Ruling for Christ the King

[As I noted a few weeks ago, there will be fewer articles on this site in the coming months. The sheer amount of administrative work that I must do in my capacity as the founding president of Christ the King College just does not leave me with a lot of time for the sort of writing I have been doing for many years now. However, there will be about four or five articles on this site every month. This is my first contribution for the month of September. There will be another tomorrow on the fiftieth anniversary of the canonization of Pope Saint Pius X. My apologies for the reduction in the output of articles. Apart from the duties I must fulfill as a husband and a father, the most important work I am doing at present is to launch Christ the King College and to establish it so that it can help to educate traditional Catholics in the authentic patrimony of the true Church for many years to come.]

The liturgical calendar that governs the Immemorial Mass of Tradition contains a richness that one can never fully mine in this passing vale of tears. Recent commentaries of mine have dealt with two exemplars of the Social Reign of Christ the King, Saint Henry and Saint Louis. This article offers a brief reflection on yet another exemplar of the Social Reign of Christ the King, Saint Stephen of Hungary, who was married to the sister of King Henry.

Saint Stephen of Hungary is responsible for bringing the people of his land under the yoke of Christ and His Holy Church, outside of which there is no salvation. He understood very clearly that the exercise of his authority as a civil ruler had to be proscribed by the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law as they were entrusted to and explicated by the Catholic Church. Saint Stephen knew also that he had to scale the heights of personal sanctity on a daily basis in order to be able to see the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and to make choices that were consonant with his own salvation and that of the people over whom he had been placed in civil authority. To this end, therefore, Saint Stephen was assiduous in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and to the Mother of God. He knew that he could rule justly if he did not subordinate everything in his life to the Deposit of Faith Our Lord had entrusted to the true Church and if he did not seek to cooperate with the graces he received so fervently in the sacraments.

Saint Stephen knew that it was not only important to pursue holiness himself. He understood the importance of surrounding himself with advisers who were equally desirous of saving their souls and of pleasing God as He had revealed Himself through the Catholic Church. Saint Stephen, for example, would not have had in his retinue of advisers and courtiers men who supported the destruction of innocent human beings in their mothers' wombs under cover of law (say, a Duke Giuliani or a Count Schwarzenegger, just to pick a few fictional names out of the hat). No, Saint Stephen had in his retinue at his court in Budapest men who understood that the state of a country depended upon the state of individuals souls, that each and every citizen of a country must first be a citizen of the true Church in order to subordinate everything in his life to First and Last Things. Saint Stephen knew that no people could make themselves secure if they countenanced the violation of God's law under the cover of civil law, no less accept advice from and/or extol as virtuous or admirable men who promoted the violation of God's law in the name of "civil liberty" and "human rights."

Moreover, Saint Stephen, like Saint Henry during his own day and Saint Louis who lived two centuries after him, understood that the conditions that bred sin in civil society had to be eradicated by the power of the civil state, which can never be indifferent to the promotion of sin under cover of law or in the popular culture. That is, even though each of us is a sinner who is in constant need of availing himself of God's ineffable mercy in the Sacrament of Penance (and who is need of making reparation for his own sins and those of the whole world, especially by offering up whatever merits earned for offenses borne with forgiveness and sufferings endured justly as a punishment for his own sins as a consecrated slave of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart), there is no civil right to sin with impunity or to advocate its commission by others.

Thus, unlike some contemporary officials who exercise civil authority, Saint Stephen would never say that perverse violations of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments were within the realm of some subordinate civil authority (say, a state or provincial or regional government) to permit. No individual ruler and no collective institution of civil rule (a legislature, a court) has any authority to sanction a violation of the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. As Father Denis Fahey pointed out in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World:

As the final end of man is, however, not merely natural, the State, charged with the temporal social order, must ever act so as not only not to hinder but also to favour the attaining of man's supreme end, the Vision of God in Three Divine Persons. Political thought and political action, therefore, in an ordered State, will respect the jurisdiction and guidance of the Catholic Church, the divinely-instituted guardian of the moral order, remember that what is morally wrong cannot be politically good. Thus the natural or temporal common good of the State will be always aimed at, in the way best calculated to favour the development of true personality, in and through the Mystical Body of Christ. The civil power will then have a purer and higher notion of its proper end, acquired in the full light of Catholic truth, and political action, both in rulers and ruled, will come fully under the influence of supernatural life.

Saint Stephen understood this perfectly. He knew that everything in individual and social life must be subordinated to the reality of the Incarnation of the God-Man in Our Lady's virginal and immaculate womb and to that God-Man's Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross. When this occurs, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortale Dei in 1885, the specific sorts of institutional arrangements that men make to govern themselves will reflect the greater honor and glory of the Blessed Trinity and the temporal and eternal good of the citizens who compose a particular country.

