I will lift up my eyes unto the hills
Institutions ensure their own survival
If my dog Daisy won't be there, I'm not going (to heaven)
The prodigal son returneth
Hagetmau has a very effective way of controlling the speed of the traffic on its streets. The curbs, and even the lanes, are lined with hemispheres of concrete, rather like canon balls. I saw one that had been uprooted. It must have done fearful damage to the car that hit it. These gunstones also prevent the cars from parking on the footpath.
Two other things impressed me as well today.
Along a busy stretch of highway where pilgrims pass, a wooden rail had been put up to protect them from the traffic. In all my walking along highways I had not seen this before.
And along a couple of stretches of the path by fields of corn, the Amis de Saint-Jacques had planted ancient varieties of fruit trees to bear fruit for pilgrims if they happened to be passing by at the right time.
I walked over a broad plain of corn this morning, and then I climbed out of the valley. By the end of the day, I must have been up and down Mount Doug several times. At the little village of Argelos, I noticed I was walking in the right direction, along the Route de Pyrenees. By then I could then see the mountains in the distance.
Then I had lunch in the churchyard at Sault-de-Navailles. On the way out of town I found a bar and had a coffee. O how I longed for a beer! It was hot.
In the afternoon I passed by the little hamlet of Sallespisse. I won't speculate on the origin of that name.
Apart from the church steeples which pop up over the horizon every couple of hours, I am reminded that I am walking in what was once Christendom by the scores of crosses and shrines that I pass by every day. Of iron, wood and stone, I see them in squares, at the edge of town, at intersections, and in lonely places. What happened here to prompt this devotion, I wonder.
I find it interesting, and ironic, that the decline of religion was hastened, not by the masses who were always quite comfortable in their beliefs, but by the university-educated clergy who had studied the origins of the Bible and the early Church. The very theological study which was supposed to deepen their faith eventually weakened it.
In nineteenth century England, Church of England clergymen were Oxford or Cambridge graduates, educated men who would have studied the history of the early church and the scriptures in the original tongues. The would have begun to have doubts about the traditional teachings of the Church, but kept them to themselves and from their congregations. Then in the twentieth century they began to speak out. I think it was an Archbishop of York who was the first to say that he didn't believe in the Virgin birth. Others followed. The Church of England has always been able to accommodate a range of beliefs in its clergy.
I am convinced that in the Catholic Church as well, there are men of education with all the known research at their disposal, and the unknown as well in the Vatican Library, who no longer believe in the basic tenets of the Church - the divinity of Christ, the Virgin birth, the Resurrection - let alone those other matters without any Biblical basis at all - the celibacy of the clergy, the infallibility of the Pope, the refusal to ordain women, etc. Of this I am certain. How could it be otherwise? The very top Catholic scholars must end up at the Vatican.
But how can the Church admit it was wrong? Where would this leave the faithful who still venerate the shrines I pass every day. (See picture below)
An interview on the CBC program Tapestry revealed that even among fundamentalist Protestants there are pastors who have lost their faith and have kept this hidden from their flock.
And what is hidden away in the Vatican vaults? I suspect there may be evidence about the early doings of the Church. Perhaps there are surviving writings about the other, non-Paulian factions of Christianity. Perhaps there are other gospels.
That is something that fascinates me. What happened in the beginning? How did the Church expropriate a simple man who made no claim to be divine?
So the great age of Christianity has passed. But it left behind the greatest art and music and architecture the world has ever known.
The prodigal son has returned. The errant GR no longer follows the primrose path of dalliance. It indicates the straight and narrow, and the Coquille has given its imprimatur. (See picture below.) I am relieved. The GRs are very well marked and easy to follow.
Tonight I am alone in my castle, a 13th century fortified building. (See picture below.)
Incidentally, it was a Bishop of Edinburg who wasn't going to Heaven without his dog. I'm with him.
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