Your Catholic Week in Review (Kingship of Christ Edition!)
A few weeks ago, the Gospel told us of the time the Pharisees attempted to trap Our Blessed Lord in a contradiction; would He deny the Jews by telling His followers to pay Roman taxes, or would He deny the Romans by telling the Jews to refuse to pay Roman Taxes. His response was to ask whose image was born upon a coin, and the response was that it was Caesar’s image. So, Our Lord said to them to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to render unto God that which is God’s.”
The drama of this contradiction would be played out during Our Lord’s Passion where the Jews chose to render unto Caesar that which is God’s. Pontius Pilate told Our Lord that He stands accused of being a King, elevating Himself above Caesar. Acknowledging His Kingship, Our Lord responded that His Kingdom is not of this world. Bearing this in mind, Pilate brought Our Lord, scourged and beaten, before the gathered assembly of Jews to ask what he should do with Our Lord. When the Jews replied, “Crucify Him,” Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your King?” And the cruel response of the Jews was that they have no king, but Caesar. After looking upon the image of Caesar on the coin in His hand, Our Lord told the Pharisees to give back to Caesar the things which belongs to him … and in rejecting the Kingship of Christ, the Jews handed the face of God to Caesar.
But the joke would ultimately play out nearly 300 years later when Constantine legally recognized Christianity and made it a crime to persecute Christians. This act would be the first step in the history of the world toward the universal recognition of the Social Kingship of Christ.
In an article published in the Remnant, Michael Davies of happy memory wrote about the “Reign of Christ the King.” In his well-sourced and soundly argued piece, Davies established not only the necessity of the Social Kingship of Christ, but the duty the entire world has to recognize it.
Davies said:
His social kingship can be implemented fully only when Church and State are united. The separation of Church and State was condemned unequivocally by the Roman Pontiffs until the Second Vatican Council. The Church's teaching is that the State has an obligation to render public worship to God in accord with liturgy of the true Church, the Catholic Church, to uphold its teaching, and to aid the Church in the carrying out of her functions. The State does not have the right to remain neutral regarding religion, much less to pursue a secular approach in its policies. A secular approach is by that very fact an anti-God and an anti-Christ approach.
Those who ignore or repudiate the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and His right to rule over societies as well as individuals, accept, perhaps without realizing it, the abominable theory of democracy enshrined in the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man, the declaration which constituted a formal and insolent repudiation of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the declaration which enshrined the greatest heresy of modern times, perhaps of all times: that authority resides in the people. On the contrary, as the Popes have taught, Omnis potestas a Deo—-"All authority comes from God." "Not so!" reply the revolutionaries. Omnis potestas a populo—"All authority comes from the people."
More after the jump …
What struck me most in this portion of Davies’ article was the reversal of authority from God to man. The move from monarchy to democracy in society to a move from monarchy to democracy in the Church becomes an almost foregone conclusion. If one begins to believe that authority to lead in the world is derived from man’s consent to be governed, then it’s not a far jump to conclude that authority in the Church would likewise come from the consent of men as well. This very idea, Davies points out, was well established in the Declaration of the Second Vatican Council on Religious Liberty. Davies wrote:
It is incontestable that Dignitatis humanae, the Declaration of the Second Vatican Council on Religious Liberty, did not reaffirm authentic papal teaching on the social reign of Christ the King. It is certainly arguable that it also contradicts papal teaching on Church and state, teaching which Cardinal Ottaviani described as "part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine."
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The most scholarly defense of Dignitatis humanae was written by an Australian priest, Father Brian Harrison. Father Harrison is a scholar of complete integrity, who makes no attempt to defend what is indefensible. He writes:
- Even more striking than Dignitatis humanae's omission of any obvious reiteration of the obligation of public authorities to recognize Catholicism as uniquely true (not to mention the subsequent removal of prayers and hymns expressing this teaching from the new Mass and Office of Christ the King) is the conciliar Declaration's affirmation of certain ideas which bear at least a prima facie appearance of contradicting previous papal statements. [6]
Father Harrison was not only honest, but prudent, to concede that the social kingship of Christ was not affirmed by Dignitatis humanae, as not one word affirming it can be found anywhere in the Declaration, and his reference to the new Mass and Office of Christ the King is very significant. An accepted principle with regard to liturgical worship is that the doctrinal standpoint of any religious body must necessarily be reflected in its liturgy. This can be summed up by the phrase lex orandi, lex credendi, which can be translated freely as meaning that the manner in which the Church worships, lex orandi, must reflect what the Church believes, lex credendi.
