"I Will Reign In Spite Of All Who Oppose Me"
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
The King Whose Universal Sovereignty over us we celebrate today was not chosen in an election of any kind. Indeed, the King of Kings, He Who is the King of both men and nations, was roundly rejected in a plebiscite taken by Pontius Pilate on Good Friday. Our sins, having transcended time, motivated the crowd to cry out for the release of Barabbas, the insurrectionist who was promising the Jewish people liberation from the cruelty of their Roman oppressors by the force of the sword:
Pilate therefore went into the hall again, and called Jesus, and said to him: Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus answered: Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or have others told it thee of me? Pilate answered: Am I a Jew? Thy own nation, and the chief priests, have delivered thee up to me: what hast thou done?
Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. Pilate saith to him: What is truth? And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him. But you have a custom that I should release one unto you at the pasch: will you, therefore, that I release unto you the king of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying: Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. (John 18: 37-40.)
So much for elections, huh? The crowd voted for what they believed to be the "lesser of the two evils" on Good Friday. They were even bribed to do so. And Pontius Pilate, much like the careerist Catholic politicians today, washed his hands of the decision of the "majority," taking refuge in the "vote" of the "people."
It is not for nothing that a true champion of the Social Reign of Christ the King, Pope Pius IX, observed the following concerning the nature of the "universal franchise" that had come into vogue during his pontificate:
To allow the masses, invariably uninformed and impulsive, to make decisions on the most serious matters, is this not to hand oneself over to chance and deliberately run towards the abyss? Yes, it would be more appropriate to call universal suffrage universal madness and, when the secret societies have taken control of it as is all too often the case, universal falsehood." (Pope Pius IX, Statement to French pilgrims, May 5, 1874, cited by Abbe Georges de Nantes, CCR # 333, p. 24.)
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not an constitutional monarch. He is monarch of men and their nations by Divine and acquired rights, as Pope Pius XI explained in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, the encyclical letter that instituted this annual Feast the Universal Kingship of Jesus Christ to stress His Social Kingship as the antidote to all of the secular, nationalistic and anti-clerical ideologies that had sprung forth by that time, one quarter of the way through the Twentieth Century:
This same doctrine of the Kingship of Christ which we have found in the Old Testament is even more clearly taught and confirmed in the New. The Archangel, announcing to the Virgin that she should bear a Son, says that "the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."
Moreover, Christ himself speaks of his own kingly authority: in his last discourse, speaking of the rewards and punishments that will be the eternal lot of the just and the damned; in his reply to the Roman magistrate, who asked him publicly whether he were a king or not; after his resurrection, when giving to his Apostles the mission of teaching and baptizing all nations, he took the opportunity to call himself king, confirming the title publicly, and solemnly proclaimed that all power was given him in heaven and on earth. These words can only be taken to indicate the greatness of his power, the infinite extent of his kingdom. What wonder, then, that he whom St. John calls the "prince of the kings of the earth" appears in the Apostle's vision of the future as he who "hath on his garment and on his thigh written 'King of kings and Lord of lords!'." It is Christ whom the Father "hath appointed heir of all things";"for he must reign until at the end of the world he hath put all his enemies under the feet of God and the Father."
It was surely right, then, in view of the common teaching of the sacred books, that the Catholic Church, which is the kingdom of Christ on earth, destined to be spread among all men and all nations, should with every token of veneration salute her Author and Founder in her annual liturgy as King and Lord, and as King of Kings. And, in fact, she used these titles, giving expression with wonderful variety of language to one and the same concept, both in ancient psalmody and in the Sacramentaries. She uses them daily now in the prayers publicly offered to God, and in offering the Immaculate Victim. The perfect harmony of the Eastern liturgies with our own in this continual praise of Christ the King shows once more the truth of the axiom: Legem credendi lex statuit supplicandi. The rule of faith is indicated by the law of our worship.
The foundation of this power and dignity of Our Lord is rightly indicated by Cyril of Alexandria. "Christ," he says, "has dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped, but his by essence and by nature." His kingship is founded upon the ineffable hypostatic union. From this it follows not only that Christ is to be adored by angels and men, but that to him as man angels and men are subject, and must recognize his empire; by reason of the hypostatic union Christ has power over all creatures. But a thought that must give us even greater joy and consolation is this that Christ is our King by acquired, as well as by natural right, for he is our Redeemer. Would that they who forget what they have cost their Savior might recall the words: "You were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled." We are no longer our own property, for Christ has purchased us "with a great price"; our very bodies are the "members of Christ."
