Christ the King, 2024

Modern authors on leadership observe that in mismanaged institutions and in mismanaged states, where there is no good leadership, where checks and balances are not held up anymore, it will always be the most ruthless and sociopathic who rise to the top. We have seen this in ancient times, and we have seen this in our contemporary life. Think of totalitarian regimes, think of countries where, after failed attempts at democracy, extremist groups seized power.

Where there is nobody left to fight for checks and balances, where there is nobody to uphold moral codes and laws, where there are no good examples to follow, it will always be the most sociopathic, who have no shame in crushing, murdering, blackmailing their opponents, who seize control.

This is indeed a frequent feature of human history. Centuries upon centuries saw rulers reigning in bloodshed, tyranny, and whim. Just read some ancient Babylonian history, and you will find that our modern sensitivities will be rather challenged by seeing what human beings are able to do to each other on a daily basis. Or just think back on the horrible events humans did to each other in the 20th century: the massacres after so-called revolutions, the attempted total annihilation of peoples, the oppression, brainwashing, intimidation of societies; the eradication of culture in the name of … what exactly?

All of these failures of humanity have to do with our concept of the highest good. When the highest good is seen to be money, then everything will be subordinated to it. The highest we will be able to aim for is the ceiling of our greed. When the highest good is seen as the person of an emperor who purports himself to be a god, then the best we can achieve will be attaining the qualities of the emperor—and God save us from becoming like those whimsical tyrants. When the highest good in a society is seen as “the individual” then we will find ourselves soon in the deeply confusing social life that we seem to have drifted into, where anything is good as well as its opposite, where nothing has objective value, where truth, goodness, virtue, love are all cynically laughed at and relativised. To quote Pontius Pilate: “Veritas? Quod est veritas?” —“Truth? What is truth?”

The Feast of Christ the King was instituted in 1925. After the end of the First World War, the world, supposedly came to peace. But as Pope Pius XI lamented in one of the precursory encyclicals to the institution of this feast, the so-called peace of the world was one only written on paper, and not in the hearts of men:

Peace indeed was signed in solemn conclave between the belligerents of the late War. This peace, however, was only written into treaties. It was not received into the hearts of men, who still cherish the desire to fight one another and to continue to menace in a most serious manner the quiet and stability of civil society. Unfortunately the law of violence held sway so long that it has weakened and almost obliterated all traces of those natural feelings of love and mercy which the law of Christian charity has done so much to encourage. Nor has this illusory peace, written only on paper, served as yet to reawaken similar noble sentiments in the souls of men. On the contrary, there has been born a spirit of violence and of hatred which, because it has been indulged in for so long, has become almost second nature in many men. There has followed the blind rule of the inferior parts of the soul over the superior, that rule of the lower elements "fighting against the law of the mind," which St. Paul grieved over.

These words proved prophetic. It did not take long for the world to descend into chaos once more in the Second World War, for even more dangerous totalitarian ideologies in communism and fascism to emerge, based on hatred — whether of ethnicities or those deemed ideologically impure.

People susbstituted Christ the King with less than the highest good, and we paid its consequences — we are still paying its consequences.

All this highlights just how much we need a truly good example in front of us. We need to aspire what is truly the Highest Good, beyond whom no higher good exists: Jesus Christ our King. It is only when we each aspire to Him individually as our example to follow, and when we, individually, and as a society, hold Him to be the highest aim we want to attain, that we will know true peace, and not just the type written on a piece of parchment; we will know true freedom, and not just licentiousness; we will know true human dignity, and not just slogans and ideologies.

The world desperately needs a truly good leader to follow. The world desperately needs to know Christ the King. We each crave for good, for virtue, for freedom, for peace, for love: all of these ideals are manifest in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let us submit ourselves to His gentle rule, so that through our individual conversion, the whole of society would be leavened.

And let us, in our words and our actions, portray that another world is possible. Let us boldly proclaim to the world:

Christ conquers — over sin, over death, over the devil, overcoming the evil that afflicts our lives;

Christ reigns — in the hearts of men, not as the tyrants of this world, but with justice and mercy;

Christ rules — His is the imperium, He is the Lawgiver: not one that oppresses us, but which guarantees our dignity and freedom through writing the New Law of the Gospel in our hearts.

Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat!