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Between Christ the King and “We Have No King But Caesar”

The month of November begins with the great Solemnity of All Saints. But in the traditional Roman calendar, All Saints is preceded shortly before by an even greater feast—that of Christ the King, the One who creates and sanctifies the citizens, ambassadors, and soldiers of His Kingdom.

When Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in 1925, he was, one might say, supplying in the Church’s calendar the missing invisible cause of All Saints, as well as making clear just what the mission of the saints in history is: to be the living members of the Mystical Body under Christ its Head, and to extend this body across the whole earth. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the King of all men, all peoples, all nations, and His saints are those who, taking up their cross and following Him, have conquered their own souls and won over the souls of many others for this Kingdom.

Pope Pius XI knew that in modern political circumstances, it was absolutely necessary to make this truth explicit, as he did in the great encyclical Quas Primas of December 11, 1925:

All men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In Him is the salvation of the individual; in Him is the salvation of society. … He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ. … When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace, and harmony. … That these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ.

The right which the Church has from Christ Himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation—that right was denied [in the Enlightenment era]. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the State and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. … There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and States against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences.

That was 1925. In Advent of 1969, a tidal wave of changes in Catholic worship came rolling through the Church. As we all know, among these changes was the moving of the feast of Christ the King from the last Sunday of October to the last Sunday of the liturgical year, at the end of November. Or at least that is what we think we know; it’s what I used to think, too. But that is not what actually happened.

As Michael Foley shows in a brilliant article in the latest issue of The Latin Mass magazine, the feast was not merely moved, but transmogrified. It was given a new name, a new date, and new propers, all of which deemphasized the social reign of Christ and put in its place a “cosmic and eschatological Christ.” That is not all:

According to no less an authority than Pope Paul VI, the Feast of Christ the King was not merely changed or moved; it was replaced. In Calendarium Romanum, the document announcing and explaining the new calendar, the Pope writes: “The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe occurs on the last Sunday of the liturgical year in place of the feast instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and assigned to the last Sunday of October….” The key word is loco, which means “in place of” or “instead of.” The Pope could have simply stated that the Feast occurs on a different date (as he did with the Feast of the Holy Family) or that it is being moved (transfertur) as he did with Corpus Christi, but he did not. The Novus Ordo’s Solemnity of Christ the King, he writes, is the replacement of Pius XI’s feast.[1]

Paul VI abolished Pius XI’s feast and replaced it with a new feast of the Consilium’s devising. There is common material, of course, but it is by no means intended to be the same feast on a different Sunday.[2]

Why did this happen? The simplest explanation, indeed the only one that fits the evidence, is that the apparent “integralism” of Pope Pius XI had become an embarrassment to such as Montini, Bugnini, and other progressives of the 1960s and 1970s. They had bought into the philosophy of secularism and wanted to make sure the liturgy did not celebrate the authority of Christ over the socio-political order or the regnant position of His Church within it. The modernized feast has to be about “spiritual” or “cosmic” or “eschatalogical” things, with a seasoning of “social justice.” As Foley writes: “The new feast guts the original of its intended meaning. … The liturgical innovators kicked the can of Christ’s reign down the road to the end of time so that it will no longer interfere with an easygoing accommodation to secularism.”[3] Not for them was the potent doctrine of St. Pius X:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man’s eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man’s supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. … Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State.[4]

What, then are we to make of the countless saints over the centuries who completely upheld this doctrine, lived for it and by it, defended and promoted it, advanced it to victory against every heathen and heretic? What of the saints who owed the birth and growth of their vocations—we could even say, in a way, the human conditions of their very sanctity—to the full-bodied, full-blooded Catholic society and culture in which they lived? And what, above all, do we make of that host of royal saints and blesseds whose holiness took the form of supporting the true Faith in their exercise of politics; people who saw the State as subordinate to the Church, this earthly life as subordinate to the life of the world to come, and believed that, in St. Pius X’s words, they “must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest [of heaven], but must aid us in effecting it”? Surely these saints have a special place in the Kingdom of God, where they rejoice in the just and pacific reign of Christ the King. They, above all, grasp the inner rationale of the close proximity of November 1st to the last Sunday of October.

When teaching Catholic social doctrine to college students, I never cease to be surprised at how many of them display the knee-jerk reaction of automatically assuming that monarchy is “mostly evil” and that democracy is “obviously good.” This seems to be a secular dogma imposed by our age and drilled in from tender years, especially in public schools. I like to shake people up by handing out the following list of royal saints and blesseds—the kings, queens, princes, princesses, dukes, duchesses, and other ruling aristocrats who are venerated, beatified, or canonized by Catholics, Orthodox, or Anglicans. Yes, this is a somewhat eclectic and ecumenical list, but surely it offers food for thought, since all of these individuals in obvious ways promoted and defended Christianity (and often Christendom, its full flowering) using their God-given political authority.[5]

First, a list of actual rulers:

Abgarus of Edessa, king of Osroene Alexander Nevsky Alfred the Great of Wessex, 849 to September 26, 899 Amadeus IX, Duke of Savoy
Archil of Kakheti, martyred Ashot I of Iberia, martyred Boris I of Bulgaria Canute IV of Denmark, known as “St. Canute”
Charlemagne[6] Charles I of England (Anglican) Charles I, Count of Flanders, known as “St. Charles the Good”, French ”Charles le Bon”, Dutch ”Karel de Goede” Constantin Brancoveanu King of Wallachia
Constantine King of Dumnonia, martyr Constantine I, Roman emperor (Orthodox) Constantine VI, Roman emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, Roman emperor, known as “St. Constantine XI the Ethnomartyr”
David I of Scotland; son of Saint Margaret of Scotland David IV of Georgia, also known as “David the Builder” Demetre I of Georgia Demetre II of Georgia, martyred, also known as “Demetre the Self-Sacrificer”
Edmund the Martyr of East Anglia Edward the Confessor of England Edward the Martyr of England Edwin of Northumbria, known as “St. Edwin”
Eric IX of Sweden Æthelberht of Kent Æthelberht II of East Anglia Ferdinand III of Castile
Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, husband of Cunigunde of Luxemburg Hermenegild of the Visigoths Humbert III of Savoy Jadwiga of Poland, also known as St. Hedwig
Justinian I, Roman emperor Bd. Karl I of Austria, last kaiser (Emperor) of Austria and király (King) of Hungary Ladislaus I of Hungary, canonized in 1192 Lazar Hrebeljanović, Knez (“Prince” or “Duke”) of Serbia; also known as “Tsar Lazar”
Leopold III, Margrave of Austria, patron saint of Austria Luarsab II of Kartli, martyred St. Louis IX of France Ludwig IV of Thuringia, husband of Elisabeth of Hungary
Marcian emperor Mirian III of Iberia Neagoe Basarab King of Wallachia Nicholas II of Russia
St. Olaf II of Norway Oswald of Northumbria, martyred August 5, 642 Peter I of Bulgaria Sigismund of Burgundy
Solomon II of Imereti St. Stephen I of Hungary Stephen the Great, King of Moldavia, July 2, 1504; called “Athlete of Christianity” Tamar of Georgia
Tiridates III of Armenia Vakhtang I of Iberia Vakhtang III of Georgia Vladimir I of Kiev
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, martyred September 28, 935

Then a list of other royals and nobles:

Adelaide of Italy, empress-consort of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor Agnes of Bohemia, daughter of Otakar I of Bohemia Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia (Alix of Hesse) Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia
Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia Balthild, Queen of France and wife of King Clovis II Begga; daughter of Pepin of Landen and mother of Pepin of Herstal Bertha of Kent
Bojan Enravota, prince of Bulgaria Boris and Gleb, princes of Kiev St. Casimir, son of Casimir IV of Poland Clotilde, daughter of Chilperic II of Burgundy; wife of Clovis I
Cunigunde of Luxemburg, wife of Henry II Dmitry of Moscow Edburga of Winchester, daughter of Edward the Elder Edburga of Bicester, daughter of Penda of Mercia
Edburga of Minster-in-Thanet, or Heaburg, or Bugga, daughter of Centwine of Wessex Elizabeth Fyodorovna of Russia Elisabeth of Hungary, wife of Ludwig IV of Thuringia St. Elizabeth of Portugal, daughter of Pedro III of Aragon; wife of Denis of Portugal
Emeric of Hungary, son of Stephen I of Hungary Queen Emma of Hawaii (Anglican) St. Hedwig of Andechs, daughter of Berthold III, Count of Tyrol, wife of Henry I of Poland St. Helena of Constantinople, Roman Empress, mother of Constantine I
Isabelle of France, daughter of Louis VIII of France, younger sister of St. Louis IX St. Jeanne de Valois of France, daughter of Louis XI of France; wife of Louis XII of France Joana of Portugal, daughter of Afonso V of Portugal, joined the Dominican Order Jolenta (Yolande) of Poland, daughter of Béla IV of Hungary; wife of Boleslaus the Pious of Poland
Ketevan the Martyr, queen of Kakheti Kinga (St. Kunigunda) of Poland, daughter of Béla IV of Hungary; wife of Boleslaus V of Poland Ludmila, Czech princess Mafalda of Portugal, O. Cist., daughter of Sancho I of Portugal and queen-consort of Castille
Margaret of Hungary, daughter of Béla IV of Hungary Blessed Margaret of Savoy, Marchioness of Montferrat St. Margaret of Scotland, granddaughter of Edmund II of England; wife of Malcolm III of Scotland and mother of David I of Scotland (above) Maria Nikolaevna of Russia
Matilda of Ringelheim, queen-consort to Heinrich I of Germany Nana of Iberia, queen-consort of Mirian III of Iberia Nuno Álvares Pereira, O. Carm., ancestor of Portuguese House of Braganza Olga of Kiev, regent of son Svyatoslav I, Prince of Kiev
Olga Nikolaevna of Russia Ragnhild of Tälje Sancha of Portugal, O. Cist., daughter of Sancho I of Portugal Shushanik
Teresa of Portugal, O. Cist., daughter of Sancho I of Portugal and queen-consort of León Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia Prince Vladimir Paley Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia
Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia

Does modern democracy have a track record of sanctity like that? Where are the dozens of holy presidents, prime ministers, cabinet members, congressmen, mayors? You may object: Monarchy had many centuries of time during which saints could arise. Democracy as we know it is still relatively young. Give it a chance! To which I respond: modern democracy has been around now for over two centuries, and its track record is abysmal. One could count on both hands the men and women involved in democratic governments who have a reputation for heroic sanctity, let alone an acknowledged cultus.[7] Besides, look around you: do you think the prospects for great holiness emerging within democratic regimes is increasing as time goes on? In this case, it is no exaggeration to say that the myth of Progress looks more mythical than ever.

In a fallen world where all of our efforts are dogged by evil and doomed (eventually) to failure, Christian monarchy is, nevertheless, the best political system that has ever been devised or could ever be devised. As we can infer from its much greater antiquity and universality, it is the system most natural to human beings as political animals; it is the system most akin to the supernatural government of the Church; it is the system that lends itself most readily to collaboration and cooperation with the Church in the salvation of men’s souls. Yes, it goes without saying that there have been plenty of tensions all along between Church and State—but will those ever be absent, in any political arrangement whatsoever? Are they absent in democracy—or have we obtained what seems like peace at the cost of any real influence in society? Has not the Church simply been demoted to the status of a private bowling league that can be permitted or suppressed at whim? The usual defense of religious liberty today is only as strong as the Enlightenment concepts it depends upon, and these concepts were already branded as falsehoods by a string of popes from the time of the French Revolution down to Pius XI.

The two wisest men of pagan antiquity, Plato and Aristotle, maintained that democracy, far from being a stable form of government, is always teetering on the edge of anarachy or tyranny. In spite of his predilection for democracy, Pope John Paul II could not fail to acknowledge the same danger in three separate encyclicals:

Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and skeptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.[8]

Today, when many countries have seen the fall of ideologies which bound politics to a totalitarian conception of the world—Marxism being the foremost of these—there is no less grave a danger that the fundamental rights of the human person will be denied and that the religious yearnings which arise in the heart of every human being will be absorbed once again into politics. This is the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism, which would remove any sure moral reference point from political and social life, and on a deeper level make the acknowledgement of truth impossible.[9]

If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another.  Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself.  Thus society becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds.  Each one wishes to assert himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his own interests prevail. … This is the sinister result of relativism which reigns unopposed: the “right” ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part.  In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism. … Even in participatory systems of government, the regulation of interests often occurs to the advantage of the most powerful, since they are the ones most capable of maneuvering not only the levers of power but also of shaping the formation of consensus.  In such a situation, democracy easily becomes an empty word.[10]

We may have deluded ourselves into thinking that we have stability, peace, and justice—“Where’s the anarchy? Where’s the tyranny?”—but, as Hans Urs von Balthasar once wrote, the entire contemporary Western social order is founded on the blood of millions of butchered unborn children, whose murder is permitted and protected by the State. And this is only one of the many pervasive sins of our democratic era that cry out to God for vengeance. This hardly sounds like a system of which Catholics ought to be proud. Rather, they should rue it, repent of it, and beg the Lord for deliverance.

Right now, the prospects for Catholic monarchy seem dim, to say the least. But we ought to have the courage to admit that what we are doing is not working, that we are digging ourselves collectively into the deepest and darkest pit human history has ever seen. Compared to this, I would prefer to take my chances on monarchy and aristocracy. In all of its checkered episodes, it still has a proven track record of sanctity and defense of the Faith. Nothing else does.

Christ the King as depicted in the tryptich at Saint James the Greater Church in Saint Louis, Missouri. (Click to enlarge)

This leads me back to Pope Paul VI’s suppression of one feast of Christ the King and his creation of another. What is really going on here? It seems to me that the original feast of Christ the King represents the Catholic vision of society as a hierarchy in which lower is subordinated to higher, with the private sphere and the public sphere united in their acknowledgment of the rights of God and of His Church. This vision was put aside in 1969 to make way for a vision in which Christ is a king of my heart and a king of the cosmos—of the most micro level and the most macro level—but not king of anything in between: not king of culture, of society, of industry and trade, of education, of civil government.

In other words, for such middling spheres, “we have no king but Caesar.” The impious cry of the ancient Jews has become our foundational creed. We have bought into the Enlightenment myth of the separation of Church and State, which, as Leo XIII says, “is equivalent to the separation of human legislation from Christian and divine legislation.”[11] The result cannot but be catastrophic, as we unmoor ourselves from the very aids God has provided to our human weakness. If we see a world crashing around us into unimaginable deviancy and we seek the cause, let us not be afraid to pursue it back to the rebellion of the modern revolutions—from the Protestant Revolt down to the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution—against the social order of Christendom, which blossomed in the sacral kingship of Christian monarchs.

I am certainly not saying that we can snap our fingers and find ourselves in a renewed Christendom. The original version took centuries to build up. It would take several centuries to build up a new version of Christendom. But the only way we are going to get there is by seeing the ideal for what it is, yearning for it, and praying for the reign of Christ the King to descend into our midst with all the realism of the Incarnation, that He may sanctify anew the world He came to save. In this time before the end of time, when all politics and all visible rites give way to the blazing glory of His advent, we are not to throw up our hands, yielding everything to the juggernaut of “Progress,” which is another word for decadence and depravity. It belongs to soldiers of Christ to acknowledge their King and to fight for His acknowledgment. Come what may, this is how each one of us shall win through to an imperishable crown in the eternal kingdom of heaven.

