We must make the social reign of Christ the King possible today. If we do not do all that is in our power to restore the Social Kingship of Our Lord, we are not worthy of our Baptism, we are not worthy of our Confirmation, we are not worthy of the glorious name of Catholic. There is only one solution to the problems of mankind, and that is to establish the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ ----- Pax Christi in regno Christi. There is no other solution to what Professor von Hildebrand rightly termed the dehumanization of mankind.

Hilaire Belloc explained that the two alternatives for our civilization are Catholicism and chaos. Anything less than Catholicism ----- even if it calls itself "Christianity" ----- will not stand up in the long run against the encroaching barbarism. So it is we Catholics who actually hold the key both to the social reign of Christ and to the saving of our civilization. We must therefore all work toward the day when the governments of our nations [as well as all individual men] publicly recognize Christ, His Catholic Church and His holy law ----- and regulate themselves accordingly. How is this to be achieved? If we wait for a lead from the hierarchy, it will not be given. The laity must take the lead and shame the hierarchy into following us.

Do not say that this cannot be done. It has been done with the fight for the Tridentine Mass, which is now being celebrated throughout the world to an extent that few of us would have deemed possible a few years ago. It has been done with the pro-life movement, above all with the Rescue Movement. We now have bishops participating in Rescues, God bless them for it. But they are following the lead of the laity.

During the Protestant Reformation, almost all the clergy in England accepted the new religion without protest until, in the West of England, they were forced to return to the traditional Faith and the traditional Mass by relatively uneducated peasants. The fact that one reluctant priest was cut to pieces with agricultural implements seems to have given his confreres considerable encouragement in returning to the Catholic Faith! Hamish Fraser insisted frequently and forcefully that society, the social kingdom of Our Lord, is our milieu as laymen, and that we must make our presence felt. Hamish Fraser was a convert from Communism, and the great legacy which he brought from his Communist background was his commitment to action.

We can fight for the Social Kingship of Our Lord without the need of approval or leadership from our bishops. We can and must mobilize all citizens of good will, whether they are Catholic or not. There were Protestants and even Jews who fought the "Gay Rights Bill" in Connecticut, and they were undermined by our bishops.

If anyone reading this honestly believes that society cannot be changed, I can only reply: "Tell that to the homosexuals, tell that to the abortionists." They have changed society, they have corrupted it, de-humanized it, but they knew what they wanted and they were prepared to fight for it, and they are still prepared to fight for it. Shall the children of light show less zeal than the children of darkness?

Rather than offer a plan of detailed suggestions for action, which limitations of space would not permit in any case, I will appeal to all Catholics to subscribe to The Remnant. It is a serious journal with a serious purpose for serious people.  We can use it to inform ourselves and to motivate ourselves into launching a crusade to restore the Social Reign of Christ the King in our neighborhoods and in our countries.

This is a providential moment to begin this crusade. There is a definite revulsion among basically decent people at what they see happening to society, and, as Catholics, we can mobilize them to campaign against so-called "rights" which, as I hope that I have demonstrated in this study, are not rights at all, and cannot be rights, because they are contrary to the law of Christ the King.

  Let us begin the campaign to restore our King to His rightful throne by working to overthrow the diabolic trinity of abortion, pro-homosexual legislation, and pornography. These are evils that cry to Heaven for vengeance. They were not legal when we were children, and they can be made illegal once again.

  "Impossible," you may say. Why impossible? Impossible because we, as the children of light, are not as prepared to commit ourselves to the fight for what is good as the children of darkness are to commit themselves to the fight for what is evil?

  Because all men are subject to the law of Christ the King, particularly in what concerns the natural law, which is engraved in the heart of every human being, we must, as I have just suggested, do all in our power to enlist the support of both Catholic and non-Catholic people in the fight for those basic decencies which are absolutely essential to the social reign of Christ and without which society will disintegrate. As Professor von Hildebrand has warned us, we shall even become dehumanized. Would any reader deny that if an American Catholic wishes to seek inspiring leadership in the fight to uphold the fundamental moral principles of our faith, he is more likely to find it by listening to Senator Jesse Helms than to 99% of the so-called Catholic bishops?

  Although few Protestants could articulate the doctrine of Christ's Kingship in the formal manner that it is explained in Quas Primas, many of them believe and profess it almost by instinct. The outstanding pro-life journal in the English-speaking world is certainly The Rescuer [P.O. Box 320, Drexel Hill, PA 19026]. In its September, 1991 issue it republished an article from a secular journal concerning the historic 1991 Rescue in Wichita. The report began with an account of the action and the words of a Protestant lady.

There is an obvious contrast between this lady's stand and that of virtually all the English-speaking bishops of the post-conciliar era. There could be no testimony more eloquent to the abysmal state to which Holy Mother Church has been reduced in our countries.

The following report is from Wichita, Kansas:

  WICHITA, KANSAS ----- Pam Schuffert stood at the barricades, a hefty woman in overalls stitched in neon colors with admonitions from Proverbs, holding in one hand a copy of an order from U.S. District Judge Patrick F. Kelly.

  In the other hand she clutched the worn leather-bound Bible she has carried in previous protests and during the 150 days she has spent in jail since taking up a fervent defense of the unborn.   "We'll obey the laws of man when we can," she declared into the loudspeaker, waving Kelly's order, "but we have to obey the laws of God. God's word shall stand over every earthly judge. We say this judge stands in contempt of a higher judge."

  "We say this judge stands in contempt of a higher judge." Could Pope Leo xm have expressed the doctrine of Christ the King more clearly? And alas, the judge that she indicted for being in contempt of a higher judge, Judge Patrick F. Kelly, claims to be a Catholic! What, one wonders, would Hilaire Belloc have thought of this? "Where," he wrote, "there is a conflict between civil law and the moral law of the Catholic Church, members of the Catholic Church will resist the civil law and obey the law of the Church." Yet, here we have a so-called Catholic judge who is not simply ready but eager to imprison Protestants who uphold the law of God as taught by his own Church, a law which he looks upon with total contempt.

  On 25 October 1991 I watched a program on BBC TV concerning the crusade against pornography by an American lady named Andrea Dworkin. She quoted statistics to the effect that today one in three girls in the United States is subjected to sexual abuse within her home. Can Dietrich von Hildebrand be accused of exaggeration in speaking of the dehumanization of contemporary society?

Andrea Dworkin claimed that pornography plays a significant role in the explosion of child abuse, and I am sure that she is correct. I was interested ----- and saddened ----- to note that she did not invoke the name of God even once during the entire program. Her opposition to pornography was based entirely on the fact that it is a violation of women's rights ----- which is perfectly true. But, as I explained earlier, all human rights are contingent; they exist only because they are accorded to us by Christ the King. What was most interesting in her argumentation was her attack upon the so-called "free speech" protected by the First Amendment to the American Constitution: "The golden rule in the United States," she stated, "is that we must have free speech." But Andrea Dworkin went on to explain in the most articulate manner that there are values which must take precedence over free speech. Even from a secular perspective, she could see that rights are not absolute. But I am afraid that many English-speaking bishops would not agree with her.

  Hamish Fraser was very fond of quoting Edmund Burke's dictum that for the triumph of evil it is only necessary that good men do nothing. If we do nothing, can we even call ourselves "good men"?

  "Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth" and He must reign: Opportet illum regnare. It is to be hoped that many will follow the example of Hamish Fraser in dedicating their entire lives to re-establishing that reign.

www.catholictradition.org/Christ/christ-king1f.htm