Quotations from a few authors on the necessity of the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is a necessity. We cannot do without Jesus Christ.
"We live in a time of absolute secularization of laws, education, international relations, and of all the social economy The independence of human institutions from the revealed doctrine is hailed as the great conquest of the modern era Expelled from governments, does the Christian right limit itself to the individuals ? Alas, we deign to accept Jesus Christ as Redeemer, Jesus Christ as Savior, Jesus Christ as Priest, i.e. as He who sacrifices and sanctifies, but as for Jesus Christ the King, this is something which frightens us, we suspect some infringement, some usurpation of power, some confusion of attributions and competence."
"We want social cure without the social profession of faith, would note Cardinal Pie. Now, at this price, Jesus Christ, almighty though He is, can not work our deliverance ; though He is all merciful, he cannot exercise His mercy."
That He may reign, Jean Ousset, p. 57
"We will not change the essence of things ; Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of the whole social order. Without him, everything collapses, everything becomes divided and perishes."
Cardinal Pie, Works, vol. II, p. 335
"If Jesus Christ does not reign through the blessings inseparable from his presence, he will reign through the damages unavoidably caused by his absence."
Leo XIII clearly defined the scope of this kingship : "His empire does not extend exclusively over Catholic nations, nor only over baptized Christians, who belong by right to the Church, even if they have strayed far away from Her because of their erroneous opinions or are separated from Her by schism ; it includes also all men without exception, even those who are foreign to the Christian faith, so that the empire of Jesus Christ is, in all truth, the whole human race."
Annum sacrum
"Jesus Christ has been constituted the King of kings. Yes, and the true glory, the true nobility of kings, ever since the preaching of the Gospel, is to be the lieutenants of Jesus Christ on earth. Would per chance the kings have been less great since the cross glitters on top of their diadems ? Would the throne have been less famous, less secure since kingship is an emanation, a participation of the kingship of Jesus Christ ? Jesus Christ has been constituted king, and the true dignity, the true liberty, the true emancipation of modern nations is to have the right to be governed in a Christian manner. Would per chance the nations have been falling from their glory ? Would their fate have been less noble, less happy since the scepters to which they obey are bound to submit to the scepter of Jesus ?
Let us repeat it, my brethren : Christianity does not reach its full development, its full maturity, where it does not take on a social character. Such is what Bossuet expressed in this way : "Christ does not reign if his Church is not mistress, if the peoples cease to pay to Jesus Christ, to his doctrine, to his law, a national homage." When the Christianity of a country is reduced to the bare proportions of the domestic life, when Christianity is no longer the soul of public life, of public power, of public institutions, then Jesus Christ deals with this country in the manner he is there dealt with. He continues to give his grace and his blessings to the individuals who serve him, but he abandons the institutions, the powers which do not serve him ; and the institutions, the kings, the nations become like shifting sand in the desert, they fall away like the autumn leaves which are gone with the wind.
Cardinal Pie, ibid., p. 259-260.
"As long as the Prince is not won over to the truth, the apostolate may multiply its individual conquests ; but it does not gain its final victory. With Constantine, the whole world, I mean the known and civilized world, becomes Christian without delay. The baptism of Clovis brings about that of the whole Frankish people The peoples entered the Church en masse only when they followed their princes."
Cardinal Pie, quoted by Fr. Théotime de Saint Just
"Perfect agreement between the priesthood and the empire is the common law and the normal state of Christian societies."
Neutrality is a dream
"In the facts, neutrality does not exist. It is in the order of things that the temporal power be subject to the spiritual power It has always been thus and it shall always be. In other words, it is impossible that a doctrine does not reign over the State. When it is not the doctrine of truth, it is a doctrine of error. The order of things wants it to be thus. It wants strength to obey the spirit, and, in very deed, it always obeys a spirit : a spirit of truth, or a spirit of insanity".
"When I consider the fate of the rationalist governments since their origin, I do not see that history has contradicted the common teaching of the wise men and the doctrine of theologians. On the contrary, when we see kingdoms and dynasties which have lasted for ages allow the Declaration of the rights of man to be substituted for that of the rights of God, only to totter immediately and frighten the world by the great noise of their fall; when the powers which have been best served by events and by men managed to found nothing that is lasting, to build nothing that is strong ; in the presence of the ruins gathered by the past, of the problems of the future, to lay as a principle that the atheist or deist government is the perfect type of human government, and that the orthodox government is bad in its very essence, is not this the most foolhardy statement that a man who has not lost his mind may utter ?"