Let Us explain briefly the nature and meaning of this lordship of Christ. It consists, We need scarcely say, in a threefold power which is essential to lordship. This is sufficiently clear from the scriptural testimony already adduced concerning the universal dominion of our Redeemer, and moreover it is a dogma of faith that Jesus Christ was given to man, not only as our Redeemer, but also as a law-giver, to whom obedience is due. Not only do the gospels tell us that he made laws, but they present him to us in the act of making them. Those who keep them show their love for their Divine Master, and he promises that they shall remain in his love. He claimed judicial power as received from his Father, when the Jews accused him of breaking the Sabbath by the miraculous cure of a sick man. "For neither doth the Father judge any man; but hath given all judgment to the Son." In this power is included the right of rewarding and punishing all men living, for this right is inseparable from that of judging. Executive power, too, belongs to Christ, for all must obey his commands; none may escape them, nor the sanctions he has imposed.
This kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things. That this is so the above quotations from Scripture amply prove, and Christ by his own action confirms it. On many occasions, when the Jews and even the Apostles wrongly supposed that the Messiah would restore the liberties and the kingdom of Israel, he repelled and denied such a suggestion. When the populace thronged around him in admiration and would have acclaimed him King, he shrank from the honor and sought safety in flight. Before the Roman magistrate he declared that his kingdom was not of this world. The gospels present this kingdom as one which men prepare to enter by penance, and cannot actually enter except by faith and by baptism, which, though an external rite, signifies and produces an interior regeneration. This kingdom is opposed to none other than to that of Satan and to the power of darkness. It demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice, and more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross.
Christ as our Redeemer purchased the Church at the price of his own blood; as priest he offered himself, and continues to offer himself as a victim for our sins. Is it not evident, then, that his kingly dignity partakes in a manner of both these offices?
Yes, Our King, Christ the King, is King by Divine and acquired rights. His empire, as Pope Pius XI went on to quote Pope Leo XIII's Annum Sacram, May 25, 1899, extends to nations as well as to men:
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. Nevertheless, during his life on earth he refrained from the exercise of such authority, and although he himself disdained to possess or to care for earthly goods, he did not, nor does he today, interfere with those who possess them. Non eripit mortalia qui regna dat caelestia.
Thus the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: "His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ." Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for 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. "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved." He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. "For a nation is happy when its citizens are happy. What else is a nation but a number of men living in concord?" 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. What We said at the beginning of Our Pontificate concerning the decline of public authority, and the lack of respect for the same, is equally true at the present day. "With God and Jesus Christ," we said, "excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation."
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. Our Lord's regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen's duty of obedience. It is for this reason that St. Paul, while bidding wives revere Christ in their husbands, and slaves respect Christ in their masters, warns them to give obedience to them not as men, but as the vicegerents of Christ; for it is not meet that men redeemed by Christ should serve their fellow-men. "You are bought with a price; be not made the bond-slaves of men." If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. The result will be a stable peace and tranquillity, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man. Peace and harmony, too, will result; for with the spread and the universal extent of the kingdom of Christ men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them together, and thus many conflicts will be either prevented entirely or at least their bitterness will be diminished.
If the kingdom of Christ, then, receives, as it should, all nations under its way, there seems no reason why we should despair of seeing that peace which the King of Peace came to bring on earth -- he who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, who, though Lord of all, gave himself to us as a model of humility, and with his principal law united the precept of charity; who said also: "My yoke is sweet and my burden light." Oh, what happiness would be Ours if all men, individuals, families, and nations, would but let themselves be governed by Christ! "Then at length," to use the words addressed by our predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, twenty-five years ago to the bishops of the Universal Church, "then at length will many evils be cured; then will the law regain its former authority; peace with all its blessings be restored. Men will sheathe their swords and lay down their arms when all freely acknowledge and obey the authority of Christ, and every tongue confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father."
Please tell me which one of the major organized naturalist crime family candidates for President of the United States of America is for Christ the King? Please tell me. Barack Hussein Obama, the Marxist, or John Sidney McCain III, who has run an campaign even more inept than Robert Joseph Dole, Jr., in 1996 (but who still stands a chance, albeit a most slim one, to win in spite of himself and his incoherent naturalism)? Which one is for Christ the King?
