Christ the King - A Case for Catholic Monarchy

Nov 20

November 20th and 27th, 2022

Jesus Christ: Lord of Lords and King of Kings ~

This Sunday, the 20th, we celebrate the annual feast of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. You will have heard some of what I am writing here in my homily yet even more here. As the staff will be out of the office for some of Thanksgiving week, we are running the same bulletin for the weekends of November 20 and 27. That means that this pastor’s column will be the same one for both weekends in a row.

The word King or Kings comes up over 3,000 times in the Bible! It is simply God’s default setting for Him and for us. Jesus is a King and not just any king, but as revealed in Sacred Scripture, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Mt 2:2; Lk 22:20; Jn 18:37; Rv 19:16; etc.). God is a monarch, ruling all His subjects in heaven in infinite perfection. Heaven is run as a monarchy, with God being absolute ruler, not even taking counsel, because He’s already all knowing, loving, and powerful. The angels and people of heaven are part of The Monarch’s hierarchy, with greater and lesser, with defined roles, living in perfect harmony, love and joy. Because God’s Church is both in heaven (triumphant) and on earth (militant), she too is a monarchy with hierarchy. In heaven, God acts directly as King. On earth God delegates responsibility for monarchical rule in His Church to His popes, bishops, religious superiors, and pastors; and civilly to His monarchs. Say what?

The pope is an absolute monarch, for better more frequently than for worse. Practically speaking, there is nothing you, or I, or the bishops can do to silence him, legislate without him, or remove him. This is how Jesus Christ set up the Church from the beginning with St. Peter as our first pope (Greek word for “leader”). The other eleven Apostles could counsel him, even admonish him (Gal. 2:11), but they could not out vote him, out rule him, or oust him. Dioceses all around the world are set up as monarchies as well, with the bishops acting as ecclesial kings of their respective diocese. Parishes are monarchies too with the pastor in the governing role of a monarch; he’s not elected, out legislated, or voted out.

Monarchy pervades much more than the Church. All of nature is established as a monarchy with parents of offspring ruling over their young; societal animals having their “alpha” male run the pack, etc. Schools are monarchies, as are places of business. The question is, why isn’t our civil government a monarchy?

Democracy is all we native born Americans have ever known, and being the most prosperous and powerful nation in the history of the world, we naturally assume it is the best form of government. As American’s we pride ourselves on democracy, seeing it as essential to our survival, hence the psychological trauma of worrying about “stolen” elections and the January 6, 2021 capital riot. But what would happen if our democracy collapsed? We assume something much worse would replace it, but would it?

Alexis de Tocqueville was a famous 19th century French statesman, historian, and social philosopher. He traveled to America in the 1830s to discover the reasons for the incredible success of this new nation. He published his observations in his classic two-volume work, Democracy in America. As opposed to other successful nations of his day; Tocqueville wanted to know why this one, the only democracy at that time that was succeeding, why it was succeeding, when all other democracies were failing or had failed. His answer was simple: America was a thoroughly Christian democracy, the only one of its kind at that time. He foresaw that democracy in this nation would collapse if Christianity ever did; and that eventually Americans would realize that they had access to the national treasury in the form of printing and spending as much money as we like. Once we started to do that, we’d run a debt that would eventually collapse us. Well we’ve lost Christianity and we’ve run up a $30 trillion debt – check and check.

“Every kingdom divided against itself will fall.” (Mt 12:25) Democracies don’t end up divided against themselves, they start divided against themselves in opposing political parties. Those opposing political parties will do anything legal (sometimes illegal) to make the other parties fail so as to obtain power or keep it.

To take but one example: how does a democracy cut spending by half without political paralysis? Each side will paint the other side out as cruel to the poor, or irresponsibly spend us into economic ruin. If given a vote, almost everyone would vote out someone who promises to lower their standard of living. A monarch on the other hand, simply makes the tough decisions; cuts the budget by half, lowers everyone’s standard of living, saves the nation from ruin, helps the poor to the government’s best ability – and stays in power. No individual or political party can stop the monarch from fixing the problem (and saving us). But here’s the thing, as a rule, a monarch would not have spent us into a debt worth 130% of our gross domestic product in the first place! People in a democracy do because they lack the collective self-restraint that a monarch provides, while political machinations for power paralyze the nation, power that could never be had in a monarchy.

Every democracy that has come along in the past three millennia, and there have been many, has collapsed. America’s democracy marries men to one another, changes children’s genders, and slaughters babies in the womb; God will not let any government that champions such evil last. And every democracy eventually champions evil because decision making is based on popularity not God’s truth and love. So what follows? Christianity first, then monarchy.

Contrary to popular belief, Catholic monarchs have historically seen themselves as being responsible to Jesus Christ for their subjects. They know as we do, that they will die one day and stand before the just judge and account for everything they have done and failed to do. They don’t see their authority as a license to promote themselves or exploit the people placed in their care, but to help them even at great personal sacrifice. Historically, Catholic monarchs have run the gamut from saints to villains, yet not one Catholic monarch has ever presided over a fraction of the evil that the world’s western democracies have produced.

The world is on the brink of collapse for the reasons I’ve stated and more. What follows in the wake of this collapse is calamity, then divine intervention, then conversion to Jesus Christ and His one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. Then Catholic monarchy, and not any Catholic monarch, but a devout one, at least in the beginning. Check back with me in twenty years to see if what I’ve just said is true.

In the meantime, while continuing to fully participate in it, do not fear the loss of our nation’s democracy. Absent God, it has run its natural course. Place all your faith in Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Prince of Peace, now and forever. Our Lord’s Kingdom and peace reign in my life, He wants to reign in your life too. Let the peace of Christ which the world cannot give, reign in your hearts and homes.

May Christ the King Bless You,