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The Reign Of Christ The King—In Both Public And Private Life

What follows is an excerpt from a talk given in November of 1991 in the Chicago area by Michael Davies, well known traditionalist apologist. The entire talk is available in booklet form from TAN Books & Publishers. It is an inspirational talk that every serious Catholic ought to study.

Sad to say, Michael Davies knew more than most Catholics how too many Bishops can—and often do—impede the faithful in their rightful worship of God and in their rightful practice of the holy Faith of Christ. This may sound like a rather strong criticism of Catholic Bishops, those ordained to be our shepherds, but I assure you that it can be well substantiated and continues to this day.

In his outstanding talk, The Reign of Christ the King, Mr. Davies made some observations about the leadership that laity must play in preserving the Faith, speaking from his long experience of fighting for traditional faith and practice in the Catholic Church. One paragraph in particular I have bolded for emphasis. It sounds almost too incredible to believe that, in seeking to exalt Christ to His rightful place in the Church and in this world, too often “the laity must take the lead and shame the hierarchy into following us.”

This statement is somewhat reminiscent of one by Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen: "Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops like bishops and your religious act like religious.”

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TO RESTORE THE REIGN OF CHRIST

We must make the social reign of Christ the King possible today. If we do not do all that is in our power to restore the Social Kingship of Our Lord, we are not worthy of our Baptism, we are not worthy of our Confirmation, we are not worthy of the glorious name of Catholic.  There  is only one  solution  to the problems  of mankind,  and  that  is  to establish  the  peace of Christ  in the  Kingdom  of Christ—Pax Christi in regno Christi.  There is no other solution to what Professor von Hildebrand rightly termed the dehumanization of mankind.

Hilaire Belloc explained that the two alternatives for our civilization are Catholicism and chaos.  Anything less than Catholicism—even if it calls itself "Christianity"—will not stand up in the long run against the encroaching barbarism. So it is we Catholics who actually hold the key both to the social reign of Christ and to the saving of our civilization. We must therefore all  work  toward the day  when  the governments of our  nations  (as well as all individual men) publicly recognize Christ, His Catholic Church and His holy law—and regulate themselves accordingly.

How is this to be achieved?  If we wait for a lead from the hierarchy, it will not be given. The laity must take the lead and shame the hierarchy into following us.

Do not say that this cannot be done.  It has been done  with  the  fight  for  the  Tridentine Mass,  which is  now being  celebrated throughout the  world  to  an extent  that  few of  us  would  have deemed   possible  a few years ago. It has been done with the pro-life movement, above all with the Rescue Movement. We now have bishops participating in Rescues, God bless them for it.  But they are following the lead of the laity.

During the  Protestant Reformation, almost  all  the clergy in England accepted the new religion without protest  until, in the West of England, they were forced to  return  to  the  traditional Faith  and  the  traditional Mass by relatively  uneducated peasants.  The fact that one reluctant priest was cut to pieces with agricultural implements seems to have given his confreres considerable encouragement in returning to the Catholic Faith! Hamish Fraser insisted frequently and forcefully that society, the social kingdom of Our Lord, is our milieu as laymen, and that we must make our presence felt. Hamish Fraser was a convert from Communism, and the great legacy which he brought from his Communist background was his commitment to action.

We can fight for the Social Kingship of Our Lord without the need of approval or leadership from our bishops.  We can and must mobilize all citizens of good will, whether they are Catholic or not. There were Protestants and even Jews who fought the "Gay Rights Bill” in Connecticut, and they were undermined by our bishops.

If anyone reading this honestly believes that society cannot be changed, I can only reply: "Tell that to the homosexuals, tell that to the abortionists." They have changed society, they have corrupted it, de­ humanized it, but they knew what they wanted and they were prepared to fight for it, and they are still prepared to fight for it. Shall the children of light show less zeal than the children of darkness?

Would Jesus Watch TV And Hang Out With A Foul Mouthed Jewish Woman?

Maybe He would but not with this vile, depraved Jew who promoted abortion with a blasphemous portrayal of Him in a video.

Hey Sarah, why not just make your point with nails and a cross?

Or is it just the unbaptized souls you're after?

This woman needs some serious prayer.