Saint Stephen is thus a saint we should invoke every day for the conversion of the United States of America and the whole world to the Social Reign of Christ the King. The modern state was founded in the specific and categorical rejection of the necessity of belief in Deposit of Faith that Our Lord entrusted to Holy Mother Church for the right ordering of men and their civil societies. The modern state was founded in the specific and categorical rejection of the absolute necessity of a belief in, access to and cooperation with sanctifying grace for individuals to grow in virtue as they attempt to scale the heights of sanctity as consecrated slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Contemporary careerist politicians can bellow all of the hollow and bombastic rhetoric they may like in order to deceive those who believe in nationalistic myths that there is programmatic or ideological way to resolve a nation's problems and/or to secure a nation's borders. The only way by which a nation can ameliorate the effects of Original Sin and Actual Sins and thus make itself truly strong is to submit itself to the Social Reign of Christ the King as it is exercised by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church Our Lord founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

Imploring Saint Stephen to pray for us so that we can be converted away from our own sins and thus be better and more worthy instruments of building up the Social Reign of Christ the King in our own country by first endeavoring to built up the Kingdom of God in our own souls as members of the Catholic Church, we beseech Our Lady to convert the heart of Pope John Paul II to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. As the errors of Russia are the errors of Modernity and Modernism, the Triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart is thus essential to overthrow all of the anti-Incarnational errors of the present and to replace petty men in positions of civil authority with the likes of Saint Stephen, Saint Henry and Saint Louis.

First of all one has to define what the "state is. Many think I mean the totality of the people in the nation, that's an understandable error I suppose in a society where authority is derived from the "consent of the governed" but this is not what is meant in Catholic teaching. What we mean is the actual government appartus.

A state church often imposes on the populace a mandatory observance of that Church, as in Islamic theocracies or Angelican England of the 18th Century, this is not a Christian concept and it is from this flawed concept that the doctrine of "separation of church and state" is derived

Also, from what the article and you both have said, it seems to me that you want a country that is either 100% Catholic, and/or whose social foundation is Catholicism. Where would that leave the 75% of the US that isn't Catholic?

In the view of the Catholic monarchist error has no rights, the state thru the civil law must profess and act on the precepts of the true religion, this is clear from the encyclicals Mirari Vos and Immortale Dei

13. Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that "there is one God, one faith, one baptism"[16] may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that "those who are not with Christ are against Him,"[17] and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore "without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate."[18] Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: "He who is for the See of Peter is for me."[19] A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: "The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?"[20]

14. This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say.[21] When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit"[22] is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

6. As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose everbounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -- it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavor should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the wellbeing of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.

This does not mean that the state imposes observance on the people, that is not its role. However it does conform the laws to truth.

I recommned the entire encyclical Immortale Dei for more depth of discussion

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13sta.htm

"My kingdom is not of this world." - Christ the Only Mediator Between God and Man

An incorrect reading of scripture for the Lutheran tradition.

"What does it mean to say that "error has no rights," when you're talking about government? Are you referring to a belief that all religions other than Catholicism are false, and thus "other religions" have "no rights" in the "Catholic state?" That'd be correct, yes.

Politics is the morality of a society - laws define what is right and wrong in the public sphere so ideas have consequences.

Think of it this way, would you want airplanes built with a false understanding of mathematics? Or medicine practiced with a flawed understanding of biology? Would you just hand the medical student the textbook one day and his diploma the next? Would you tell him to apply the knowledge within at his own discretion?

Of course you wouldn't, that wouldn't be rational. But this is exactly what we do when we deny the teachings of the Church that cannot err on matters of faith and morals, in fact it is worse because the instructors at a Medical school can teach error.

Much like the patient under the care of an incompetent doctor, Western civilization is slowing dying of the cancer of liberalism.

500 years after Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses is the world better off?

The Catholic Church calls the 20th Century the Century of Martyrs because more people were martryed in in that in all other centuries combined ! More people were murdered by their own governments in the 20th Century than were alive at the time of Christ ! Racism, nationalism, athiesm,statism have all been the spawn of liberal political theory. Its a line of error built upon error: Decartes, Hobbes, Locke, Rosseau, Voltaire, Nietsche, Marx.

IOW, are you suggesting that the US no longer be a constitutional republic based on the consent of the governed?

Not sure what IOW means.

Personally no, I have no love for democracy or republicanism. I think it enshries the error of the masses.

Becuse of original sin evil ideas are likely to win the public debate. Radical egalitarianism is contrary to human nature, capitialism enshrines greed and socialism/communism enshries envy. One shouldn't base a society on a cardinal sin.