 

NOTES

[1] Michael P. Foley, “Reflecting on the Fate of the Feast of Christ the King,” The Latin Mass, vol. 26, no. 3 (Fall 2017): 38–42; here, 41, emphasis added.

[2] For various examples of the kinds of changes made—some glaring and others subtle—see Foley’s article mentioned in note 1; Dylan Schrader, “The Revision of the Feast of Christ the King,” Antiphon 18 (2014): 227–53; Peter Kwasniewski, “Should the Feast of Christ the King Be Celebrated in October or November?”.

[3] Foley, “Reflecting on the Fate,” 41–42.

[4] Pius X, Encyclical Vehementer Nos to the French Bishops, Clergy, and People (February 11, 1906), n. 3.

[5] These lists are taken from Wikipedia’s entry Royal Saints and Martyrs, which suffices for our purpose here. Incidentally, it is obvious from the Magisterium of the Church that even non-Catholic rulers have their authority from God and received it precisely to promote natural law morality and the Christian religion: see, inter alia, Leo XIII’s Encyclical Diuturnum Illud.

[6] The cultus of Charlemagne was permitted at Aachen.

[7] An example would be Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the European Union—the contemporary debased form of which he would scorn. Other examples might be António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal; Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria; Gabriel García Moreno of Ecuador; Éamon de Valera in Ireland.

[8] John Paul II, Encyclical Centesimus Annus (May 1, 1991), n. 46.

[9] John Paul II, Encyclical Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993), n. 101.

[10] John Paul II, Encyclical Evangelium Vitae (March 25, 1995), n. 20; n. 70.

[11] Leo XIII, Encyclical Au Milieu des Sollicitudes to the Church in France (February 16, 1892), n. 28.

 

Originally published on November 8, 2017.

98 thoughts on “Between Christ the King and “We Have No King But Caesar””

  1. Pius XI issued an encyclical in 1931 against fascism for which he paid with his life according to the writer Malachi Martin. Mussolini retaliated.

    Reply
  2. Let’s not forget that the Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ as originally instituted did coincide with the Protestant celebrations of the Reformation Sunday. As Prof Kwasniewski elaborates in his older article (linked to from footnote 2 of the article):

    Indeed, there’s also the obvious fact, unmentioned in Quas Primas but surely in everyone’s mind, that the last Sunday in October had, for centuries, been celebrated as Reformation Sunday. A Catholic counter-feast, reminding the world not only of the comprehensive Kingship of Jesus Christ—so often denied socially and culturally by various teachings of Protestantism—but also of the worldwide kingly authority of His Church, would certainly be a reasonable application of the principle lex orandi, lex credendi.

    One is left to wonder whether this wasn’t actually the principal motive to “replace” the feast within Novus Ordo as part of the general intention to make the liturgy more Protestant-friendly.

    I pray we hear more sermons similar to this article so that the following words from Quas Primas may be fulfilled:

    Make it your duty and your task, Venerable Brethren, to see that sermons are preached to the people in every parish to teach them the meaning and the importance of this feast, that they may so order their lives as to be worthy of faithful and obedient subjects of the Divine King.

    To profess and live the Social Kingship of Christ is a duty of all of us.

    Reply
    • If the state does not have the capacity to make the judgment that Christ is King (Weigel) then how can we say that the individual has the capacity to make the judgment that Christ is King? The state is simply the collective of the individuals which reside within it. Weigel has dogmatized the privatization of religion. At times I have difficulty believing that he is Catholic at all.

      Reply
      • At times I have difficulty believing that he is Catholic at all.

        As do I. But the damage he and others like him have done to Catholicism is catastrophic. It’s resulted in a compartmentalization of Catholicism from secular society, and people don’t view that as a problem.

        Reply
    • Weigel fell into the trap of Vatican II’s ambiguity and good old John Courtney Murray. He’s also following in the footsteps of pseudo-saint JPII.

      Reply
        • Don’t be silly. Why do we always have to degenerate into the two poles: the Jews are to blame for everything vs the Jews are to be ignored in history?

          There is a place in history for the Jews – it does no good not to discuss this. Charity must reign of course but to ignore the discussion is foolish.

          Reply
          • Incredibly sarcastic…

            But that’s the general tone I’m getting from a lot of the comments on this article

  3. Unfortunately, there are many Catholics of what I believe to be genuine good will who have been so thoroughly immersed in classical liberalism (understood to be “constitutional conservatism” in American parlance) that they cannot see how it inherently conflicts with traditional Catholic teaching. For example, a commenter in the Crisis combox dismissed the very quote from St. Pius X Dr. Kwasniewski cites as applying only to the situation in France at the time, and therefore irrelevant to overall Catholic teaching.

    Reply
    • Those are the sort of people who are always going on about “no King but Christ” and/or think monarchy is Protestant because they think the Republic of Ireland/IRA is Catholic.

      Reply
  4. Good stuff.