Jesus Christ Conquers All, Even The Evil Of Abortion

"There is no greater gift that a woman can give than life to a child..."

Enough said.

FLASHBACK:The Hypocrisy of Pleasure Ethics

Community Editorial for The Telegram May 22, 2008
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Recently, a rare combination of shock and righteous indignation overtook us in our living rooms when news of a raid on a Texas polygamist compound hit the TV screens. Why the outrage? Some of the (older) husbands were suspected of taking for themselves teenage girls as new wives.

State prosecutors justified the extreme family disruptions and their war-like intervention in terms of rescuing brainwashed and coerced teenage girls and declared their actions to "be about child sexual abuse and our commitment to protect children."

So much for coherence and consistency in our present society.

While Texas authorities were invading a well ordered community in which, some argued, the vast majority of adults (older teen aged girls included) freely consented to live and remain, they seemed to forget that 60% of girls in America who had sex before age 15 were coerced by males an average of six years their senior. And that more than two-thirds of births to teenage girls were fathered by adult men age 20 or older. If the numbers in Canada are only half of those in the US, it is indeed a shocking picture of child sexual abuse arising from the mantra of "choice" in sexual matters.

Are the mothers involved being arrested or losing custody of their children because of this kind of sexual activity?  Is there even a call from society—more especially the women's rights groups—to track down and prosecute the perpetrators of such abuse? Hardly. To put it mildly, our society regularly turns a blind eye to such sexual impropriety.

I point out the blatant hypocrisy of the Texas incident in order to draw attention to our confused and dangerous "pleasure ethics." No, I was not trying to defend polygamy. Current laws which proscribe polygamy are based on solid rationale and ought to be strictly enforced for the common good of society.

We were right as a society to be aghast at the abuses inherent in polygamy. To be consistent and rational, however, our outrage can be justified only if we ourselves abide by and uphold Christian marriage in its fullness. In part, this standard dictates that sexual relations take place exclusively within marriage and be open to the gift of life (no contraception) and that the marriage bond may be broken only by the death of either man or woman.

Even from a "natural," atheistic and Darwinian point of view, no other arrangement between the human sexes is better geared to the survival and successful propagation of our species than Christian marriage. Furthermore, we can demonstrate how well this formula of man/woman union is attuned to nature by observing that HIV/AIDS and all other forms of STD's would surely be eradicated within a generation or two through its strict and exclusive practice.

Many non-Christian, religious cultures and prophets throughout history have also come, through observation and reason, to the same conclusions and have restricted sexual choices accordingly for the good of society. However, no prophet of God has been more instrumental in defining for us the purpose and limits of divine marriage than Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of the world.

But "pleasure ethics" draws different conclusions. Inside of asking, "What is good?" we are overtaken by "What feels good?" Instead of focusing on moral standards which constrain our pleasures by reminding us of what's right and good, our "choice" is the selfish path of our own desires—with devastating consequences personally, socially and spiritually.

 

FLASHBACK: Spoons, Ladles, Buckets and Barrels Part 1

Canada falls to 14th place. Read the headlines.

It used to be that Canada was way up there in at least 5th place when we were a proud people. But “Canada has again slipped, this time to 14th place, on an international index of ethical governments because of a "marked increase" in the perceived level of corruption in the government.”

When you see headlines like this, what do you think?

Do you say to yourself, what’s Canada coming to with so much corruption?

It’s the fault of the politicians…they’re all alike…lies and greed.

What we need is a full slate of new politicians to completely clean house.

 As true as these things might seem to be, it misses one crucial factor…the spiritual factor.

As I more or less said in my “political theory” posting some time ago, a nation or society achieves a certain degree of order and strength by virtue of its Christian population. Let’s call that it’s spiritual temperature. ‘White Hot’ would be a society entirely influenced and swayed by a Christian population living in near total obedience to God. This is as close as it gets to Jesus’ prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

The opposite extreme we might call ‘Ice Cold,’ and it would be a society practically void of Christians, or totally unaffected by the spiritual practice of its Christian population. For practical purposes we could consider such a Christian population (if present) as almost completely apostate.

The white hot society is incredibly powerful and well ordered. The ice cold society is fragile, unjust, superstitious and precipitously close to being vanquished and assimilated into a society of stronger individuals.