Although the Angelic Doctor himself stated:

I answer that, We must of necessity say that the world is governed by one. For since the end of the government of the world is that which is essentially good, which is the greatest good; the government of the world must be the best kind of government. Now the best government is the government by one. The reason of this is that government is nothing but the directing of the things governed to the end; which consists in some good. But unity belongs to the idea of goodness, as Boethius proves (De Consol. iii, 11) from this, that, as all things desire good, so do they desire unity; without which they would cease to exist. For a thing so far exists as it is one. Whence we observe that things resist division, as far as they can; and the dissolution of a thing arises from defect therein. Therefore the intention of a ruler over a multitude is unity, or peace. Now the proper cause of unity is one. For it is clear that several cannot be the cause of unity or concord, except so far as they are united. Furthermore, what is one in itself is a more apt and a better cause of unity than several things united. Therefore a multitude is better governed by one than by several. From this it follows that the government of the world, being the best form of government, must be by one. This is expressed by the Philosopher (Metaph. xii, Did. xi, 10): "Things refuse to be ill governed; and multiplicity of authorities is a bad thing, therefore there should be one ruler." Summa Theological, 103

- the Church herself has no specific teaching on the form of government, only it's purpose, which is to provide for the common good and assist the Church in the salvation of souls:

1886 Society is essential to the fulfillment of the human vocation. To attain this aim, respect must be accorded to the just hierarchy of values, which "subordinates physical and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones:"8

Human society must primarily be considered something pertaining to the spiritual. Through it, in the bright light of truth, men should share their knowledge, be able to exercise their rights and fulfill their obligations, be inspired to seek spiritual values; mutually derive genuine pleasure from the beautiful, of whatever order it be; always be readily disposed to pass on to others the best of their own cultural heritage; and eagerly strive to make their own the spiritual achievements of others. These benefits not only influence, but at the same time give aim and scope to all that has bearing on cultural expressions, economic, and social institutions, political movements and forms, laws, and all other structures by which society is outwardly established and constantly developed.9

1887 The inversion of means and ends,10 which results in giving the value of ultimate end to what is only a means for attaining it, or in viewing persons as mere means to that end, engenders unjust structures which "make Christian conduct in keeping with the commandments of the divine Law-giver difficult and almost impossible."11

1888 It is necessary, then, to appeal to the spiritual and moral capacities of the human person and to the permanent need for his inner conversion, so as to obtain social changes that will really serve him. The acknowledged priority of the conversion of heart in no way eliminates but on the contrary imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin, so that they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder it.12

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1886 - 1888

I don't see how a secularized state that denies the true Church and all She teaches can possibly result in a just society.

"A monopoly in religion is, if anything, much worse than an economic monopoly. Let the free market of thought reign!"

Only if you consider all religions an equal commodity.

This is a pernicious idea of Americanism, I've actually talked with Catholics that make the same error, comparing a Catholic theocracy with an Islamic theocracy, as if one were no different from the other!

This is why Protestantism underlies moral relativism. The Protestant relies on his own judgement and interpetation, detached from Tradition and the infallible Magesterium.

Think of it this way, were all conservatives here (although I would call myself a traditionalist conservative), so I assume you are familiar with the basis of conservative philosophy?

Societies are complicated, making sudden and radical changes to any one part is likely to have unexpected consequences.

I don't think Luther intended to initate the collapse of Christendom and spawn liberal philsophy that would lead back to paganism and athiesm in Europe when he posted his 95 Theses, but he did. He called into question the moral authority of the Christian world

Telling me I have no right to my own opinion will not get you anywhere with me.

You cannot separate freedom from truth

102. Even in the most difficult situations man must respect the norm of morality so that he can be obedient to God's holy commandment and consistent with his own dignity as a person. Certainly, maintaining a harmony between freedom and truth occasionally demands uncommon sacrifices, and must be won at a high price: it can even involve martyrdom. But, as universal and daily experience demonstrates, man is tempted to break that harmony: "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want" (Rom 7:15, 19).

What is the ultimate source of this inner division of man? His history of sin begins when he no longer acknowledges the Lord as his Creator and himself wishes to be the one who determines, with complete independence, what is good and what is evil. "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:5): this was the first temptation, and it is echoed in all the other temptations to which man is more easily inclined to yield as a result of the original Fall

62. Conscience, as the judgment of an act, is not exempt from the possibility of error. As the Council puts it, "not infrequently conscience can be mistaken as a result of invincible ignorance, although it does not on that account forfeit its dignity; but this cannot be said when a man shows little concern for seeking what is true and good, and conscience gradually becomes almost blind from being accustomed to sin".107 In these brief words the Council sums up the doctrine which the Church down the centuries has developed with regard to the erroneous conscience.