Barack Hussein Obama, who supports baby-killing both chemical and surgical on demand, among many other evils?
John Sidney McCain III, who supports surgical baby-killing in some instances and chemical baby-killing by means of contraceptives?
Barack Hussein Obama, who believes that Roe v. Wade should remain the law of the land?
John Sidney McCain III, who believes that state legislatures have the "right" to permit or prohibit abortion according to the "will" of the people in a particular state?
Barack Hussein Obama, who believes that legitimate national sovereignty should be surrendered to globalist organizations?
John Sidney McCain III, who believes in squandering American lives--and the lives of countless innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere--to spread American "exceptionalism" as the foundation of the "just society" in other nations, to say nothing of forever doing the bidding of the State of Israel?
Barack Hussein Obama, who believes in the power of the state to "solve" social problems by the use of the confiscatory taxing power of the Federal government to "redistribute" the wealth?
John Sidney McCain III, who believes in the power of the state to help corporations when their usurious policies cause millions of people to lose their pensions?
Barack Hussein Obama, who calls himself a "Christian" while he supports the mystical dismemberment of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the persons of preborn children in their mothers' wombs?
John Sidney McCain III, who calls himself a "Christians" while he supports the mystical dismemberment of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the persons of preborn children in their mothers' wombs in certain "hard" cases?
Barack Hussein Obama, who was trained by a Communist, the late Frank Marshall Davis, and who for over twenty years was a "parishioner" of the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright?
John Sidney McCain III, who is advised by the same Jewish neoconservatives who gave us the moral, economic and geopolitical disaster that has been the invasion and occupation of Iraq?
Could Barack Hussein Obama or John Sidney McCain III explicate the tenets of the Just War Theory?
Could either Barack Hussein Obama or John Sidney McCain III agree with one blessed word of Paragraph Three of Pope Saint Pius X's Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906?
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. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error." (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)
No one has any obligation to aid and albeit the false, naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian farce that is American electoral politics, where no one but no one stands for Christ the King as He has revealed Himself through His true Church at the presidential and vice presidential levels. Oh, yes, people are free to do so. Morally obliged? Not when candidates support a variety of grave evils and who do not have the honor and glory of God and who do not have at heart the good of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem. The decision to vote depends on a number of variables that I outlined in When Lesser is Greater, and a decision not to vote for anyone whose words and actions make him an enemy of the Social Reign of Christ the King is thoroughly defensible.
But what about Pope Pius XII's allocutions on the moral obligation to vote? All right, what about them?
Pope Pius XII addressed the issue of voting in 1946 and 1948 to the priests of the Diocese of Rome at a time when the Communist Party of Italy was threatening to take control of the Italian Parliament (Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic). There were Catholic-based political parties that were attempting to thwart a Communist takeover in a country where the Faith, although it had been battered by the anticlerical Freemasons of the Risorgimento, was still alive in the hearts and souls of many millions of Italians. Pope Pius XII's remarks must be read in the historical context of the urgency of preventing a Communist takeover of Italy at the ballot box. Anyone who presents his remarks without providing their historical context is oversimplifying a matter that involves the application of the Catholic moral principle of proportionality in the concrete circumstances of a particular election.
But couldn't Pope Pius XII's allocutions on the moral obligation to vote apply in the United States of America? Yes, if, that is, there were candidates who had the interests of God and the good of souls at heart. This is a judgment. I have demonstrated the ways in which both major political party candidates for the office of President of the United States of America are decisive threats to souls and thus to social order. I have zero moral obligation to enable the careers of men who are hostile to many of the laws of God and thus the temporal and eternal good of souls. Zero moral obligation, as in none.
Father Peter Scott of the Society of Saint Pius X wrote the following in January of 2007 about the allocutions of Pope Pius XII on voting:
It is certainly true that the modernists consider democracy, and the right to vote, as sacrosanct, an immediate consequence of human dignity, directly connected with their humanistic religion.
Reacting against this, knowing as we do how much the electoral system is unjust, realizing how much modern democracy is based upon the false liberal principle of human freedom, escaping from all objective divine and moral law as it does, aware of how little real choice there is between the candidates, as also of how false is the impression that one man’s vote is really going to make a difference to such a secular, ungodly system–we might easily conclude that there is no obligation to vote at all.
