There is an alternative narrative to that of liberty and the rights of man. It is not limited to the Roman Catholics and Orthodox. That is throne and altar.

The Throne — in reformed terms, the civil magistrate — is given to us by God. Who generally gives us not what we want, but what we deserve. (Which is why some faithful Catholic brethren say they have the current Pope: they have fallen, become apostate and liberal, and thus they have an apostate and liberal wolf instead of a sheepdog).

The structure of society is not equal. It cannot be equal.

But to those who have leadership, there is greater accountability. It is not merely their souls in peril, but the large mass of people. I think Christ was as praying as much for the souls of those he chose as for guidance: he knew what is needed. But he also knew one was lost, and that he did not like.

In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

(Luke 6:12-19 ESV)

There is nothing equal about being appointed an apostle. It is not something you earn. You do not have quotas for race or sex or disability. It went to those chosen, not to those credentialed. The credentialed, generally, then and now, opposed Christ.

In our fallen and corrupt state, we see this inequality and power. We either want to abolish it or make it fit into our ideas of freedom and democracy.

But those ideas are from the enlightenment and the rebel nation of the USA, through the English Revolution, for the most Radical Puritans ran there rather than submit to the crown or to the corrections that Cromwell bought to limit the Levellers and diggers.

Christianity is not political. The nations of this world matter true, and we should pray for our rulers, but how they are elected is the business of God. Democracy is not a foundational part of our faith.

Being faithful in what we are doing is. Here we all fall.

And here, daily, we need to pray for each other, and for those who baptize, wed and bury us. giving thanks for God that he called us to sit in the pew, and did nor draft us into the priesthood.