It should be obvious then that a strong society does not happen by chance, nor does it happen merely by the wit and strategy of man. It is indeed a question of power. Power is required to order and strengthen any society. Societies must “drink” or access their power from outside themselves, much like a person depends on a spring or a well for water and for life.

The Greeks, the Romans, and others had somewhat powerful societies because they drank from the well of truth in nature. The thinkers of these societies recognized certain “divine” principles which existed in nature for all to see, i.e. truth, justice, honour, etc. and more or less fashioned their societies around these truths. As they set about to lay and maintain such a foundation God allowed them a measure of generous drink. Yes, they became strong societies. True power is always linked to God.

Then came Jesus, God in the flesh. Ultimate power is God’s. But the Father gave it all to Jesus, the Son. Jesus said, “All power (authority) is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” The Son gave it to His Bride, the Church, through the person of Peter. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven…” Matt. 16:19

Since the decree of Jesus the Church and the Church only, has the power of heaven and earth in its hands. Jesus gave it to no other agency or individual, including government or family. Societies throughout the world now have the privilege of drinking for power and strength from the spoons, ladles, buckets and barrels which the Church draws from the well of Christ. They can have as much of it as they like.

There’s only one condition and limitation: the Church must hold forth to the society the entire truth of God’s revelation to man, which is wholly contained in the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, the repository of the true Faith.

To the degree that the Pope and Bishops are faithful as apostles and successors of Peter, holding forth to society the buckets of truth and power entrusted to the Church, society can grow strong and well ordered. If the Church fails in this duty, society will weaken and falter, as does a man dying of thirst.

The power that is held by any group or organization derives directly or indirectly from its connection with the Church. The Protestant groups for example are direct beneficiaries of this power, having come forth out of the very bowels of its Mother, and brought with them the unique identity inherited from her. All power, truth and order which they possess and dispense has derived from their Mother, although the cost of separation over the centuries for many of these groups has been decline, division and apostasy.

The “glory” (in the truest sense) of our Western civilization has been the glory of Christ shining through a Christian populace by the daily dosage of power and authority meted out to willing souls by the Church. We won’t get theological here but ordinary folks might identify that power as “grace.” But our glory is rapidly departing.

Needless to say, our dosage and schedule has long since been disrupted. The responsibility for all such significant disruptions and failures rests with the Bishops who have failed to reach society with these necessary provisions.  This problem is further exacerbated by the resultant growing population of mal-ordered and weakened individuals, whose continued scandalization lowers their expectations of Church and alienates them further.

Without address by the Bishops, the cycle continues and society deteriorates. What gave power and stability to yesterday’s society cannot sustain it into the future. It needs replenishing, just as the man needs a fresh drink of water each day.

Which more or less brings me back to the news story. Why is Canada continuing to slip backwards, now in 14th spot?

Don’t think of politicians or elections, nor even of corruption itself. True, these things all have their place in understanding what’s happening, but do not offer any hope for solutions.

Do not think of public education or even private school education, although these things if done well can change certain standards of a person’s life significantly.

Do not even think that a powerful evangelistic campaign or switching to regular attendance at a Latin Mass will resolve Canada’s problem, even though it might well be the thing that God is asking of an individual at the moment.

The condition is more entrenched and pervasive than that. Nothing but member as well as whole body repentance from the Christian populace will suffice, most especially from Bishops, if for no other reason than that large sections of society can be impacted very quickly by their repentance.

To keep proper perspective here though, I have to say I don’t think it’s any easier for a Bishop to repent than it is for you or I.

So what’s holding you back? Canada is waiting.

posted by islandcatholic on October 21, 2005

More On Shroud of Turin Mystery

My faith in Christ is not based on whether this shroud is the authentic burial cloth of Christ. My faith in Christ is based on His resurrection from the dead. However, the more I hear about the Shroud of Turin, the more I marvel because apparently all our tremendous technology to date cannot refute the possibility of its authenticity. Doesn't that make a loud statement?

He Is Risen! Alleluia!

Is Jesus Just a Crutch?

Greg Koukl with a quick-thought video, "Is Jesus Just a Crutch?"