Yet the Church’s teaching on the subject is not anything new. Without approving the modern system of democracy and its false principle of the sovereignty of the people, the Church nevertheless binds us to contribute towards the common good of society, by an obligation of legal justice. This principle is expressed well by Pope Pius XII in his April 20, 1946, discourse to Italian Catholic Action:
The people is called on to take an always larger part in the public life of the nation. This participation brings with it grave responsibilities. Hence the necessity for the faithful to have clear, solid, precise knowledge of their duties in the moral and religious domain with respect to their exercise of their civil rights, and in particular of the right to vote.
In fact, Pope Pius XII had clearly explained that it is precisely on account of the anti-Catholic and secular spirit that surrounds Catholics that they have the duty to defend the Church by the correct exercise of their right to vote. It is to prevent a greater evil. He had stated on March 16, 1946, to the parish priests of Rome:
The exercise of the right to vote is an act of grave moral responsibility, at least with respect to the electing of those who are called to give to a country its constitution and its laws, and in particular those that affect the sanctification of holy days of obligation, marriage, the family, schools and the just and equitable regulation of many social questions. It is the Church’s duty to explain to the faithful the moral duties that flow from this electoral right.
Pope Pius XII was even more explicit two years later, again when speaking to the parish priests of Rome. He explained that in the precise circumstances of the time it was an obligation under pain of mortal sin for all the faithful to use their vote, and this even for women. Although it is certainly true that in the traditional conception of democracy it is only the heads of families who vote, it is perfectly permissible for women to use the right of vote when it is granted, and in fact it becomes an obligation to do so when the common good depends upon all Catholics using their vote correctly.
Here is the text of March 10, 1948:
In the present circumstances, it is a strict obligation for all those who have the right to vote, men and women, to take part in the elections. Whoever abstains from doing so, in particular by indolence or weakness, commits a sin grave in itself, a mortal fault. Each one must follow the dictate of his own conscience. However, it is obvious that the voice of conscience imposes on every Catholic to give his vote to the candidates who offer truly sufficient guarantees for the protection of the rights of God and of souls, for the true good of individuals, families and of society, according to the love of God and Catholic moral teaching.
This application of the Church’s social teaching to the particular situation of the time is in accord with the teaching of the moral theologians, who speak of the grave sin of omission for those who simply neglect to elect good, Catholic representatives, and of the duty of doing all in our power of encouraging suitable laymen to work towards using the electoral system to obtain worthy lawmakers.
However, how far removed we are from this situation! Clearly, we are no longer in the circumstance of having to change between Catholic and non-Catholic, morally upright and liberal representatives. All the alternatives are liberal, the deception and the manipulation of the public by the media is rampant. In practice, it generally comes down to the question of whether or not it is permissible to vote for an unworthy candidate (e.g., a candidate who only approves abortion in cases of rape or incest), for he would at least (we suppose) be the lesser evil. In such a case, there can be no obligation to vote, for all the reasons that could oblige, mentioned by Pope Pius XII, no longer apply.
Nevertheless, it is still permissible to vote in such a case, provided that one can be sure that there truly is a lesser evil, and that there is a grave reason to do so (e.g., to avoid abortion on demand, or promotion of unnatural methods of birth control), and one has the good intention of providing for the good of society as best one can. This is called material cooperation. However, it can never be obligatory.
Consequently, in the rare case that there is a clearly, publicly Catholic candidate who supports the teaching of the Church, there is a strict moral obligation to vote, under pain of mortal sin. Where there is a clear gain possible from the correct use of a vote for some other candidate, it can be recommended or counseled. However, when there is no clear advantage it would be better to abstain, so as not to contribute even to a material participation. (Angelus Online)
No one who has an ounce of intellectual honesty can contend that there is one candidate among the presidential and vice presidential nominees of the major political parties in the United States of America who supports the teaching of the Church. Not one. (And let's take 1948, the year of Pope Pius XII's second allocution to the priests of Rome: Please tell me which presidential candidate of the United States of America supported the teaching of the Catholic Church? The Freemason Harry Truman? The WASP Thomas E. Dewey. The Communist apologist Henry Agard Wallace? The Freemason and segregationist Strom Thurmond? Some well-meaning Americanist authors, men who never understood for one blessed moment the false premises of the American founding, have used Pope Pius XII's allocutions on voting without discussing the qualifications include by the late pontiff or without realizing that American politics and politicians do not favor the cause of the Catholic Church or the good of souls. Truth matters. We must apply papal dicta in the concrete circumstances in which we find ourselves. Facts matter.)