Certainly, in order to have a "good conscience" (1 Tim 1:5), man must seek the truth and must make judgments in accordance with that same truth. As the Apostle Paul says, the conscience must be "confirmed by the Holy Spirit" (cf. Rom 9:1); it must be "clear" (2 Tim 1:3); it must not "practise cunning and tamper with God's word", but "openly state the truth" (cf. 2 Cor 4:2). On the other hand, the Apostle also warns Christians: "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom 12:2).

Paul's admonition urges us to be watchful, warning us that in the judgments of our conscience the possibility of error is always present. Conscience is not an infallible judge; it can make mistakes. However, error of conscience can be the result of an invincible ignorance, an ignorance of which the subject is not aware and which he is unable to overcome by himself.

The Council reminds us that in cases where such invincible ignorance is not culpable, conscience does not lose its dignity, because even when it directs us to act in a way not in conformity with the objective moral order, it continues to speak in the name of that truth about the good which the subject is called to seek sincerely.

63. In any event, it is always from the truth that the dignity of conscience derives. In the case of the correct conscience, it is a question of the objective truth received by man; in the case of the erroneous conscience, it is a question of what man, mistakenly, subjectively considers to be true. It is never acceptable to confuse a "subjective" error about moral good with the "objective" truth rationally proposed to man in virtue of his end, or to make the moral value of an act performed with a true and correct conscience equivalent to the moral value of an act performed by following the judgment of an erroneous conscience.108 It is possible that the evil done as the result of invincible ignorance or a non-culpable error of judgment may not be imputable to the agent; but even in this case it does not cease to be an evil, a disorder in relation to the truth about the good. Furthermore, a good act which is not recognized as such does not contribute to the moral growth of the person who performs it; it does not perfect him and it does not help to dispose him for the supreme good. Thus, before feeling easily justified in the name of our conscience, we should reflect on the words of the Psalm: "Who can discern his errors? Clear me from hidden faults" (Ps 19:12). There are faults which we fail to see but which nevertheless remain faults, because we have refused to walk towards the light (cf. Jn 9:39-41).

Conscience, as the ultimate concrete judgment, compromises its dignity when it is culpably erroneous, that is to say, "when man shows little concern for seeking what is true and good, and conscience gradually becomes almost blind from being accustomed to sin".109 Jesus alludes to the danger of the conscience being deformed when he warns: "The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" (Mt 6:22-23).

64. The words of Jesus just quoted also represent a call to form our conscience, to make it the object of a continuous conversion to what is true and to what is good. In the same vein, Saint Paul exhorts us not to be conformed to the mentality of this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our mind (cf. Rom 12:2). It is the "heart" converted to the Lord and to the love of what is good which is really the source of true judgments of conscience. Indeed, in order to "prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom 12:2), knowledge of God's law in general is certainly necessary, but it is not sufficient: what is essential is a sort of "connaturality" between man and the true good.110 Such a connaturality is rooted in and develops through the virtuous attitudes of the individual himself: prudence and the other cardinal virtues, and even before these the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. This is the meaning of Jesus' saying: "He who does what is true comes to the light" (Jn 3:21).

Christians have a great help for the formation of conscience in the Church and her Magisterium. As the Council affirms: "In forming their consciences the Christian faithful must give careful attention to the sacred and certain teaching of the Church. For the Catholic Church is by the will of Christ the teacher of truth. Her charge is to announce and teach authentically that truth which is Christ, and at the same time with her authority to declare and confirm the principles of the moral order which derive from human nature itself ".111 It follows that the authority of the Church, when she pronounces on moral questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of Christians. This is so not only because freedom of conscience is never freedom "from" the truth but always and only freedom "in" the truth, but also because the Magisterium does not bring to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous to it; rather it brings to light the truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith. The Church puts herself always and only at the service of conscience, helping it to avoid being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine proposed by human deceit (cf. Eph 4:14), and helping it not to swerve from the truth about the good of man, but rather, especially in more difficult questions, to attain the truth with certainty and to abide in it.

Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth, John Paul II, 1993)

I'll tell you when it hit me, I was a good little libertarian/conservative who became interested in philosphy and the Catholic faith. I was listening to recordings of ArchBishop Fulton Sheen. He connected the dots on the whole "do not eat of the tree of good and evil" thing for me. Man desires to turn his back on God and his Church, to do what he wants instead of what he must. We must demonstrate the faith and trust of little children in order to come into the Kingdom of God.

I highly recommned the above referenced encyclical, it is perhaps the most profound work in moral theology in the last 500 years.

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