Duke Paul of Oldenburg spoke to a crowd of 80 people at the St. Francis De Sales parish hall in St. Louis on October 31. His talk was "The Importance of Tradition” People came from all over the city and as far away as Kansas to hear him speak.
Duke Paul, a descendant of Queen Victoria, is a member of the German TFP and is active in many of its campaigns.
The Duke spoke about how the modern world wrongly classifies a good person as one who never makes others suffer. Now since effort causes suffering, only he who does not ask others for effort is good.
"Christian civilization and tradition modeled the peoples of the West in accordance with the principle that effort is the essential condition for the dignity, decorum, good order and productivity of life. If good is to abolish effort in all fields, doesn't this implicitly deprive life of the values which make it worth living? Doesn't this deformed "goodness," become the worst deed one can do?"
The speaker also showed how tradition cannot be a dead tradition. In fact he stated that tradition is the sum of the past plus a present that is akin to it. Today should not be the denial of yesterday, but rather its harmonious continuation.
"Our Christian tradition is an incomparable value that must rule the present. It acts, for example, so that equality may not be understood as the sweeping away of the elites and as an apotheosis of vulgarity; so that liberty may not serve as a pretext for chaos and depravity; so that dynamism does not become frenzy; so that technology does not enslave man. In a word, it aims to prevent progress from becoming inhuman, unbearable, and hateful."
After the talk, there was a reception where all had the opportunity to speak with Duke Paul. Following the reception there was Benediction in the beautiful Gothic church of St. Francis de Sales.
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