Cardinal Pie, quoted in That He may reign, p. 501
"When error, explained Cardinal Pie, has once become embodied in the legal formulas and the administrative practices, it penetrates the minds down to depths where it is impossible to pull it out One must entirely ignore the real conditions of mankind not to see to what extent vice, or even the mere failings of the institutions, has an influence over all classes of society, and weighs even upon apparently the most firm and independent minds "
Quoted in Foundations of the City, by Jean-Marie Vaissière, p. 237
"Why does such a numerous priesthood, why does such a considerable elite of believers and practicing Catholics bring a remedy of so little value and efficiency to the sufferings of the country ? ( ) How can we explain that so much charity, so much activity, so much devotion produce so little effect and so little fruit, as to the bettering of the public affairs ? "Propter incredulitatem vestram", because of your unbelief. In the matter of public and social affairs the faithful, and too often the priests of our generation, have believed that, even in Christian countries, they could practice neutrality and abstention, as if Jesus Christ had never existed, or had disappeared from the world. Now, whoever professes and puts into practice such a theory, condemns himself to be incapable of doing anything at all for the cure and salvation of society.
If we did not manage to subdue the revolutionary evil which makes us a spectacle for the other peoples, this internal evil which undermine us, dries us up, kills us, it is because while we have the faith in private, we have our share in the national infidelity."
Cardinal Pie, Works, vol. VIII, p. 26-27
"The main error, the capital crime of this century is the pretension of withdrawing public society from the government and the law of God The principle laid at the basis of the whole modern social structure is atheism of the law and of the institutions. Let it be disguised under the names of abstention, neutrality, incompetence or even equal protection, let us even go to the length of denying it by some legislative dispositions for details or by accidental and secondary acts : the principle of the emancipation of the human society from the religious order remains at the bottom of things ; it is the essence of what is called the new era".
Cardinal Pie, Pastoral Works, vol. VII, p. 3 and 100.
The supernatural order is necessary
"Naturalism is consequently what is most opposed to Christianity." Cardinal Pie defined naturalism as "the doctrine which disregards Revelation and claims that the mere forces of reason and nature are sufficient to lead man and society to perfection."
Fr. Théotime de Saint Just, The social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Cardinal Pie
"Morals which could suffice for the pagan nations have been insufficient ever since the Christian era. "If I had not come and spoken to them, said the Savior, they could be excused. But now, they cannot be excused for their sin". Thus, the morals, which are deliberately reduced to the law of mere nature, are from now on unable to bring salvation, even temporal salvation, to individuals or societies. It is insufficient and incomplete, and, besides, can be kept in its entirety only with the supernatural help of grace. And, if it were true that there is no longer is Christian society on earth, you would have no more success in remaking a society of honest pagans."
Quoted by Fr. Théotime de Saint Just in The social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Cardinal Pie
"No, a thousand times no ! You will never teach that the natural virtues are false virtues, that the natural light is a false light. No ! You will not use a rigorous argumentation against reason, to prove to it, by decisive reasons, that it can do nothing without faith. If we had the unhappiness of teaching such statements, we would fall under the censures of the Church, the depositary of all truth, which is not less careful to assert the unquestionable attributes of nature and reason, than it is to avenge the rights of faith and grace.
The rigorous argumentation against reason to prove to it decisively that it cannot do anything without the faith, has been found in this century under the pen of a famous priest and of some of his disciples. The Roman encyclicals came to teach them that by destroying reason, they were also destroying the subject to which faith is addressed and without the free consent of which the act of faith does not exist, that by denying all human principle of certitude, they were suppressing the motives of credibility which are the necessary preliminaries of any revelation. And, as for the natural virtues, Baïus having dared to maintain that the virtues of the philosophers are vices, and that all distinction between the natural rectitude of a human act and its supernatural value meritorious of the heavenly kingdom is but a dream, this innovator was formally condemned by Pope Saint Pius V.
You will teach then, that human reason has its own power and its essential attributes ; you will teach that the philosophical virtue possesses an intrinsic moral goodness which God does not disdain to remunerate by certain natural and temporal rewards, sometimes by even higher favors, in the individuals and the peoples. But you will also teach, and you will prove by arguments inseparable from the very essence of Christianity, that the natural virtues, that the natural lights cannot lead man to his last end which is the heavenly glory.