But what about Pope Pius XII's allocution to an international conference on voting in 1951 that some are citing in their parish bulletins? All right, what about this allocution. It contains the exact same qualifications and conditions that were contained in the 1948 allocution to the priests of Rome.
It is a right and a duty to draw the attention of the faithful to draw the attention of the faithful to the extraordinary importance of elections and the moral responsibility which rests on everyone who has the right to vote. Without any doubt, the Church intends to remain outside and above political parties, but how can she remain indifferent to the composition of a Parliament when the Constitution give it power to pass laws which so directly affect the highest religious interests and even the condition of life of the Church herself?....
It is a strict duty for all who have the right, men or women, to take part in the elections. Whoever abstains, especially out of cowardice, commits a grave sin, a mortal fault.
Everyone has the right to vote according to the dictates of his own conscience. Now, it is evident that the voice of this conscience imposes upon every sincere Catholic the duty of giving his or her vote to candidates or those lists of candidates, who really offer sufficient assurances for safeguarding the rights of God and the souls of men, for the real good of individuals, families, and society, according to the law of God and moral Christian doctrine.
Please note the condition to the exercise of the franchise that is contained in the final paragraph of this quotation. The obligation to vote is conditioned on there being candidates who safeguard "the rights of God and the souls of men, for the good of individuals, families, and society, according to the law of God and moral Christian doctrine." I have made a more than defensible case that there are no such candidates running for the President of the United States of America and that there is thus no obligation to vote. Disagree with me? Peachy keen swell. John McCain and and Sarah Heath Palin support grave evils contrary to the rights of God and the souls of men, contrary to the law of God and Christian moral doctrine. I am not obligated under penalty of Mortal Sin to cast my vote for these products of the Protestant Revolution and Judeo-Masonry.
It is also interesting to point out that the text of the conditions attached in Pope Pius XII's 1951 allocution to the conference on emigration is almost identical to that used in his 1948 allocution to the priests of Rome:
In the present circumstances, it is a strict obligation for all those who have the right to vote, men and women, to take part in the elections. Whoever abstains from doing so, in particular by indolence or weakness, commits a sin grave in itself, a mortal fault. Each one must follow the dictate of his own conscience. However, it is obvious that the voice of conscience imposes on every Catholic to give his vote to the candidates who offer truly sufficient guarantees for the protection of the rights of God and of souls, for the true good of individuals, families and of society, according to the love of God and Catholic moral teaching.
These conditions must be applied by the use of our Catholic reason. And anyone who cannot see that evils have advanced by gigantic leaps and bounds in the past forty years as we have gone like lemmings to the polls to vote for naturalists who believe in and have acted upon their false, anti-Incarnational and semi-Pelagian, Protestant and Judeo-Masonic beliefs is in the trapped in the insane asylum of naturalism that gave us such statist monsters enabled by the Catholic vote as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson, William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, and George Walker Bush. Aren't we supposed to learn from our mistakes? There is as little "fixing" the insanity of the American system as there is "fixing" the Novus Ordo or the apostasies of conciliarism by staying "within the structures and fighting for the Faith." (See: A World of Sisyphuses.)
What you choose to do, good readers, is your business. If you want to believe that you are preventing the "greater evil" (Barack Hussein Obama) by voting for the "lesser evil" (John Sidney McCain III) in states where either one of them has an insurmountable lead in the polls, go right ahead. The truth is, however, that no rational good is accomplished in such a situation as the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Those who desire to prevent the "greater evil" by voting for the "lesser evil" in "swing states" are morally free to do if there is indeed a "lesser evil" for whom to vote.
My contention, supported by the documentation of positions of the candidates and the manner in which the so-called "lesser evil" of the year 2000, George Walker Bush, has made a landslide by a Marxist named Barack Hussein Obama possible, is that the so-called "lesser evil" is equivalent to the greater as the devil is able to advance his agenda of darkness more subtly in a "conservative" statist's administration than in a "socialist" statist administration. Disagree? Go right ahead. I will work for the Social Reign of Christ the King by pointing out the errors of naturalism and that the only thing you get when you vote for a naturalist is more naturalism! The devil wins each time, and no Catholic has any moral obligation under the penalty of Mortal Sin to enable this by voting.