    And then you have the utterly obnoxious line spewed by Christian republicans about how they have “no King but Christ.” Yeah, about that…

    Reply
          • Because ideological republicanism is anti-Christian. No republican movement has ever existed without being consciously anti-Christian. Christian Democracy is only a possible exception because it is a pragmatic attempt to merge the truth of integralism with the reality of republicanism, and even then some Christian democrats are ideological republicans.

  5. Steve, is it possible for you to post a link to a very high resolution .jpg of the Saint James tryptich of Christ the King? I would like to print and frame.

    Reply
  6. Didn’t HillaryWhite just write an article for One Peter Five declaring her desire to go back in Time & Murder William of Ockham who is a Defender of Rights of The Roman Emperor?

    We wonder who a time traveller would have to eliminate in the past in order to steer the future away from this universal cataclysm? ….If I had a TARDIS, my personal favourite candidate for temporal relocation – perhaps to some uncomfortable place in the middle of an ice age – would be William of Ockham, the 13th century intellectual fraud who first injected the poison of Nominalism into Catholic thinking.

    Strange brew – the lot of you are for ‘Monarchy’ but blame William of Ockham for all the worlds ills and wish he had never been born.

    How can you possibly defend Monarchy without the help of Ockham?

    You can’t.

    Maybe you all hate the idea of a Roman Catholic Roman Emperor Ruling the world and want to be your own little kings…..

    Reply
    • So on the grounds that there is one area of agreement with Ockham we’re suddenly hypocrites? Guess what, there are things with which I agree with Hillary Clinton and President Obama and President Trump. That doesn’t magically mean all disagreement with them is negated.

      Reply
      • yes – when you refuse to have Caesar rule over you.

        None of you desire the restoration of the Divinely Ordained Authority of the Holy Roman Emperor. But you still pretend to love monarchy to appear pious. All of you condemn Universal Political Authority because you consider it evil (NWO etc) and because of this foolish belief you think the same of the Divinely Ordained Authority of the Holy Roman Emperor. So all of you think that Nationalism/Democracy is the only way to restore all things in Christ.

        You refuse to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Mary & Joseph in their obedience to the Roman Emperor (Pagan then Catholic now).

        There are Seven Imperial Electors that can elect the Next Holy Roman Emperor – the Bishop of Mainz is the Elector who is the one to call the other six together for a vote. That’s all it takes to start the restoration of all things in Christ.

        But none of you will lift a finger to bring this about.

        Instead you busy yourself with priestly matters and sign petition after petition and nothing gets done.

        We need a Roman Catholic Temporal head to guide us to lead us.

        That leader is the Holy Roman Emperor – no one else.

        So yes all of you are hypocrites who desire Monarchy but will continue to vote for Protestant Politicians to rule over you.

        Reply
        • So your theory is that resisting a cabal of wealthy atheists who push all manners which evince that they are enemies of Christ is tantamount to not wanting a HOLY Roman Emperor? That’s like saying I hate Catholicism because I don’t think Satanists should be allowed to conduct black masses.

          Reply
          • There is a difference between man-made Universal Political Authority and Divinely Ordained Universal Political Authority. The first is man-made and the later is directly from God.

            Many are conditioned into believing that ALL universal political authority is evil – including the Divinely Ordained UNIVERSAL Authority of the Holy Roman Emperor.

          • So you’re admitting that you’re engaging in false equivalence. Thanks for that. Indeed, several here would support a Holy Roman Emperor. My eyes are fixed on Poland and Hungary.

            Yet the fact remains, there is only One King and He is not of this world.

          • “several here would support a Holy Roman Emperor.”

            That’s good to hear. Now since many of you like petitions, maybe you can petition the Bishop of Mainz to call for an Imperial election to elect the next Holy Roman Emperor.

            So you’re admitting that there is a difference between man-made Universal Political Authority (NWO etc) & Divinely Ordained Universal Political Authority (HRE)

          • OK understood. so I’ll ask you – what do you mean by

            “My eyes are fixed on Poland and Hungary.”

            Do you mean you have hope that Polish & Hungarian Nationalists will restore the Catholic State?

            Or do you mean that you have hope that Hungarians and the Poles will go to the ballot box to elect Catholic leaders to help restore the Catholic State?

            I don’t want to put words into mouth – you tell me.

          • Though I do not place my hope in earthly princes, both Poland and Hungary are countries that are imbued with Christianity. They are pushing back on the EU, Muslim “immigration”, secularism and relativism. When the west collapses, those countries along with (unfortunately Orthodox) Russia will be in prime condition to take over the conquered lands. These countries may become bastions to where the faithful flee.

            Is there possibility for a monarchal state? Possibly.

  7. “We Have No King But Caesar”

    You are in the same boat with the Jews

    Jews no longer have a King

    Jews no longer have a Caesar

    And neither do any of you.

    You have Protestant Politicians to rule over you – the Protestant Politicians you put into office with your votes…

    Reply
      • that would be you and everyone who votes in democratically held elections. Democracy is not Catholic and can not be forced into becoming Catholic – you should know this

        Reply
        • Jesus is my King and Lord and I am obedient to Him over all.
          Are you your own personal sovereign who alone lives free of any civil society and its structure including it’s political and judicial?

