Christ the King - 30 October AD 2011

“My kingdom is not of this world.... I am a King.... for this I came into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth. And everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”[1]

It is important to understand what our Lord was saying in this brief dialogue with Pontius Pilate, the Roman Prefect under Tiberius Cæsar: «My kingdom is not of this world, but yet My kingdom is in this world. I am not here to threaten Cæsar, or any other legitimate ruler, but rather to guide Cæsar in ruling his people.»

I just used the phrase “legitimate ruler.” That would include any ruler or government—even the government of pagans—that is governed in close accord with the natural moral law. In Christian societies, that natural moral law is expressed in the Law given by God to Moses and further clarified by God’s Son, Jesus Christ, while here on Earth. God and His Church have no complaint against the non-Christian government that follows the natural law. (But, of course, we would hope that such non-Christians would be converted to the Faith through the good example of the their Christian neighbors.)

Modern American people often have trouble understanding the claim of Christ to Kingship, for over the years we have been made to accept the error that freedom means license to do whatever one pleases. This is an error because no society can function without attention to the natural moral law—society will simply break down if people regularly lie, steal, beat, and cheat on one another. Catholics will not force our fellow citizens to accept the Catholic Faith, but we certainly have the right to expect them to follow the laws of “Nature’s God.” The natural law elaborates the “unalienable rights with which men are endowed by their Creator.”[2]

For a long period in the history of Western Civilization, Christ did reign over society through His Church. The Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire and encouraged the growth of the Church early in the fourth century. Bishops and Popes were able to regulate the morality of the empire, and to broker treaties of peace between nations for over a thousand years. Only with the rise of the religion of Martin Luther was this authority eroded. Only with the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, at the end of the Thirty Years War, do we see a major international agreement made without the participation of the Papacy.

The so-called “Reformation” gave way to another euphemistically named period called the “Enlightenment”—an intellectual movement that tried to discover a formula for the “brotherhood of man” without God. Often this movement was hostile to the Church, which still insisted on the rule of Christ the King. Freemasonry and a number of related organizations fomented anticlerical revolutions in many of the countries of Europe. “Elite” socialists and Marxists endeavored to enslave the peoples of the world, depriving them of their prosperity and the rights given them by “Nature’s God.”

During World War I, Pope Benedict XV formulated a seven point plan for ending the war. His plan was refused, and the Allies secretly agreed to exclude him from peace negotiations when the war ended.[3] The Allied plan included a League of Nations, of which the Pope was properly critical for it excluded any idea of Christian charity, and accompanied a peace treaty that was at once ruinous and vindictive in its treatment of the conquered nations.[4] Pope Benedict was proven correct by the rise of Adolf Hitler in response to the enormous war “reparations” Germany was forced to pay.

Between the two wars, in 1925, Pope Pius XI established this feast of Christ the King. In order to demonstrate the need for Christ’s rule in the here and now, the feast was assigned to this time in October, weeks before the end of the liturgical year. He ordered that each year Catholics re-consecrate the human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Pius’ encyclical, Quas primas, opened with the following words:

It is significant that the same Pope, Pius XI in his encyclical on the working man said: “Religious socialism, [and] Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”[6] Private property is a God given right,

At Christmas of 1942, at the height of World War II, the saintly Pope Pius XII, issued a message much like that of Benedict XV, calling on the belligerent powers to adopt a Christ-centered approach toward ending hostilities and preserving the peace.[7] He was refused, and when the United Nations was formed at the end of the war the Vatican was refused membership in the organization.[8]

In the intervening years it has become abundantly clear that Christ has been dethroned as King, both in our own nation and in the United Nations. At home, prayer is forbidden in schools and public gatherings; divorce, contraception, and even abortion are freely available: it is forbidden to criticize even the most abhorrent behavior. In some places one can go to jail for “hate speech,” just for speaking the truth.

The United Nations—of which we are a member—is yet worse. The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires governments to interfere with parents’ ability to raise their own children: how they are educated, what they eat, with whom they associate, their practice or non‑practice of religion, how they may be disciplined. The government must require prospective parents to obtain a revocable parenting license, provide state-run day care, prosecute parents who violate the convention, and seize the children of violators.[9]

Something called United Nations Agenda 21 seeks to regulate virtually every aspect of human life on earth, ostensibly in the name of protecting the environment. If ratified by the Senate, Agenda 21 threatens to decrease the human population of the earth through abortion, contraception, and starvation. Parental rights, property rights, water rights, mining rights, navigation rights, and fishing rights will be sharply curtailed; use of electrical and other forms of energy will be strictly regulated and very expensive. I am not making any of this up. It is available on line, in a document as thick as a telephone book.[10] Remember UN Agenda 21—you have not heard the last of it.

Since the 1960s it has become apparent that the errors of the “Enlightenment” have penetrated even the upper circles of our Catholic Church. While the Popes are protected from teaching errors in faith and morals as heads of the Church, they are certainly not infallible in political matters. On October 4, 1965, Pope Paul VI would speak before the General Assembly and refer to the United Nations as mankind’s “last hope of concord and peace.... the world's greatest hope.”[11] One would have expected him to say that Jesus Christ was mankind’s greatest hope, and not the United Nations. The new Catechism calls for disarming people and nations, while arming the United Nations.[12] A recent encyclical repeatedly called for redistribution of wealth and for “for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth.”[13]

Just a few days ago, the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace issued a call for the UN to take over the world monetary and financial system—the nightmare we know as the Federal Reserve would become the world’s counterfeiter!!! The UN would manage everyone’s wealth and credit!!! And, if that were not enough, the documents authors also add “peace and security; disarmament and arms control; promotion and protection of fundamental human rights; management of the economy and development policies; management of the migratory flows and food security, and protection of the environment.... for example.”[14] This is the plague of the New World Order writ large. “Peace and Justice,” indeed!

And, of course, the Novus Ordo now celebrates the Feast of Christ the King as the last Sunday of the liturgical year, as though the reign of Christ will come only at the end of time.

Today, by direction of Pope Pius XI we will renew the Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We will pray:

When we say these words before the Blessed Sacrament, we must remember that we are praying for ourselves and our families, for our nation, and for our Church. The world’s great hope is not the United Nations—it is none other than Jesus Christ, our King.

NOTES:

[1] Gospel: John xviii: 33-37 http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=50&ch=18&l=33#x

[2] Cf. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

[3] http://www.answers.com/topic/pope-benedict-xv

[4] Cf. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xv/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xv_enc_23051920_pacem-dei-munus-pulcherrimum_en.html

[5] http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas_en.html

[6] Quadragesimo Anno, No. 120 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html

[7] http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12CH42.HTM

[8] http://www.sjupress.com/shop/sjupress/49.html

[9] UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm

[10] http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_00.shtml

[11] http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pope/UN-1965.html

[12] Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2308, 2316.

[13] Caritas in veritate, No.67. Italics in the original, boldface emphasis supplied) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html#67.
My comments on the encyclical are at http://www.rosarychurch.net/comment/caritas_in_veritate.html

[14] http://www.zenit.org/article-33718?l=english

Feast of Christ the King (Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost)

30 October A.D. 2011