My Catholic BUGSers let me criticize the Catholic Church without going to pieces.

But if one is going to discuss institutions, one MUST discuss the Church. In fact, it is hard for someone not raised in Western society to understand what I mean by an institution, because they have instant recognition of what an institution, meaning an institution with a separate existence from other aspects of society, really is.

I have discussed the outright queer nature of British “public” schools, and everybody knows about that. But, as with the Mantra, you have a problem with them that only occurs to one who has spend his life, and made his living, explaining things to people.

Sure the British “public” schools are protected by an institution, but WHICH one are you referring to? The British Clahss system? The political left, which in this case is busy denying the origin of much of its own politics?

As I explained recently, even the Orthodox Church does not have the instant institutional identity we understand because of our familiarity with Catholic Church history. Since Constantine, it has been hard or impossible to separate Church and State in the Orthodox world.

This is a practical problem, and if you can come up with a pure institution to compare with the Catholic Church, I could sure use it.

People not familiar with legal history do not realize what a pure invention the corporation was. The Norman Invasion was a Joint Stock Operation. So was Iceland. So we had the mentality. But anyone connected with THAT Joint Stock Operation took the liabilities home with him.

If you were part of a joint venture, it was taken for granted you could be tried for what it did, and that every person in it was liable for its debts. The idea of having a SEPARATE ENTITY, an institution in which people risked only what they invested, was a completely new thing on the world stage.

The corporation is a PURE institution, but the corporation is made up of PARTS of different people. It is made up of different parts of different people.

The Church is the only institution I know that has its own existence, whole people, and the same part of the those who are not full time religious. So not only do I think the Church is the only example of as pure an institution as I need, but I don’t think the whole idea of corporate institutions would have been invented if it weren’t.

BBG doesn’t have to recite to me the reasons for anti-Catholic bigotry on Mommy Professor’s part. Hell, man, anti-Catholicism was called The Anti-Semitism of the Intellectuals even before we were BORN.