Tea at Trianon: “Christ Is King!”

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

Saturday, March 30, 2024

“Christ Is King!”

From John Zmirak at The Stream:

Plain speech gives way to sophistry, and even the most innocent words can be misused with evil intent — as Judas perverted a kiss in the Garden of Olives into a symbol of betrayal.

So no, we won’t be able to settle the argument about the use of “Christ is King!” as a rallying cry or slogan simply by noting that it’s clearly true. For instance, it’s statistically true that per capita, black American men commit more violent crimes than white men. But what would we think of public figures who adopted the truthful statement, “More black men kill!” as a maxim? We might wonder about their motives. In fact, I’m pretty sure we would.

So let’s admit, up front, that “Christ is King!” in itself is blameless and admirable. When a Church father or a Mexican priest facing a firing squad said that, it was a magnificent statement of faith. When Pope Pius XI wrote in 1925 about the “social kingship of Christ” it was an eloquent rebuke to atheist totalitarians in Moscow and Berlin. Today, if Chinese Christians whisper it in the face of their torturers, or Coptic Christians spit it out in blood to their ISIS killers, their courage should send shivers down our spines.

So why is the way some people are using the phrase “Christ is King!” seen as controversial now? (Read more.)