Latest / The Catholic Current / We Must Say It: Christ Is King! (John Horvat II) 7/14/26

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We Must Say It: Christ Is King! (John Horvat II) 7/14/26 · The Catholic Current

0:00
This is The Catholic Current with Father Robert Matague.
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People bandying about signs that said, you know,
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no justice, no peace. And I said, well, then we're gonna have
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a problem. The justice that we want, we can't possibly
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have by our own will or by our own legislation.
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This is how the secularists get things exactly back to front,
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you know, saying no justice, no peace. Well, there will be no justice until
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there is peace in our hearts. So in other words, we have to begin with
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the peace who is Jesus Christ. Christ. Praise be Jesus
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Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for
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the Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
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You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios, your local radio station,
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and the iCatholic Radio mobile app, and we proclaim the fullness of truth with
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clarity and charity. As always, let's start with prayer. In the name of
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the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Almighty God, through the intercession of Saint Ignatius
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Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit upon us as spirit of
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discernment, that we might hear your voice and your command. In the name of the
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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Friends, there was a time
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when saying the words Christ is King was very ordinary
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for any Catholic to do pretty much anywhere. And in recent
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years, it's become fighting words and a bit of a scandal
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and worse. And I think we need to
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reclaim the declaration that Christ is King, and we need to
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say it proudly and gratefully. And we also need to say it with knowledge and
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intelligence. So to help us with that, my returning guest
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is a scholar, researcher. He's the author of the very important book Return
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to Order, and he's vice president for the American Society for the
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Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property. John Horvat,
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welcome back to The Catholic Current. Always great to be on.
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Thank you so much, John. I want to talk about your— the article that you
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wrote in, uh, in April where you said we must say Christ
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is King. It seems the story we're
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being told is that only bad people with nefarious
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intent who want to start up a Catholic theocracy
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and round up Jews and hate Israel. Those are
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the only people who say that Christ is King.
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And if you declare Christ as King, that's a rallying cry or a
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dog whistle for your jackbooted thugs. How did we get
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here? Well, definitely, that is the narrative that's out
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there right now, because it has become fashionable
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to say it. And of course, there's nothing wrong with saying
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it in that way. Uh, but there, there have been abuses,
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people who, who have used the phrase as a, as, uh, what they call a,
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a culture identity marker, you know, just saying, well, if you say that,
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you, you can be identified with the Christian cause,
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uh, even if you're not a Christian, even if you don't believe in these things,
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you can use the imagery, you can use the other
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thing, all these things for a political purpose. And so I think that's what we
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really need to be on guard against when we say it.
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When we say Christ is King, we really need to mean it for
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what it was, what it actually stands for, not just a slogan
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that goes, that's sent out there and attached to very
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dangerous things that we don't want to get involved in. So let's
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start there. Why should we say
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Christ is King? Well, he is King. That's the
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thing. It's a reality. Yes. The highest of all realities.
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Because it's true. You know, why do we say the Earth is round?
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Well, because it's true. Yeah. But in these days,
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of course, it's not as obvious, or at least people don't want to see that
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it's obvious. But no, no, it is an affirmation
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that I think will put things in the proper perspective.
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It makes us— it really gives us a real idea of who we
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are. You know, if we are— if Christ is King, then we are his
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subjects. We are those who follow him and adore
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him and obey him, and he governs
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us, and he governs us with benevolence. So it's a very excellent
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way to— I mean, it's a win-win situation for us to say that.
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Sure, sure. And I, as I get older, John, I find myself
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quoting St. Anselm more and more. And he said this:
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Without the Son of God, there is no creation. Without the Son of Mary,
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there's no redemption. Let's take the first part. The only begotten
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Son, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the eternal Son of the Father,
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is the spoken word through whom all things
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were made. He is the Logos, from which we get words like logic
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and so on. So, when we see order and
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law in creation, when we see
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a moral law inscribed in our heart, that is the
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Father's self-expression through his word.