You will teach that dogma is indispensable, that the supernatural order, in which the very author of our nature has created us, by a formal act of his will and of his love, is obligatory and unavoidable. You will teach that Jesus Christ is not optional and that outside of his revealed law, there does not exist, there will never exist, a philosophical and peaceful happy medium where whosoever, be it a chosen soul or a common soul, could find rest for his conscience and the rule of his life.
You will teach that it does not only matter that man does what is good, but that it matters that he does it in the name of faith, under a supernatural motion, otherwise his acts will not reach the final goal that God has assigned to him, that is to say eternal bliss in heaven ".
Cardinal Pie, Works, vol. II, p. 380
"Let us make no mistake, the question which stirs up the world is not from man to man ; it is from man to God."
Liberalism is an utopia, it is absurd
"From all times, there have been minds thus made that they never consider defense but as a scandal added to that of the attack and that they willingly join their indignation to that of the enemy, when the apostles of the truth strive to make their voice louder than that of the apostles of lies." ( )
"If all the religions can be put on an equal footing, it is that they all have the same value, if all are true, it means that all are false ; if all the gods tolerate one another, it means that there is no God".
Sacerdotal Works, vol. I, p. 366-367
"The assertion kills itself if it doubts itself" (ibid. p. 359), and also : "All the errors can grant one another mutual concessions truth, a daughter of heaven, is the only one which does not surrender." (p. 369).
"The question at stake between the liberals and us ( ) is not to know whether, given the malice of the century, we must bear patiently what is not within our power, and work at the same time to avoid greater evils and to do all the good that can still be done ; but the question is precisely whether we ought to approve ( ) (the new state of things), whether we ought to celebrate the principles which are the basis of this order of things, and to promote them by word, by doctrine, by works, as the so-called liberal Catholics do."
Cardinal Billot, light of theology, p. 58-59
We must uphold the principles, cost what may. Number does not make truth
"The greatest misery, for a century or for a country, is to abandon or to diminish the truth. We can get over everything else ; we never get over the sacrifice of principles. Characters may give in at given times and public morality receive some breach from vice or bad examples, but nothing is lost as long as the true doctrines remain standing in their integrity. With them everything is remade sooner or later, men and institutions, because we are always able to come back to the good when we have not left truth. To give up the principles, outside which nothing can be built that is strong and lasting would take away even the very hope of salvation. So the greatest service a man can render to his kinsmen, in the times when everything is failing and growing dim, is to assert the truth without fear even though no one listens to him ; because it is a furrow of light which he opens through the intellects, and if his voice cannot manage to dominate the noises of the time, at least it will be received as the messenger of salvation in the future."
Bishop Freppel, bishop of Angers, quoted in Action by Jean Ousset, p. 213
"The imperative duty and the noble custom of holy Church is to pay homage especially to the truth when it is ignored, to profess it when it is threatened. There is a mediocre merit to claim to be its apostle and its supporter when all acknowledge and adhere to it. To make so much of the human state of the truth and to love it so little for itself that we deny it as soon as it is no longer popular, as soon as it does not have number, authority, preponderance, success : would that not be a new way of doing our duty, and of understanding honor ? Let it be known : the good remains good, and must continue to be called as such, even when "nobody does it" (Ps. XIII, 3). Furthermore, a small number of persons putting forth claims is sufficient to save the integrity of the doctrines. And the integrity of the doctrine is the only chance for the restoration of order in the world.
Cardinal Pie, Works, vol. V, p. 203
The social reign of Christ implies the public profession of faith. Against the opposition to the reign of Christ.
"You shall pray thus, said Jesus. Sic ergo vos orabitis. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Cardinal Pie, taking up the Pater, proves that the first three petitions are summed up and condensed in one, that of the public social reign, for, he explains, the name of God cannot be hallowed fully and totally if it is not publicly acknowledged ; the divine will is not done on earth as it is in heaven if it is not accomplished publicly and socially". ( )
"Bad politics is nothing else than bad philosophy making its principles into maxims of public right".
