A bundle of sticks

Strength through unity: a single rod is easily crushed, while the bundle is far harder to break.
If all countries must unite to fight a single enemy, unity is required. Unity of intent, ethos, and strategy. While one country at a time may be overcome, a united front is far harder to conquer.

This was the philosophy embodied in the famous comment made by Ronald Reagan at the United Nations General Assembly in 1987, when he said

I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.

And so today, as Europe unites against an alien threat of a different kind. the UN has been quick to act, through its emissaries all over the world - the first and foremost of which undoubtedly that city within the city of Rome, in order to remove all civil liberties from many nations in a single fell swoop. And the gesture is reported as having been widely applauded by the intelligentsia, although it surely has its critics.

As I write, only Italy, Spain, France and Ireland have been subjected to a full lockdown - their single rods now joined together, while Great Britain and all other European countries have resisted. This is perhaps nothing more than a twist in the narrative set down by the architects, but I cannot disregard the possibility that the Jesuit influence in these countries is somewhat tempered by enduring sovereign powers, not least that of the English crown, an opponent of Rome oftentimes in history, although perhaps not quite as resolutely and consistently as we might have wished.

And it is Great Britain, or so it seems, that attracts the brunt of criticism from our beloved neighbours in Italy in particular, many of whom shake their fists from their house arrest prisons.

Many years have passed since British democracy was so widely reviled in Italy... perhaps we might look back to the early 1940s as the country's role in the Axis was cemented and Britain became the principal or at least notional enemy.

As for those of my Italian brothers and sisters who have spoken harshly of their servants, even though, like my fellow citizens, I am devoid of influence, power, and expertise, I am distressed at their plight and saddened by their words.

I would welcome my death if it could prevent the undemocratic incarceration of my neighbours, in whatever country they reside. While I am almost resigned to the inevitability that the internment rules will soon be extended to these fair isles, as yet this single rod has resisted.

I would of course much more welcome my incarceration if by allowing that I am or might become unclean I can protect my neighbours. Of course. But I most certainly would not welcome the arbitrary incarceration of every Briton or resident of any other national for an unproven, hypothetical, intangible ideal to oppose a claimed but unseen and mainly if not entirely fictitious enemy, acting as the deus ex machina to imposed a single political will across all nations and all the world.

So... may God Save our Gracious Queen... and, more importantly:

Praise the Lord, for He is Worthy, Kind and Faithful. May His Mercy endure forever.