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So anything having to do with law, order, authority,
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meaning, purpose, aren't those illustrations
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or occasions of the kingship of Christ? Absolutely. I mean,
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that's excellent. I was just thinking about that a lot this morning because
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your topic just got me thinking a lot regarding some of the
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research I've been doing. And yes, the law,
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the law that we have, the moral law that we have, finds itself.
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It's an acknowledgement of Christ's kingship, the lawgiver.
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He is the lawgiver. He is the Word. And I
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think we still see a lot of that in our present law.
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I mean, a lot of the constitutional law that we have today is
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based on British common law, but church law.
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The church has been the source of a lot of the, let's say,
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the rule of law that everybody claims for themselves, but they don't really trace
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it back to where it belongs with our with God and his
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law and his moral law. Right. And I think that one of the reasons
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why we have gotten kind of slippery in our— or
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careless in our understanding of Christ
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the King is because of the change in the liturgical calendar.
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When Pius XI promulgated the document Quas Primas,
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instituting the Solemnity of Christ the King, he had
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it in October before All Saints' Day to show
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that Christ reigns through all of time
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and brings all creation to himself and
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governs the lives of his saints,
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his disciples, his chosen ones. And then Paul— Saint
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Paul VI said specifically that solemnity
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was being replaced, not just relocated
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on the calendar, but replaced to the end of the liturgical
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year, to right before Advent, the beginning of the liturgical
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year, to show that the reign of Christ is eschatological,
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that the reign of Christ is something that happens at
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the end of time. What was the consequence of that
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shift? Well, I think it definitely did put people's
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priorities away, because if Christ the King is something
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that is not realizable in our times, then,
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you know, why should we get up? Why should we become excited about it?
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Why should we think about it, if it's just at the end of the world,
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the tendency is to say, well, let's just— there's no reason to
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advocate for Christ's kingship on earth because— and
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it's obviously not true. I mean, he is King. He is King
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on this earth in these times and not just at the end of the world.
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So yeah, I think it was a devastating blow to the feast
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and to the concept of Christ the King. Right. And I think
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we need to begin to say that out loud as well. I also
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don't want people who are not Catholic to determine the meaning
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and permissibility of Catholic practices, Catholic belief,
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Catholic language as well. And, you know,
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speaking as a Jesuit, you know, the kingship of
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Christ is an absolutely central part of the
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spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola. When he founded the
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Society of Jesus, he said he wanted men who would distinguish themselves
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in the service of Christ the King. And I think
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one of the reasons we're in the trouble that we're in is also because,
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I'm going to say it, there's a crisis of manhood. There's a crisis
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of masculinity and fatherhood of the church. Do you see that
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as related to our loss of a sense of Christ as King?
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Well, absolutely, because I mean, the church, the family is
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the basic unit of society. And so many people have said, you know,
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it's going around a lot, and I agree.
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The head of the family is prophet, king,
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and what's the third one? Priest, prophet, and king.
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Yeah. Right. Priest, prophet, and king. Yes. And so, yes, if you
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don't have that model of Christ the King, or if it's only deferred until the
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final judgment, an important part of that is lost.
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Each head of family in some way
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is a reflection of that, and we want the the
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full reflection, the big reflection.
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That's the way we need to see it. We need to have it
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if we're going to do it in a small way. And, you know, I think
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there's also a significant misunderstanding of authority.
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We think that someone with the biggest muscles says, because I said so,
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and therefore might makes right. And that's what authority is. And that's not right.