          Reply
          • Did not Our King and Lord Jesus Christ, the Blessed Mother and St Joseph obediently submit themselves to the Roman Emperor during His Birth?

            And did not Our King and Lord Jesus Christ submit to the authority of Caesar at HIS death?

            Did not our Catholic ancestors were able submit themselves to the Authority of the Roman Emperor.

            In this matter you do not follow in the footsteps of Our Blessed Saviour – you can’t – because there is no Caesar to submit to.

            You & I submit to the bad laws and bad customs created by man-made democracy.

          • We all need to remember that, in spite of Jesus’ apparent reduction in rank with the moving and replacing of the original feast of Christ the King, we are all called to embrace Jesus Our King and to obey and serve Him and Him alone in every aspect and level of our lives individual, family, social group, parish, secular community (municipal, county, state and nation). We are to do this by living our faith openly and lovingly and preaching the Gospel in the way of the poor man of Assisi (“…preach the Gospel and, when necessary, use words…”). We can do this even in a democracy. We don’t need earthly kings to live as subjects of our True King. Rather than lamenting the loss of monarchs and the replacement of the suoerior feast with an inferior one, let us celebrate the true and full kingship of Christ every day, all day.

          • It’s not my fault that there isn’t a Catholic Monarch. I support Catholic Monarchy and have since I converted decades ago. And, Monarchs make bad laws that their subjects submit to as well.

  8. Does anyone have any good books for teaching this concept to our children?

    I grew up in the ’80s and only went to Catholic school until middle school, so separation of church and state was considered the gold standard. And sadly, Christ the King was almost never even mentioned. Even though my own children attend Catholic school now I know this is not something being taught. Any book recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Start with the encyclical on this topic – Quas Primas. There is enough there for many lessons and it can be broken down for school aged children.

      Reply
    • The Reign of Christ the King in Both Public and Private Life by Michael Davies. It’s a 35 page small booklet that explains in simple language Pope Pius XI’s Quas Primas encyclical. I used it when I homeschooled my preteens.

      Reply
      • Jesus was a Catholic. The Jews of the Synagogue were so despicable that Our Lord told them “not a stone will be left upon a stone.” Jesus Christ is still a Catholic and Head of His Bride, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, outside which there is neither salvation nor holiness, however many protest against this teaching. All mankind must go “through Him and with Him and IN Him, in the unity of the Holy Ghost,” as you say daily in Holy Mass. Diabolic disorientation has taken over everywhere. We must abide IN HIM, in His Body, the Church.

        Reply
        • The first Catholics were all Jews. Jesus, His Blessed Mother and all the Apostles were all Jews and did not think of themselves as anything else

          Reply
          • There are faithful Jews, and unfaithful Jews. The faithful Jews will convert to Catholicism, while the unfaithful Jews will continue to reject Him….Jesus and the Apostles, Mary, et.al., were all faithful Jews. These distinctions must be made or else confusion will only conceal the truth. If one does not enter the One, True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, they have absolutely no hope of salvation, according to the defined statements of the Church.

      • Here is the paragraph to which I was responding: In other words, for such middling spheres, “we have no king but Caesar.”
        The impious cry of the ancient Jews has become our foundational creed.
        We have bought into the Enlightenment myth of the separation of Church
        and State, which, as Leo XIII says, “is equivalent to the separation of
        human legislation from Christian and divine legislation.”[1 That is what I meant by saying “The Jews creed (we have no king but Caesar) is now our creed. Separation of State from Christ the King and His Solitary Kingship.

        Reply
  9. Thank you good Professor for so wonderfully expressing what I have held and firmly believed since my conversion to the Holy Faith. Democracy is nothing more than the body ruling the head and therefor can be traced back to the Garden and the Fall. It is Political Concupiscence given full sway to ignite every evil in the heart of man.

    I have never liked the pathetic prayers or language of the NO Feast of Christ the King and I always end up preaching almost the opposite of what those prayers state. Christ is King PERIOD. Zero modifiers.

    This is one of the best articles I have ever read, no hyperbole, just sincerity. Thank you and May God Bless you and keep you in HIs Holy Grace.

    Reply
    • Thank you very much. The first time I read Leo XIII’s political encyclicals, I knew that I was seeing an entirely different vision of the world and of how it was meant to be structured and organized. That was back in college. Those seeds continue to bear fruit.

      Reply
  10. An excellent source is the recent book “Before Church and State” by Andrew Willard Jones provides a study of social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX. His book describes an era in which the Church and State worked hand in hand, and in which there was no artificial division between Church and State.

    Reply
  11. If Christ is King, would not acknowledging an earthly king, even a devout Catholic one, be putting a king in the place of Christ?

    I do not intend this as a challenge to an article but a question that arose from reading it.

    Reply
      • Also, it is absolutely true to Say that Jesus Christ is The Priest of the New Covenant, but that does not prevent Him sharing His priestly ministry with the Ordained, who then to are rightly called Priests.

        Reply
        • Also, an earthy Catholic King represents and is symbolic of the heavenly King, something a President, or prime minister is incapable of doing. Our heavenly King is Sovereign, but an earthly king, must answer to the eternal King.

