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?