The true import of the new Office can be deduced primarily from what has been removed from the preconciliar Breviary, and a comparison of the two texts reveals the systematic removal or modification of complete prayers or individual phrases which could not be reconciled with the teaching of Dignitatis humanae, that is, prayers which give liturgical expression to the Social Reign of Christ the King, and demand that states as well as individuals must submit themselves to His rule. The same procedure has been applied to the Proper of the Mass for the Feast. An introductory note in the 1952 edition of the St. Andrew Daily Missal explains that:
- Pope Pius XI (whose motto was Pax Christi in regno Christi) instituted the Feast of Christ the King as a solemn affirmation of Our Lord's Kingship of every human society. He is King not only of the soul and conscience, intelligence and will of all men, but also of families and cities, peoples and states and the whole universe. In his encyclical letter Quas primas, the Pope showed how laicism or secularism, organizing society without any reference to God, leads to the apostasy of the masses and the ruin of society, because it is a complete denial of Christ's Kingship. This is one of the great heresies of our time, and the Pope considered that this annual public, social, and official assertion of Christ's divine right of Kingship over men in the liturgy would be an effective means of combatting it.
Pope Pius XI wrote in Quas primas:
- Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honour and obedience to Christ.
Forty years later, almost to the day, by the promulgation of Dignitatis humanae on 7 December 1965, the Church ceased to demand that rulers give public honour and obedience to Christ. The title of the Declaration itself, "The Dignity of the Human Person," epitomizes the man-centred ethos of the Declaration. It is no longer the rights of Christ the King which must take priority but the so called rights of contemporary man, rights which he ascribes to himself in virtue of what is said to be his developing consciousness of his own dignity. In an address to the last Council meeting, on the very day of the promulgation of the Declaration, Pope Paul VI remarked:
- One must realize that this Council, which exposed itself to human judgement, insisted very much more upon this pleasant side of man, rather than his unpleasant one. Its attitude was very much and deliberately optimistic. A wave of affection and admiration flowed from the Council over the modern world of humanity. Errors were condemned, indeed, because charity demanded this no less than did truth, but for the persons themselves there was only warning, respect, and love. Instead of depressing diagnoses, encouraging remedies; instead of direful prognostics, messages of trust issued from the Council to the present-day world. The modem world's values were not only respected but honoured, its efforts approved, its aspirations purified and blessed.
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In my book The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, I have documented in great detail the manner in which Dignitatis humanae abandoned the traditional concept of a Catholic state as taught by the Popes. The term "Catholic State" is not so much as mentioned throughout the entire Declaration. Article 6 accepts the possibility of a religious body being given "special legal recognition," but insists that "it is at the same time imperative that the right of all citizens and religious bodies to religious freedom should be recognized and made effective in practice." This hardly corresponds with the insistence of Pope Leo XIII: "Justice therefore forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness—namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges."
The striking reality of what faces Holy Mother Church now through what is being called a “synodal process” can be traced directly back to the rejection of the Social Kingship of Christ. If Christ is dethroned, then man must step in. And if man steps in, then man’s authority to rule can only be derived from common consent. Dignitatis Humanae, in refusing to reiterate the perennial teaching of Holy Mother Church that Christ is King over ALL the world, laid the groundwork for the hireling to stand in the place of the master and do the bidding of the workers. And so, without Christ as the King of the world, He is likewise toppled within His own Church, and the Synod on Synodality turns its ears to men of flesh who will then cry out in a loud voice, rendering to Caesar that which is God’s, “We have no King, but Caesar.”
Some other headlines you may have missed:
As always, please pray for the Church, for our bishops, priests, deacons, and for Lepanto's mission as we continue to unearth the truth and "restore all things to Christ." (Col. 1:20)
Christus Vincit!
Michael Hichborn
President
Lepanto Insititute
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