          Reply
    • Also, Thomas…it’s not, If Christ is King”, but, “since Christ is King”. Some things even Catholics can’t dispute. In the Lord’s Prayer, do you not ask that “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven?”

      I think so….therefore, our prayer is that the Lord’s will is to be done on earth, as it is in heaven. How is it done in heaven? By having a King over a Kingdom, which is heaven, which we have in Christ…AND to have that mirrored on earth, by having a kingdom on earth with an earthy king, representing the rule of Christ over the secular realm. The Pope represents the rule of Christ in the spiritual realm…we need both, since we are both body and soul, and both will be united in eternity, preferably in heaven, but few will find that end, very few.

      Reply
        • Call you an heretic? When? Where? You are not a snowflake are you, Thomas? You try to make yourself to be always the poor persecuted victim….look…if you are going to write on serious topics, expect to be corrected when you are wrong. Snowflakes always seem to want a pass that they never give others….they are…exceptional, you know.

          Reply
          • You tell me if I’m being a snowflake, Robert. I’ve found that the people who likely to throw that word around are also apparently the only ones who have some idea of what qualifies as being one.

            And from the way you write, you seem to think you know so much more than everyone else so you are the perfect one to enlighten me.

            It’s so much the correction itself as that you felt the need to correct me on one word.

  12. Outstanding piece of history but will someone who gets it please explain how “the entire contemporary Western social order is founded on” abortion? Abortion is mass murder all right, and that it strongly shaped the social order is obvious. But the whole social “founded” on it? That means that if abortion — which has only been legally available for about 50 years at most throughout the West — were suddenly successfully outlawed tomorrow, “the entire Western social order” would collapse. Also, how did the entire Western social order survive until about 1970 without it?

    Reply
  13. You have to go back further than the protestant revolution and the bolsheviks. Let’s be frank, all of these lies have their start in judaizing. The people who rejected the Logos and then told the Apostles to “stop speaking in That Name! “, are revolutionaries and they have fomented most of these murderous movements.

    Let me be even more frank. They were segregated from the Christian population by the Popes for a reason. We aren’t brothers, as their whole world view is based on the rejection of Our Blessed Lord. In fact, they see themselves as a collective messiah. They are attempting to usurp the rule of Christ the King. Our Lord predicted this attitude with the parable of the wicked husbandmen. Movements like the enlightenment allowed them to get their foot in the door and spread their errors IMHO.

    Reply
      • Thomas, we don’t have to “wipe them out”…..just hinder, effectively, their agendas….this is how the Catholic Church almost universally dealt with them, up until Vatican II, when, all of a sudden, they became our “elder brothers”, and now have no need of evangelization….thay have, intact, their covenant.

        Reply
          • No, sorry…no cigar. Pit bulls are bad, as are Rotweillers, reputation wise…..but we don’t advocate “wiping them out”…just effectively hindering their training to be bad dogs. Besides, you’re being fecitous in the remedy, and you know that it is against the law of God to commit genocide….it is within God’s law to limit their activity. Like, for instance, drug dealers…..let’s not wipe them out…let’s limit their capacity to sell the drugs through humane means…..amirite?

          • Wow…

            I’m not sure if you realize that I’m being 100% sarcastic and that the idea of genocide, particularly against the Jews, appalls me

          • uuuuh, yeah…..that’s why I said…” Besides, you’re being fecitous in the remedy”.
            So, what was your point in saying, ” Hmmm…so maybe if we just wiped out all those pesky Jews, we wouldn’t have all these problems? ”

            Would you care to write clearly. Jesus said, “Let your yays be yay, and your nays be nay; anything other than that is from the evil one.”

            What is it you’d like to say?

          • What I’d like to say is that many of the ideas in this thread about how bad the Jews are and how everything that’s wrong in society and the Church is the result of Judaic thinking are the start of a short road that ends with gas chambers and death camps

          • Not all of it. But I am familiar with the bits that are insulting to Christ and to Christians. Considering that the Jews were routinely persecuted from the time Christians gained ascendancy in the Roman Empire, it’s a small wonder they wrote as they did

          • BAHAHAHA…Are you joking?

            When was the last time you met a Jew with an Irish last name? If I was a Jew would I have not read the WHOLE Talmud?

            I’m a cradle Catholic…but good job of employing the logical fallacy that because I defend a group I must be part of them

          • No….not joking, at all….I had a question that has two possible answers, yes, or no. The fact that you have an Irish name is inconsequential, because many Jews have changed their names so people will not know they are Jews. Like….Jerry Lewis….Jill St. John…well, here…here’s a partial list of Jews who changed their names from a Jewish name to a Gentile name…..And very few, very few, Jews have read the Talmud….to most of them, reading it is not important, because their Rabbi has read it through, and teaches them, so they don’t need to be burdened. So, you see, I did not employ the logical fallacy that because you defend a group, you must be a part of it…because I did not say that….I asked if you were a Jew….I didn’t say the you must be, or were a Jew….I asked because on other forums I dialogue with individuals who turn out, after I ask, to be Jews. I can see from these latest remarks from you, that you know really only a very little about the subject of the Jews…..only what you’ve been spoon fed, and devoid of any critical research. I’d suggest, as an author, you do so, Mr. McIntyre.

