to-do, but they were - are - Jerusalem Catholics. Strict about certain things; archaistic, you might say.' She lifted her wine and sipped. 'Oh, yes, I've left the Church, but in several ways the Church will never leave me.'" (p. 30)
Sipping wine after mentioning Catholicism is symbolic. If we first read Poul Anderson's Technic History in this The Technic Civilization Saga edition, then we encounter Jerusalem Catholicism in this opening installment whereas, if we have previously read the stories in order of publication, then we already knew that there is a Jerusalem Catholic Church, and no mention of a Roman Catholic Church, much later in the Terran Empire period. One complicating factor is that, in the intervening Solar Commonwealth/Polesotechnic League period, Nicholas van Rijn is Catholic but we are not told what kind.
Now we learn that the Jerusalem Catholic Church existed in the early twenty-first century. Of course there are, in the real world, small splinter groups like Old Catholics and Liberal Catholics but Jerusalem Catholicism does not sound like another of those. If it starts out as that, then it certainly grows later in the Technic History. Jean refers to it as if it is already well known and established. My theory, expressed somewhere else on the blog, is that, during the Chaos, the Vatican was destroyed, maybe even nuked, and that the Papacy and Curia relocated to Jerusalem - with historical appropriateness and/or seeking common cause with a besieged State of Israel? We may surmise that the Chaos includes Crusades, Jihads, Reformations, Revolutions and God knows what else, including expectations of Rapture, Tribulation, Return and Thousand Year Reich. (In Cities In Flight, Volume I, They Shall Have Stars, James Blish has Witnesses/Believers proclaiming that thousands now living will never die just as the anti-agathics are discovered.)
Conversation on the Chronos also reveals that two scientists who qualify to join the expedition can make their recruitment even more likely by marrying each other.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree. Even tho Anderson never said in the stories why "Jerusalem" was attached to "Catholic," we can speculate. And yours makes sense. Anderson did say in a private communication to me that he had wondered if the chaotic (again that word!) of the Second Vatican Council might have led to orthodox Catholics separating themselves from heretics, schismatics, and "modernists" to save the Church. So that, as well as the possible destruction of Rome might have led to the Papacy relocating to or near Jerusalem. And the idea of the Church allying with a beleaugered Israel was intriguing!
And quite a few lapsed Catholics found themselves reconciling with the Church on their deathbeds.
Ad astra! Sean
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