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I mean, the etymology of authority is fascinating. It has 2 roots. The first
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is auctor, from which we get author, we get authorize, authentic,
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authenticate, and then also augere,
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to build up, to augment. So authority is delegated
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by the author of the law, the lawgiver, for the
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sake of building up the community, not just throwing our weight around. And I
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think we've got such a distortion of our
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understanding of what authority is, the role it
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plays in the church, the role that it plays in the moral life, the role
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that it plays in family. And that's— so this great concept,
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vocabulary, iconography, imagery,
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the denotative and connotative senses of the word king,
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they have been lost to us at
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a very terrible cost. And I think it's time
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that Catholics and people who understand things like nature
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and grace begin to reclaim the concept
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and the truth of Christ as King. Friends, when we come back, we're going to
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continue our conversation with John Horvat. We're talking about proclaiming
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Christ is King no matter who says anything to the contrary.
11:01
Remember, our rallying cry here at The Catholic Current is Christus Mundo,
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Mundus Christo, bringing Christ to the world and the world to
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTague of the Society of Jesus,
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you help fund programs that defend our Catholic
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faith. Our topic today is this on this Timely Tuesday: We Must Say It,
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Christ is King. My returning guest is John Horvat
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of Tradition, Family, and Property. Please do read his important
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book, Return to Honor. John, I want to talk about distinctively
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masculine iconography because I, I think
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those are Those are dirty words,
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certainly on university campuses where, you know,
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anything male is therefore bad. Kingship is
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male and bad, and it might have something to do with colonialism, so that's therefore
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bad. And well, fatherhood— well, we all know that fatherhood
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and patriarchy are all bad, etc., etc. And I
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think that's tragic, and I think it's foolish. First of
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all, unlike, say, Freud or Feuerbach, we don't say,
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well, we start with the human and we multiply it to the nth degree,
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and then we attribute it to God. We don't say, oh, Dad is over
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here. I guess God is, is like Dad. It's the other way around.
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Knowing what we know about God as the initiator
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of life, as the giver of authority, of the one
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who brings things to order and to their proper conclusions,
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that's what fatherhood is like, and that's what kingship
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is like. And now I'm going to double down. I'm not only going to defend
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fatherhood, John, I'm also going to defend the king as
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a warrior. The king is always depicted with a
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sword because he's the one who draws the line in the sand
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and says, this far and no farther. And he also points to
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the horizon and says, follow me. So the king, the father,
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the lawgiver, gives both boundaries and
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purpose. And at least since— I, I don't know,
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the French Revolution— modern man has said, nah,
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We don't need that. What's been the cost to us for rejecting
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that perennial wisdom, that God-given wisdom? Yeah, I think it
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is immense. I mean, the whole liberal paradigm,
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which is what we have lived in since the
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French Revolution in varying degrees, is based on that, you know, a value-neutral
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place where we carry out our activities.
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Also the idea not only of value neutrality,
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but We obey laws, we don't obey men.
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It's a very impersonal way of carrying out our
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social functions, which we need that very vibrant and
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necessary personal connection. And so, yes, I think this is
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what's missing. Everyone is their own world.
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The individualism is part of that. And so
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individualism says, I don't need someone to guide,
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to protect, to keep to keep the world going.
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I, you know, I do it on my own and I just get along with
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everyone else. And we work out a system where nobody
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fights, everybody coexists together. And that, that is
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devastating for, for an individual, which we are made— we are social
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beings made for God. And it can only lead to frustration. Right.
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And I think that we have to admit, too, that the radical individualism
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of modernity doesn't strengthen the individual.
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It weakens him. Because it destroys the bonds
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of community. It destroys the bonds of fellowship.
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And yet, you know, 1962 to 1965 BCE,
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best council ever, there seemed to be a kind of paradigm
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shift that kingship was somehow embarrassing.
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And my understanding is the Holy See went to His Most
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Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain, and said,
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please don't do that anymore. Please don't talk like that.