Pope Pius XII established a condition for the morally obligatory nature of voting:
However, it is obvious that the voice of conscience imposes on every Catholic to give his vote to the candidates who offer truly sufficient guarantees for the protection of the rights of God and of souls, for the true good of individuals, families and of society, according to the love of God and Catholic moral teaching.
My informed conscience, aware of the actual facts of our political situation and the false principles of the founding of this nation, tells me that there is no candidate who offers "truly sufficient guarantees for the protection of the rights of God and of souls, for the true good of individuals, families and of society, according to the love of God and Catholic moral teaching." This a matter of a prudential judgment in the practical order of things, one that is not made lightly or without a due consideration of governing principles as they relate to the facts of our situation today. And it is a purely personal judgment that is not binding upon anyone else.
What you decide is your business.
I, for one, am not enabling naturalists who do not know Who God is or what He has revealed to men for the sanctification and salvation. I am not enabling naturalists who do not understand that it is impossible for there to be order within nations unless there is order within souls and that it is impossible for there to be order within souls if men and women do not have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace as they submit to everything taught by the Catholic Church as contained in the Deposit of Faith.
The counterfeit church of conciliarism has rejected part and parcel the Social Reign of Christ the King, even going so far as to move the feast from this very day to the "Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time," the last Sunday of the liturgical year prior to Advent in the "reformed" calendar, so as to stress Our Lord's Kingship eschatologically at the end of time. This was a revolutionary change designed to obliterate the very reason why this Feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI.
Pope Pius XI placed the great Feast we celebrate today on this last Sunday of October for two reasons:
First, to give Catholics a feast on a day that Protestants celebrate World Protestant Day;
Second, to signify that just as the liturgical year has yet four weeks to run until the Last Sunday after Pentecost, so is there yet time before Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Second Coming in Glory at the end of time, meaning that He must reign as King of men and nations until that Last Day, on which will the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead will take place.
Pope Pius XI was aware of the fact that very few bishops in the world, especially those in the United States of America, were proclaiming the Social Reign of Christ the King. The late Michael Davies, who was a champion of the the Social Reign of Christ the King, wrote in one of his tracts that Americans did not know of this teaching as it was never taught to them from their pulpits. He was quite correct.
Conscious of this fact, Pope Pius XI understood that a liturgical feast placed near the end of the liturgical year--but not at the end of the liturgical year--might arouse Catholics from their lethargy and to serve as champions of Christ the King so that both men and nations will rally to the cause of the King who became Man for us in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost so as to show forth the fullness of His love by paying back on the gibbet of the Holy Cross the debt that we owed to Him in His Infinity a God for our sins. Pope Pius XI knew that very few people read encyclical letters, that the Church's feasts, commemorated liturgically, speak to the hearts of men more effectually than encyclical letters. It was his hope that the annual celebration of the Feast of the Universal Kingship of Jesus Christ would "reach" men and inspire them to be champions of Christ the King, for whom so many Mexicans were dying as he issued the encyclical letter and for whom so many Spaniards would die a decade later:
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. For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year -- in fact, forever. The church's teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man's nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God's teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life.
History, in fact, tells us that in the course of ages these festivals have been instituted one after another according as the needs or the advantage of the people of Christ seemed to demand: as when they needed strength to face a common danger, when they were attacked by insidious heresies, when they needed to be urged to the pious consideration of some mystery of faith or of some divine blessing. Thus in the earliest days of the Christian era, when the people of Christ were suffering cruel persecution, the cult of the martyrs was begun in order, says St. Augustine, "that the feasts of the martyrs might incite men to martyrdom." The liturgical honors paid to confessors, virgins and widows produced wonderful results in an increased zest for virtue, necessary even in times of peace. But more fruitful still were the feasts instituted in honor of the Blessed Virgin. As a result of these men grew not only in their devotion to the Mother of God as an ever-present advocate, but also in their love of her as a mother bequeathed to them by their Redeemer. Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy. We may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God, who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men's faith, aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before.
The festivals that have been introduced into the liturgy in more recent years have had a similar origin, and have been attended with similar results. When reverence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament had grown cold, the feast of Corpus Christi was instituted, so that by means of solemn processions and prayer of eight days' duration, men might be brought once more to render public homage to Christ. So, too, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.
If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities. This evil spirit, as you are well aware, Venerable Brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. 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. 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. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God's religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. 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. We lamented these in the Encyclical Ubi arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.
Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.
