When he instituted the Feast of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI went to great lengths to remind Christians of the fact that Christ not only reigns in the hearts and minds of individual men, but He is also ruler of all temporal kingdoms as well. As the Pope put it, “it would be a grave error, on the other hand, to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power” (Quas Primas). Writing nearly a century ago, the Pope’s words remain especially forceful today when we find many Christians trapped by this “grave error.” Many prefer to disengage from civil affairs completely or treat them as if they are wholly divorced from religion. It is this attitude that has gotten us into this mess and it is only through a renewed awareness of our duties toward Christ the King that things will get better.
In an age where almost all the cultural chatter focuses on individual rights, we would be well served to recall that Christ too has rights especially since “all power in Heaven and Earth has been given by His Father”. No society will be just without rendering to Christ His due. As Pope Leo XIII put it, “the people have heard quite enough about what are called the ‘rights of man’. Let them hear about the rights of God for once” (Tamesti). So while we might agree that Christ is King of Heaven and Earth, it is difficult to grasp what that might look like here and now.
Christ’s Kingship Explained
The Church’s understanding of Christ’s Kingship is just an extension of what Our Lord said to Pilate when the Roman Governor tried to pull rank on Him: “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here” (John 18:36).
A cursory reading of Our Lord’s words leads towards two opposite errors. The first is to see His kingdom as completely other worldly, merely spiritual if you will. They read it as “My kingdom does not belong in this world.” This is the “what happens on earth, stays on earth” type mentality that Christians are often accused of by which they show little concern or engagement in civil affairs and simply try to avoid getting caught up in the cultural claptrap so as to remain as unsullied as possible. It is also the mistake that leads us to willingly go along with the model of “Separation of Church and State” that animates most Western societies.
The second error adds to Christ’s words and says, “although my Kingdom is not here, we must bring it here.” These are the Christians who fall into the “Social Justice trap” and ultimately substitute humanitarianism for the Gospel. This approach flattens out Christ’s Kingdom and robs it of its supernatural content. Christ was no utopist nor was He instructing His followers to create some earthly bliss. Even Eden was not the Kingdom of Christ. Men remain fallen and any attempts to build God’s Kingdom on Earth ultimately go the way of the Tower of Babel. His Kingdom must come to us.
If both of these viewpoints twist Christ’s words, then what is the properly Catholic way of viewing the kingship of Christ?
Obviously, Christ’s Kingship is total and found in its full integrity only in the Kingdom that is to come. Still it is a spiritual kingdom that is in, not of, this world that derives its principles from heaven. Its exercise in the here and now is split, a point that Pope Gelasius made in his 4th Treatise to the Emperor Anastasius on the roles of Church and State: “He, indeed because of human weakness, separated the two ministries for the following reason, so that no one might become proud.” Because of man’s fallen nature, Christ has divided His kingdom between the spiritual and temporal.
We might think of the two realms as two concentric circles. The outer circle that pertains to His spiritual kingship is exercised in the Church through the Pope and Bishops who are in union with him. The inner circle represents His temporal kingship that is shared by the rulers of nations. The inner circle, while always with us in essence, grows or shrinks in size according to how much the leaven of the Gospel permeates it. It will always be lacking in some way but its fullest integrity is found when its laws and institutions make it easiest for the Church to fulfill her mission of saving souls. In other words, the best secular regime is that in which both Church and State, while remaining wholly distinct from each other, are pulling in the same direction. Historically we find this as the basis of Christendom and see it most operative in the 13th Century.
A Kingdom Divided Will Not Stand
One immediately grasps why a “Wall of Separation of Church and State” can never be acceptable for Catholics. You can no more separate Church and State than you can separate soul and body. The latter leads to individual death, while the former clears the way for a Culture of Death. You literally cannot separate them because the State will always take the place of the Church when the Church is absent, demanding religious obedience to all its precepts. Absent the Church, Caesar will always demand his pinches of incense, a phenomenon we are witnessing first hand in our own day as political correctness demands more and more religious obedience from both individuals and corporations.
It is not enough then to seek freedom to operate. The Church must be free to inform the State so that all of its moral precepts work toward the salvation of souls. As Pope Leo XIII said, “…it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority”(On Catholicity in America, 26).
This is ultimately why Catholics cannot stand idly by and watch the political realm from a disinterested perspective. There must be active engagement in order that men and women would recognize Christ on His throne. But not only that, souls are being lost specifically because of the laws and institutions in our country. This will not change without us.
We can do no better to summarize the urgency with which we ought to act than to echo the words of Cardinal Pie, the 19th Century prelate who fought so judiciously for the rights of Christ the King:
“If we suppose Catholic social institutions, with Our Lord no longer living in the hearts of the individual members of society, then religion is merely a signboard which will soon disappear. But, on the other hand, try to convert individuals without Catholicizing the social institutions and your work is without stability. The structure you erect in the morning others will tear down in the evening. Is not the strategy of the enemies of God there to teach us a lesson? They want to destroy the faith in the hearts of individuals, it is true, but they direct still more vigorous efforts to the extirpation of religion from social institutions. Even one defeat of God in this domain means the weakening, if not the ruin, of the faith in the souls of many.”