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What do you think motivated that? And what have the consequences
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been? Well, I mean, it is, as we spoke
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about liberalism, the, let's say the '60s was another
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paradigm shift that just said, well, we have
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destroyed the external structures that keep
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in focus how we govern, how we
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live, etc. Now we need to destroy the internal structures. Structures, which are identity,
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sexuality, unity, and inside
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the individual. And so, yes, we go
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from that, the liberal, this classical liberal paradigm
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to a post-liberal or postmodern
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way of going about life where internal structures are the
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target. And that leads to an ever more
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egalitarian world that I think is the ultimate
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goal of of these revolutionaries. And it is kind
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of a pseudo-egalitarian, isn't it? I mean, we've all read Animal Farm, you know,
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all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than
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others. I remember when Leonid Brezhnev took his wife out
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into the woods to look at the latest palatial estate he had built for himself
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because he was the top of the Soviet Empire. And rather than being
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impressed, she said, oh, Leonid, what if the communists take over again?
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Right, right. Yeah, exactly. So, but also, I think
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one of the reasons why this is so destructive— let's compare
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that to, say, King Louis IX of France or Blessed Karl
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of Austria. They knew with
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absolute certainty that they would be accountable to
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God for how they cared for the people entrusted
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to their care. We don't have anything like that today, do we?
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No, no, no, exactly not. I mean, the idea— and the problem is that
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so many people have the idea of monarchy as absolute monarchy,
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which is a distortion of what monarchy is.
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Monarchy is a two-way street. No,
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it's not just I obey or I follow
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the king. He has obligations to me, has obligations of
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protection and justice, which are part of doing of the of
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what makes up a monarchy. And the people have
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the obligation of helping and also counsel. You know,
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they have to counsel the king. They're called to counsel the king. That's part
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of— that was part of the relationship that St. Louis IX,
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you know, had in place, as well as all the Catholic kings.
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It was a very familiar relationship. I mean, the king is
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a kind of father. He is not exactly the father, but kind
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of father. And we are, you know, in— and we
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definitely come out, we definitely benefit from this relationship.
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And it's a very warm relationship. It's a warm relationship. It's not this
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cold, you know, individualism that's just
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so harmful toward our well-being. I want to put parentheses
19:59
around that issue for a moment, the role of the king,
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because, you know, we're We're a democratic
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republic and we've got a constitution that was definitely a product of
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its time. Let's talk about governance within
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the church. The, the bishop was certainly meant
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to be a governing father. The pastor of a parish
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was meant to be a governing father. The perception
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of many people, if I hear them correctly, is that we
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have bureaucrats and managers on a career path
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and that the paternity and the kingship,
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that sense of love and devotion and accountability before God has
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fallen by the wayside or at least receded. Have you heard similar
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laments? Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's no doubt about that.
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It just— yes, if you— this idea
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of a management of a faith community, as they call
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it, that's not the way it was organized. That was not
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the way it was designed, that's for sure. Right. And, you know,
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the Greek origin of the word hierarchy, hieros arché, means a
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holy order, an arrangement given by
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God. And I have some ways of turning our next
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segment into a conversation about synodality, but I'll
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begin to warm that up now. Hieros arché, holy order, an order
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given by God. There is a structure and
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truths that we have received, that we
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have a profound obligation to hand
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on intact. It seems to me
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at least some of the more enthusiastic, uh, advocates of
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synodality say that, well, that's gone now.
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We're going to become congregationalists writ large,
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and whatever the Holy Spirit— excuse me, the Spirit says
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in the moment, that is the new revelation.
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There's no place for kingship or hierarchy in that kind of
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exaggerated synodality, is there? No, no, absolutely not.
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It's a very flat society.
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Everyone is sitting at the same round table. And then there's
22:16
no sense of purpose, order, function. I don't know how you respond to
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emergencies. You know, when you notice the house is on fire, I don't think that's
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really the time that you begin to call a dialogue.
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So, what happens Let's just say in a parish
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where, you know, you've got St. Typicals and there's Father Cheerful,
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and he's been installed by Bishop Bureaucrat,
22:39
and his job is to minimize complaints,
22:44
maximize, uh, customer satisfaction
22:47
as measured by donations collected on Sunday.
