Is Christ the King of the Nations on Earth or Just King in Heaven?

I was speaking with a priest after Mass last Sunday morning on the Feast of Christ the King. (In the traditional calendar we celebrate the feast on the last Sunday in October as established by Pope Pius XI in 1925. Pope Paul VI moved it to the last Sunday of the liturgical year.) Father mentioned a number of formerly Catholic countries that removed acknowledgment of the Lordship of Christ and his social Kingship from their constitutions. The only two I remember him mentioning were Ireland and Columbia, although there were several others. 

That any countries ever recognized Christ the King in their constitutions was news to me. It certainly made sense with Ireland, which up until recent generations was one of the most Catholic countries in the world. Keep in mind that none of these countries was imposing the Catholic faith on their populations. They were simply acknowledging a profound truth, i.e., that Jesus Christ is King in heaven and on earth and as a Catholic country they recognized his Kingship. They were not forcing anyone's personal conversion or practice of their faith, but they limited public anti-Catholic proselytizing and assaults against the faith or public advancement of false religions in order to protect the common good.

So why did these countries stop acknowledging the Kingship of Christ in the secular order and as the Lord over their nations?

Was it a revolution from atheists?

NOPE!

A demand from the Protestant churches?

NOPE!

Did an organization, the equivalent of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, launch a petition drive demanding removal?

NOPE!

So who did it? And why? 

Can you guess?

I'll give you a hint. It happened after Vatican II.

And now the answer.

According to the priest, representatives of the Vatican visited the countries involved and advised them to remove the Lordship of Christ as King in the social order because of the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae, the Declaration on Religious Liberty (DH). To say the least, this is shocking! For Vatican officials to dethrone Christ is the equivalent of the Jewish elders saying, "We have no king but Caesar."

The Church has always taught that error has no rights. One can tolerate an error for good reason. For example, it's morally wrong to burn down a house because a pagan lives there. But it would also be morally wrong to affirm the beliefs of the pagan and to pray with him to Pachamama. The truth remains at all times and in all places that Jesus Christ is not only the Lord in heaven, but he is Lord on the earth with authority over all the nations. That is biblical and Church doctrine! Jesus Christ is, indeed, the King of heaven and of earth.

The Vatican II document changed that. And, not surpisingly, it was Pope Paul VI who moved the date of the feast of Christ the King from the last Sunday of October, right before All Saints and All Souls days (when we honor all in the Church Triumphant and the Church Suffering who faithfully served Christ our King) to the last Sunday in the liturgical year preceding the beginning of Advent. Moving the feast to precede the first Sunday of Advent, with its emphasis on the return of Christ at the end of time, carries with it the implication that Christ's Lordship is for heaven at the end of the world, not for the earth here and now. But let me repeat: the fact that Christ is Lord of all the nations on earth is a doctrine of the Church.

So let's look at the document. It's short, one of the shortest of the Vatican II lexicon, in fact, only 4 1/2 pages plus endnotes. 

Most of the document is fine and upholds the teachings of the Church on religious liberty. No one can coerce the inner forum of the individual, i.e., the beliefs he holds personally in his conscience. God gave us free will and to coerce the conscience of another violates his freedom which means NO FORCED CONVERSIONS. (Unfortunately, this has sometimes been violated by overenthusiastic clergy and laity.) By the same token, however, we are called by God to give witness to the truth to bring the entire world to Christ. Jesus gave the apostles and their descendants (which includes us) the Great Commission to go forth and baptize all nations. To live in error is no blessing! Think about the cannibals Columbus confronted when he landed in America. Certainly their victims were grateful for their rescue from those who feasted (literally) on that deadly error! People often cling tenaciously to their errors, which is demonstrated by the martyrdom of so many missionaries.

So when the document speaks about respecting the inner forum it is correct and in line with Church teaching. But, like many of the Vatican II documents, there are statements that are ambiguous and open to a novel interpretation, one that contradicts the faith. 

Catholic journalist, Paul H. Hallett, who wrote for the National Catholic Register during the most turbulent years of the 20th century, described some of the ambiguous passages in DH saying, "It is not disloyalty to faith to seek a clarification of its ambiguities. Nothing is gained by pretending they do not exist."

And, in fact, Article 2 of DH directly opposes doctrine by saying:

2. This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

The term "due limits" was defined in the document to conform to the Masonic Declaration of the Right of Man to mean "public order" rather than the Catholic terminology, "the common good." The shift in meaning has clear consequences. As long as public behavior doesn't result in public disorder, no problem. Hence public espousal of false ideas, like gender fluidity or gay marriage is a-okay. The document acknowledged a right to advance public error in the external forum (as distinguished from personal conscience, the internal forum), a right never before recognized by the Church.

Not surprisingly, the document came to be interpreted in the most liberal way possible (as those developing it wanted) giving man liberty as the sole arbiter of right and wrong for himself, both privately and publicly, whether alone or in association with others. This, despite the fact that the perennial teaching of the popes has been that the Catholic state may regulate public actions. For example, while the state cannot compel Protestants to attend Mass, they can limit a Protestant sect having a tent revival in a public park and advertising it with public notices. The state doesn't have a moral obligation to always discipline error, however. Toleration is sometimes prudent to avoid a worse violation of the public good, for example, civil war. But to say that truth and error have equal rights is, as Pope Gregory VI said in condemning such an idea, "insanity" that is "a monstrous error" (Qui Pluribus) and "most pernicious to the Catholic Church, and to the salvation of souls." (Quanta Cura).

The historian William Durant once said, "When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near." The freest state is the one that holds to moral principles that follow the natural law implanted in our souls by God. The nation that looks to Christ the King as her ruler, will always be the freest. Today, as Jesus Christ is dethroned and replaced by Baphomet, Pachamama, and the gods of lust and murder,  we are seeing the chaos brought about by unbridled license. And so we move ever more inexorably toward a police state under the rule of tyrants. 

We may not be able to bring about the rule of Christ the King in our nation, but we have the absolute power to enthrone Christ the King in our homes and in the little nation of the family. If you've never done it, don't waste any more time. Enthrone the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts in your home. 

Viva Cristo Rey!