There was an old superstition that if the Church excommunicated a
country, it underwent a terrible disaster. There were grounds for this
belief. At that time, only by the blessing of the Church could one be
married, buried, leave property, do business in safety, be educated, or
tended whilst sick. So long as people believed in the Church, the curse
worked. A country banned from the communion of believers found its
Church-run hospitals closed, and nobody dared take them over for fear of
hell-fire. There was no trust in business, since the clerics
administered oaths, and without the magic ritual there could be no
credit granted. Education ceased, for the clergy ran the schools.
Children could still, surprisingly to some, be begotten, but as they
could not be christened, they were barred from the community of
believers. They spent their lives in dread. Unmarried parents could not
leave their property to their illegitimate children, and unless the
Church reopened could not be married.We are wiser now. But we have replaced one superstition by another. The
opponents of anarchism assure us that if we put government under a ban,
there would be no education, for the State controls the schools. There
would be no hospitals — where would the money come from? Nobody would
work — who would pay their wages? “There would not be a virgin or a
rupee between Calcutta and Peshawar,” the Anglo-Indians used smugly to
assure those who would abolish the British Raj. For only the State
prevented rape or robbery (a jest that savoured of bitter wit in
nazi-occupied Europe).
– Stuart Christie & Albert Meltzer