Finding Good: the Sooner, the Better
St. Joan of Arc Finale: Last-Minute Redemption Is Legendary, But the Delay Can Worsen the Harm
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I didn’t want to leave the discussion of Saint Joan of Arc on a sour note. Last week’s article broached an important theme — the problem of allegedly “lesser” evils — but prompts a consideration of something more vital: finding good.
My appearance on the Jan. 19 “History Homos” podcast episode (listen right here at SUBSTACK!!! or Spotify, Rokfin, Odysee, Rumble, Bitchute) was an understandably sobering conversation about Joan’s trial and what led up to it.
Joan claimed to have visions of saints telling her to take up arms for the French monarchy against the English. Beginning at age 17, this very charismatic figure would command troops in battle. By the time she was 19, she had led bloody victories and bloody defeats, and been wounded and captured.
She went on trial for heresy and related religious crimes in a French-led tribunal that according to historian Daniel Hobbins may have been a last-ditch attempt to keep her out of the hands of the English authorities (who surely would have, and later did, put her to death).
The formal and well-documented Church proceedings and the events considered therein are tales of bigotry, war-mongering, political corruption, and trying to use God to justify all of it. Joan and her Church and civil prosecutors were each guilty of at least some of these major moral lapses.
But I and podcast co-hosts Scott and Patrick also found a glimmer of hope, especially for Joan, who was burned at the stake in Rouen, France, on May 30, 1431, by English officials and their French collaborators.
Joan’s faith had been overrun for years by visions of political conquests (for which she is, sadly, most famous). But whatever grave evils Joan had committed and encouraged others to do, facing her own imminent death at the hands of people she had sworn to exterminate from France appears to have finally changed her for good.
The morning of her execution, she is said to have received sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist. While led to her pyre, it is told that she asked two priests to hold a crucifix in front of her, “and an English soldier made a small cross she put in the front of her dress.” And “while the flames leapt higher and higher, she was heard to call on the name of Jesus.”
Others converted?
Her death also may have awakened the consciences of some of her persecutors.
By one account, “the executioner, Geoffroy Thérage, later said he ‘... greatly feared to be damned.’ ” Another describes John Tressart, one of the English King Henry’s secretaries, witnessing Joan’s gratuitous killing “with horror and was probably joined in spirit by others when he exclaimed remorsefully, ‘We are lost! We have burned a saint!’ ”
These conversions are cases of “better late than never,” but that’s almost as unsatisfying a statement as extolling “the lesser of two evils.”
Truth is, it shouldn’t have taken this level of loss and brutality for anyone — including Joan — to realize the evil of the political fanaticism to which they had devoted themselves.
We anarchists/voluntarists have a perspective that can keep us out of such trouble. As I said (with some sarcasm-tinged “maybe” phrasings) near the conclusion of the Jan. 19 podcast:
It’s why I harp so much on understanding nonviolence and human dignity, because that’s your guide! If you think God is telling you to do something, and that something is violent, maybe that’s not what God’s telling you, or maybe that’s not really the God as revealed to us by Jesus Christ.
If you think you’re being led toward initiating harm on another person or credibly threatening to harm that person, maybe that’s a good sign that it’s not Christ who’s leading you there.
Statism corrupts everything it touches, including Christianity (if those who identify as Christian are so naive and/or sinister as to welcome it).
Genuine Christianity is the alternative to the good-citizen model of control, coercion, compliance, and even the celebration of this fundamental violence of imposed order. This better way includes offering people a way to repent and reform. As I wrote in my book, Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen:
If good neighborliness is to increase in the world, then good citizens from all levels of the imposed, hierarchical social order must be welcomed to bettering their values, perspectives, behaviors, and commitments. All people must have a real opportunity to turn away from deficient acts and attitudes, and forge a new way forward.
For this, Christians — especially Christians who are looked upon as leaders — must set good examples. Back to the podcast and the awful behavior of the Church officials, I wondered:
Imagine if Joan … had met people who actually had her best interest at heart, people who were actually charitable. … Imagine if the princes of the Church acted like, not princes of the Church, but like servants of the Church, as Jesus modeled at the Last Supper. … Imagine if Joan had met people who were actually worthy of [being] the successors of the Apostles (who were not named “Judas”!).
…
I hope everybody met the mercy of God at some point.
Yes, conversion is better late than never. But that’s no excuse to avoid course-correcting actions until some grand, momentous, future occasion. Willfully delaying significant ethical improvements can allow evils to pile up, sometimes irreparably.
Be the good neighbor who courageously, humanely welcomes others to good neighborliness. The sooner, the better.
Comment soon!
Do you struggle sometimes with procrastination, especially on important, life-changing matters?
Ever look back and wonder how you made it through the darker times before your conversion(s)?
Is this a better send-off for the Joan of Arc podcast recap than if I had ended it last week?
Anything else motivating you to chime in after reading this article?
Let me know your thoughts below …
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I like the juice from your mind grapes, magic man. Totally agree: political power simply draws evil men into church positions and corrupts the saving work of the church.