Cardinal Pie, Pastoral Works, vol. II, p. 437
How many examples could be quoted to illustrate the oppositions against the reign of the Gospel, in all parts of the world, from the bloody persecutions of Nero down to the undertakings of modern freemasonry ! Cardinal Pie explained this in a masterly fashion with the help of a formula of St Augustine :
"The first verses of this psalm, St Augustine brings down to this thought : Demus operam ut nos non alliget neque nobis imponatur christiana religio : "Let us set down to work so that Christ may not bind us and that the Christian religion may not be imposed upon us." Demus operam : [ ] that was the effort of Herod, of Pilate, of Caïphas, of the prince of the priests, of the Sanhedrin, of the Pharisees, of the Jews and of the Gentiles. [ ] Demus operam : that was the effort of paganism during three centuries. From Nero to Maxentius, all indeed was tremors of the peoples, clamors of the society. Demus operam: that was the effort of the human mind of all times ; and if, after having gone through all the ages of history, we listen to the war cries of present time, if we wonder why the modern tremors of the nations, and the unrest of the people : Demus operam, it will be answered to us, ut nos non alliget neque nobis imponatur christiana religio.
Listen to the politics beyond the Channel or beyond the Alps, listen to those of the North and of the South, divided by a thousand interests, by a thousand antipathies, by a thousand national prejudices. Passion puts them in agreement against God and his Christ, against the Church of God, against the Vicar of Christ. Hostility against Christ works alliances which would have been impossible without it, it stays the jealousies and the most deeply rooted national hatred. They were fighting one another yesterday, today they are embracing one another. Whenever the scepter of Christ is at stake, they will play the game together : Et ex illa die facti sunt amici Herodes et Pilatus. What David had prophesized, history indeed has justified it and justifies it every day: the same permanent opposition, fierce opposition, opposition flaring up even more after a period of respite : Dirumpamus vincula eorum, et projiciamus a nobis jugum ipsorum.
Cardinal Pie, Works of the Bishop of Poitiers, Paris/Poitiers, Oudin, 1984, t. X, p. 425-426.
Conclusion
The famous interview of cardinal Pie with Napoleon III
It was in 1856, on March 15. To the emperor who congratulated himself for having done more for religion than the Restoration, he answered : "I hurry to give your Majesty credit for his religious dispositions, and I can acknowledge, Sire, the services he has rendered to Rome and the Church, especially during the first years of his government. Maybe the Restoration did not do more than you ? But let me add that neither the Restoration nor you, have done for God what had to be done, because neither it nor you have restored his throne, because neither it nor you have denied the principles of the Revolution which you nonetheless combat in its practical consequences, because the social gospel which inspires the State is still the Declaration of the rights of man, which is nothing else, Sire, than the formal denial of the rights of God.
Now, it is Gods right to rule over the States as well as over the individuals. Our Lord did not come upon earth for anything else. He must reign here below by inspiring the laws, by sanctifying the morals, by enlightening the instruction, by guiding the councils, by regulating the actions of the governments as well as of the people governed. Wherever Jesus Christ does not reign there is disorder and decadence.
Now, it is my duty to tell you that he does not reign among us and that our Constitution is not, far from it, that of a Christian and Catholic State. Our public law states, it is true, that the Catholic religion is that of the majority of the French, but it adds that the other cults have a right to an equal protection. Does not this amount to proclaiming that the constitution protects likewise truth and error ? Well, Sire, do you know what Jesus Christ answers to governments who make themselves guilty of such a contradiction ? Jesus Christ, king of heaven and earth, answers them : "And I likewise grant you an equal protection, to you governments who follow one another, overthrowing one another. I granted this protection to the emperor your uncle ; I granted the same protection to the Bourbons, the same protection to Louis-Philippe, the same protection to the Republic, and to you also the same protection will be granted."
The emperor interrupted the bishop : "But what, do you believe that the time in which we live admits of this state of things, and that the time has come to establish this exclusively religious reign you are requesting from me ? Do you not think, your Excellency, that this would unleash all the evil passions?"
Sire, when great political men, like your Majesty, object that the moment has not come, I only have to bow because I am not a great political man. But I am a bishop, and as a bishop I answer them : "The time has not come for Jesus Christ to reign, well ! then the time has not come for governments to last."
Quoted by Théotime de Saint Just, p. 76 Life of Cardinal Pie, vol. I, book 2, ch. 2, p. 697