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What happens to the life of a parish in that paradigm?
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Right. I mean, it becomes a very naturalistic community
22:59
and not a supernatural community. And I think that's one
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of the big, big things that has happened. So many
23:07
times you go to parishes and they're a beehive of activity. And usually it's because
23:10
they have Eucharistic adoration. It's because
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they have a very, very strong spiritual life. And so when you break that
23:18
strong spiritual life and everything that's connected with God,
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then you will destroy what needs to be,
23:26
what a parish is all about, which is our sanctification.
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And it becomes a social thing, you know,
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that's very vague references to God
23:38
and spirituality. And we've seen the
23:41
consequences of the breakdown of parishes
23:46
and the diminishing of our, of the number of priests and
23:50
faithful. Right. I mean, I can understand why someone might give his
23:54
life to Goldman Sachs because there are very great
23:58
and obvious worldly rewards. You know, you get the corner office
24:02
and the Maserati and so on.
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But if we're presenting spiritual fatherhood and
24:09
priesthood primarily as bureaucratic,
24:13
primarily as low-level corporate management,
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and you have to work weekends and agree to lifelong celibacy,
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that becomes a very hard sell. And for the people
24:25
who do find that kind of bureaucratic approach appealing,
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I don't think I want them to be priests. So I think
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we need to have a really serious
24:38
conversation to talk about what we lost, what's been entrusted
24:42
to us, and what we can do next. Friends, when we come back, we're going
24:45
to continue our conversation with John Horvat of Tradition, Family, and Property.
24:49
Please do look at his important book called Return to Order. We're talking about
24:53
our obligation to declare to all and sundry,
24:57
always and everywhere, that Christ is King.
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After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources
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list. Us. Download our audio as podcasts. Wherever you can find audio, you can
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find us. Follow us on your favorite platform. Write a 5-star
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review. We need to attract the attention of the listeners so that these conversations
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTaggart of the Society of Jesus,
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We're talking about why we must say that Christ is
27:00
King. Some part of what disturbs me in contemporary
27:04
church life now is there seems to be not just
27:08
a coyness or a reluctance from speaking
27:13
of the kingship of Christ not just eschatologically
27:17
but in the here and now, but separating the
27:20
kingship of Christ from his priestly ministry. There was one of the
27:24
documents released by the Synodal Study Group talk about revising priestly
27:29
formation. And when I was growing up and when I was doing
27:32
priestly formation, we talked about being configured to Christ as priest,
27:36
prophet, and king, to teach, to sanctify, and to govern.
27:40
That language is not used in this document at all.
27:45
He's— Christ is referred to as head,
27:48
servant, and shepherd. What do you
27:52
make of that? Yeah, definitely. It's a— the use
27:56
of these terms is to shift. It is a shift.
27:59
And it's not to say that Christ is not a servant and not a
28:03
shepherd, but at the same time, it's to say that it tends
28:07
to forget those other ones, and deliberately so, to turn
28:11
to make the church into a rather amorphous
28:16
institution that doesn't have those rigid hierarchies for
28:20
which it was set up. So, I think that's what it is, a deliberate— it's
28:24
something very deliberate. It's the imagery that they need to use for
28:28
people to grab hold onto. And it's, I think it's
28:31
pretty, probably pretty effective. And also, it takes out
28:35
distinctively masculine language of priesthood and
28:40
kingship. And if you read Yes, it's true. Christ is head,
28:43
servant, and shepherd. That is true. But what makes
28:47
him distinctive in those roles is that he is above all priest, prophet,
28:51
and king. And it seems to me that the document lends—
28:56
I don't know how this was intended. I don't read souls, but it lends
28:59
itself to an interpretation where the
29:05
priest is one who simply calls a meeting and gets talked
29:09
at. In fact, this is one of the most important obligations,
29:13
is for the priest to facilitate meetings where
29:17
everyone is heard. Not that,
29:21
you know, the deposit of faith is handed on intact, or the sacraments are,
29:27
you know, administered reverently and faithfully according to the mind of Christ and
29:31
the Church he founded. But it seems to be someone who who simply calls
29:35
a meeting. Doesn't this reduce priesthood to
29:39
an exclusively human level? Well, absolutely, and probably not even
29:43
a human level because our human lives are full of conflicts
29:47
and full of times when we have to do things
29:51
we don't want to do or to get into conflicts. I think that's,
29:55
you know, when you mentioned that, you know, taking away king,
29:58
prophet, and priest, It also takes away that dynamic
30:02
of a fight, that our lives on this earth are
30:06
a fight between good and evil and that kind of thing that isn't conveyed
30:11
by those other images. It's all very peaceful, very soft,
30:17
so to speak, whereas real life does
30:21
involve these very important and difficult decisions.