You show me the candidate for public office who takes these words to heart, and I will work as hard for him as I did in my own campaigns for public office and as I campaigned for others who I believed, erroneously as it turned out, were serious Catholics committed to the restoration of the Catholic City.
Alas, this is not the case. We will advance the cause of Christ the King not at the ballot box, as I used to believe.
We will advance the cause of Christ the King by promoting the fulfillment of His Most Blessed Mother's Fatima Message, offering our acts of reparation for our sins and those of the whole world to His Most Sacred Heart through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We will advance the cause of Christ the King with every Rosary we pray.
We will advance the cause of Christ the King with every act of mortification we offer up to Him through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, every bit of humiliation and ostracism and ridicule that we suffer for Him as His totally consecrated slaves through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, every effort we make to form ourselves and our children in the crucible of love that is the Holy Cross as we spend time before Our King in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
We will advance the cause of Christ the King with the Enthroning of our homes to His Most Sacred Heart and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and by refusing to participate in our culture of naturalism thereafter, getting rid of the television once and for all.
We will advance the cause of Christ the King by refusing to enable the careers of naturalists who hate Him and His Holy Church just as much as the Masons in Mexico and the Communists in Spain did as they put thousands upon thousands of Catholics to death as those brave martyrs exclaimed the glorious words made famous by Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., as the bullets pierced his flesh on November 23, 1927:
Viva Cristo Rey!
We must remember these words that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Our King, spoke to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque:
"I will reign in spite of all who oppose Me." (quoted in: The Right Reverend Emile Bougaud. The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, reprinted by TAN Books and Publishers in 1990, p. 361.)
Yes, Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
Pope Saint Evaristus, pray for us.
Saints Chrysanthus and Daria, pray for us.
Saints Simon and Jude, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (Pope Leo XIII, 1899)
Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Thine altar. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but to be more surely united with Thee, behold, each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Thy most Sacred Heart.
Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart.
Be Thou King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken Thee, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned Thee; grant that they may quickly return to their Father's house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger.
Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinion, or whom discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and the unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.
Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God.
Turn Thine eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once Thy chosen people. Of old, they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may It now descend upon them as a laver of redemption and of life.
Grant , O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise be to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to It be glory and honor forever. Amen.
Act of Reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (1928)
O sweetest Jesus, whose overflowing charity towards men is most ungratefully repaid by such great forgetfulness, neglect and contempt, see, prostrate before Thy altars, we strive by special honor to make amends for the wicked coldness of men and the contumely with which Thy most loving Heart is everywhere treated.
At the same time, mindful of the fact that we too have sometimes not been free from unworthiness, and moved therefore with most vehement sorrow, in the first place we implore Thy mercy on us, being prepared by voluntary expiation to make amends for the sins we have ourselves committed, and also for the sins of those who wander far from the way of salvation, whether because, being obstinate in their unbelief, they refuse to follow Thee as their shepherd and leader, or because, spurning the promises of their Baptism, they have cast off the most sweet yoke of Thy law. We now endeavor to expiate all these lamentable crimes together, and it is also our purpose to make amends for each one of them severally: for the want of modesty in life and dress, for impurities, for so many snares set for the minds of the innocent, for the violation of feast days, for the horrid blasphemies against Thee and Thy saints, for the insults offered to Thy Vicar and to the priestly order, for the neglect of the Sacrament of Divine love or its profanation by horrible sacrileges, and lastly for the public sins of nations which resist the rights and the teaching authority of the Church which Thou hast instituted. Would that we could wash away these crimes with our own blood! And now, to make amends for the outrage offered to the Divine honor, we offer to Thee the same satisfaction which Thou didst once offer to Thy Father on the Cross and which Thou dost continually renew on our altars, we offer this conjoined with the expiations of the Virgin Mother and of all the Saints, and of all pious Christians, promising from our heart that so far as in us lies, with the help of Thy grace, we will make amends for our own past sins, and for the sins of others, and for the neglect of Thy boundless love, by firm faith, by a pure way of life, and by a perfect observance of the Gospel law, especially that of charity; we will also strive with all our strength to prevent injuries being offered to Thee, and gather as many as we can to become Thy followers. Receive, we beseech Thee, O most benign Jesus, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Reparatress, the voluntary homage of this expiation, and vouchsafe, by that great gift of final perseverance, to keep us most faithful until death in our duty and in Thy service, so that at length we may all come to that fatherland, where Thou with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest God for ever and ever. Amen.