            Joan Crawford
            Winona Ryder
            Charles Bronson
            Cary Grant
            Leslie Howard
            Buddy Hackett
            Bob Dylan
            Larry King
            Woody Allen
            Joan Rivers
            Mary Hart
            Shelley Berkley
            Natasha Lyonne
            Robby Benson
            Sean Kanan
            Brad Garrett
            Arianne Zucker
            Ione Skye
            Lindsay Sloane
            Samantha Harris
            Selma Blair
            Geraldo Rivera
            Jerry Lewis
            Michael Ian Black
            Gene Wilder
            George Burns

            Howard Cosell
            Dinah Shore
            Jason Alexander
            Barbara Hershey
            Jack Benny
            Kirk Douglas
            Judy Garland
            Judy Holliday
            Lorne Green
            Jon Stewart
            Joyce Brothers
            Mel Brooks
            Rodney Dangerfield
            Milton Berle
            Tony Curtis
            Tony Randall
            Walter Matthau
            Sumner Murray Redstone
            Michael Landon
            Ann Landers
            Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)
            Danny Kaye
            Jill St. John
            Shelley Winters
            Lauren Bacall
            Michael Oren
            Boney James
            Ron Owenns
            Michael Savage
            Kenny G
            Albert Brooks
            Peter Coyote
            Elliott Gould
            Steve Lawrence
            Jerry Douglas
            Anson Williams
            Frank Oz
            Lee Grant
            Lainie Kazan
            Robert Trebor
            Estelle Harris
            Dyan Cannon
            Annie Sprinkle
            Jane Seymour
            Benjamin Netanyahu
            Ehud Barak
            Ariel Sharon
            Levi Eshkol
            Moshe Sharett
            David Ben Gurion
            Golda Meir
            Shimon Peres
            Menachem Begin
            Yitzhak Shamir

          • What exactly is your point in posting a ludicrously long comment that mostly just contains a list of names of famous people whom I presume are Jews? What’s your point?

            I know plenty about the Jews. I know the historical reasons they were hounded and persecuted and murdered in large numbers throughout history. I know the lies that led people to hate them that people tell to downplay what happened as a result of that hate.

            It sounds a lot like what is being spewed in this comment section.

          • Wait a minute….not so fast, there….
            It was you who suggested we “wipe them out”, and called them “pesky”…and my response? I defended them by saying that we should NOT wipe them out….I said we should evangelize the Jews, and the Churchmen today, say that they do not need to be…I assume you would believe the same thing.
            It sounds to me like you are the one that’s spewing anti-Jewish hate, perhaps even anti-Semitism. We do not want to wipe them out, except in their conversion, wherein they will then embrace the true Faith, of the Roman Catholics, outside of which, there is no salvation….even for the unbelieving Jews….those who deny Jesus is the Messiah and has come in the flesh.
            You seem to have missed the reason for the list of Jews who changed their names to names like McIntyre….it is because you said (in essence) Jews don’t have names like McIntyre, and the list was to teach you the fact that they do have Gentile (like McIntyre) names.
            You don’t have a problem admitting you’re wrong do you, professor? What do you think you are… an historian?

          • It’s called being sarcastic or a troll. I thought you had figured that out. But yes, I do have an advanced degree in history so I would consider myself to be somewhat of a historian

          • Look, Tom…..this is getting weird. You suggest wiping out the Jews (murder/genocide) then when I correct/rebuke you, you back off, immediately, as if you didn’t really mean it. You got caught with your pants down on the Jewish thing, you know it, and I know it….you’re an anti-Semite and apparently, an hater, as well, and now revealed as a snowflake, who has sensitivity issues…and, yes, I know very well you are an historian, and an author (not a bad one, either), and a husband and father, and go to Mass at Our Lady of Good Counsel right over in Lake Charles(you’re in my neck of the woods, and it’s possible you’ve even seen me at Church), but, what I’m getting spooked about is you seem to have a very real fixation on me, personally, for some reason, but I must tell you, that I am a serious Catholic, believe in and obey all the precepts of the Church, and am straight, married, and have several kiddos, so I’m not even remotely interested in you, or what you’re trying to do….so, I’d appreciate it if you’d just please…go away, and for your own good, go on a retreat and get things in your personal life straightened out…you seem to have a real problem/fixation with me…please do not respond any more, because I won’t answer you….not even interested. Have a good life. See you around…

          • You are seriously arrogant. And other things that are unmentionable here…

            I don’t think I’m the one fixating. You are projecting, clearly. I’m the last person who would be an anti-Semite. My statement was sarcastic because based on your statements, I’d figured you would agree with it. Glad to see I was wrong

            Anyway, goodbye and good riddance. I’ve wasted enough of my time on you already

    • It’s not your opinion, only, it is historical fact, which can be substantiated. The problem is…those not in agreement use sentimental argumentations and will not dispassionately dispute and research anyhting that is contradictory to their ungrounded perceptions….in other words…their ideas are opinions…yours are historical facts.

      Reply
  14. The Reign of Christ the King in Both Public and Private Life by Michael Davies- cracked open for me the teaching of Pius XI. Add to the list of saints in royal service, the man of all seasons for our times, Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England.

    Reply

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