Tea at Trianon: Between Christ the King and “We Have No King But Caesar”

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 1, 2020

Between Christ the King and “We Have No King But Caesar”

From a few years ago but more valid than ever. From One Peter Five:

This month of November begins with the great Solemnity of All Saints. But in the traditional Roman calendar, All Saints is preceded shortly before by an even greater feast—that of Christ the King, the One who creates and sanctifies the citizens, ambassadors, and soldiers of His Kingdom.
When Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in 1925, he was, one might say, supplying in the Church’s calendar the missing invisible cause of All Saints, as well as making clear just what the mission of the saints in history is: to be the living members of the Mystical Body under Christ its Head, and to extend this body across the whole earth. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the King of all men, all peoples, all nations, and His saints are those who, taking up their cross and following Him, have conquered their own souls and won over the souls of many others for this Kingdom.
Pope Pius XI knew that in modern political circumstances, it was absolutely necessary to make this truth explicit, as he did in the great encyclical Quas Primas of December 11, 1925:

All men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In Him is the salvation of the individual; in Him is the salvation of society. … He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ. … When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace, and harmony. … That these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ.

The right which the Church has from Christ Himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation—that right was denied [in the Enlightenment era]. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the State and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. … There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and States against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences.

That was 1925. In Advent of 1969, a tidal wave of changes in Catholic worship came rolling through the Church. As we all know, among these changes was the moving of the feast of Christ the King from the last Sunday of October to the last Sunday of the liturgical year, at the end of November. Or at least that is what we think we know; it’s what I used to think, too. But that is not what actually happened.
[....]
When teaching Catholic social doctrine to college students, I never cease to be surprised at how many of them display the knee-jerk reaction of automatically assuming that monarchy is “mostly evil” and that democracy is “obviously good.” This seems to be a secular dogma imposed by our age and drilled in from tender years, especially in public schools. I like to shake people up by handing out the following list of royal saints and blesseds—the kings, queens, princes, princesses, dukes, duchesses, and other ruling aristocrats who are venerated, beatified, or canonized by Catholics, Orthodox, or Anglicans. Yes, this is a somewhat eclectic and ecumenical list, but surely it offers food for thought, since all of these individuals in obvious ways promoted and defended Christianity (and often Christendom, its full flowering) using their God-given political authority.[5] (Read more.)