– The
pope wrote in affirmation of the Social kingship of Christ:
If we ponder this matter more deeply, we
cannot but see that the title and the power of King belongs to Christ as man in
the strict and proper sense too. For it is only as man that he may be said to
have received from the Father “power and glory and a kingdom,” since the Word
of God, as consubstantial with the Father, has all things in common with him,
and therefore has necessarily supreme and absolute dominion over all things
created.
Supreme and absolute dominion over all
things created.” It wouldn’t be a daring wager to say that nearly every
Christian alive today would agree that Christ’s dominion over nature, over
creatures, and the universe itself is absolute. But this statement finds not a
few objectors when applied to the civic sphere. For if Christ is indeed a king
— The King of Kings — then surely, every nation on earth must owe Him homage.
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. Our
Lord’s regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a
religious significance; it ennobles the citizen’s duty of obedience. It is for
this reason that St. Paul, while bidding wives revere Christ in their husbands,
and slaves respect Christ in their masters, warns them to give obedience to
them not as men, but as the vicegerents of Christ; for it is not meet that men
redeemed by Christ should serve their fellow-men.
“You
are bought with a price; be not made the bond-slaves of men.”
If princes and magistrates duly elected are
filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the
mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority
piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view
the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects.
The result will be a stable peace and
tranquility, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see
in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open
to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see
reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man. Peace and harmony, too,
will result; for with the spread and the universal extent of the kingdom of
Christ men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them
together, and thus many conflicts will be either prevented entirely or at least
their bitterness will be diminished.
