Slow News -- But Then, There's The Royal Stewart Club Meeting!

My regular correspondent sent me this from Facebook:

The Royal Stewart Club of Los Angeles appears, based on its Twitter feed, to be a reorganization of the Los Angeles chapter of the International Monarchist League, whose chaplain has been the Rev Andrew Bartus for some years, which I noted here, although the link to that page has been deleted.

As a sometime corporate policy writer, I'm scratching my head. Fr Bartus is going to appear at this event in clericals (I assume, though he may be vested for evensong) and identifying himself as a Catholic priest, playing an official role as speaker and chaplain, although the Royal Stewart Club does not appear to have Catholic sanction. In a corporation, this would be questionable -- I could be a member of a professional group, as long as my management approved it, and identify myself as an employee, as long as I made it clear I didn't speak for the company. Appearing in clericals would certainly give an ambiguous impression at best.

But this goes beyond that. Via the Twitter feed, I'm happy to say they state that "we, as a matter of policy, do not support the establishment of an American monarchy," but this whole project seems kinda loopy, and the Twitter feed offers birthday wishes to Prince Charles Windsor, not an especially good example to Catholics, while it solemnly commemorates the anniversaries of monarchs' passing from the "much beloved Emperor" Franz Josef I through King Hussein of Jordan to the aforementioned Charles Stewart, who is generally recognized as having brought his fate on himself through political ineptitude.

Is Charles I an argument for monarchy? Heck, is Franz Josef I? The whole idea of a Royal Stewart Club (and note the precious spelling) reminds me of some of the crazies I knew in college -- Bill L subsequently became a C-lister in the conservative movement and, like something out of Brideshead Revisited, held Franz Josef in similar regard. I was crazy then, too, but I outgrew it. Bill L never did, but I assume his speaking fees are somewhere to the south of Dinesh D'Souza, who is after all a B-lister.

If I were Bp Lopes, I would urge Fr Bartus to drop this thing. The ongoing promotion of alcoholic activities in social media, it seems to me, would be another issue.