30:24
Well, yes. And I think back to when I was a younger Jesuit
30:28
and I was talking to the pastor of a large and famous
30:32
parish, and this pastor said proudly that he knows for sure now that
30:37
his job as priest and pastor is to call the meeting, put on a pot
30:41
of coffee, and get out of the way. And I think,
30:44
you know, so I thought, well, then why take vows of poverty,
30:48
chastity, and obedience and have a very long, demanding, and expensive education?
30:52
Because, you know, I, I think being
30:55
an event planner is a very noble thing, but I don't think you have to
30:58
be ordained to do it.
31:01
I also think that if we diminish Christ as King— and
31:06
I want your take on this, John— if we diminish Christ as King, we diminish
31:10
him as Priest. Because remember, he is the Logos of the Father, the one through
31:13
whom all things were made. He gives
31:17
right order and purpose. So he's the founder
31:21
and he is the judge. And then when sin and rebellion
31:25
come in. That can be remediated only through
31:29
Christ as priest, who is the priest,
31:33
the altar, and the victim. His sacrifice restores the
31:37
right order. And then as prophet, he teaches us and admonishes us
31:41
and guides us mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
31:45
If you take away kingship, don't priesthood and
31:48
prophet for, for Christ have to go away? Oh,
31:51
absolutely. Yes, it certainly makes sense because
31:55
you need that. It gives Christ jurisdiction. It gives him
31:58
the right to do those other things that he has to do.
32:02
The king is sovereign. He— and
32:08
by being sovereign, he— it calls for
32:12
that people have to respect that sovereignty and obey
32:16
him. And again, not in the sense of an absolute monarch,
32:20
but as someone who is looking after their very good and
32:24
will guarantee to those people the best possible
32:27
life, not the worst possible life. And that's why I
32:32
find myself puzzled. I don't understand
32:36
what the appeal is for uncrowning Christ.
32:41
I know this calls for speculation. We have to be careful. But, you know,
32:44
the folks who wrote that that document, did they not know
32:48
of the great perennial tradition of the kingship of Christ?
32:52
Giving it a benign interpretation, what do you think they're intending?
32:56
I don't know if you can give it a benign— I
33:00
mean, this, I think this goes back a long ways. It's not just something even
33:04
from the '60s. It goes back from the French Revolution,
33:08
Protestant Revolution. There have been currents inside history that
33:12
have promoted this overthrow of
33:16
order. Well, since the Garden of Eden,
33:20
we've had that happen. We live in a fallen
33:23
nature, and you will always have those who don't like order, who don't
33:27
like authority, and don't like to— and
33:31
want to see it overthrown.
33:34
And so you have people that definitely see
33:39
this and And to a greater or less extent and with
33:42
greater or less malice, they are, you know, they are involved in this.
33:46
You know, it's— you can't make a generalization, but you can
33:49
say that this, this basic tendency of our fallen nature certainly
33:53
gives rise to this desire not to, not to obey,
33:57
not to, not to, to have, have someone over
34:02
them who looks after them. They want— I want to do it my way.
34:05
You know, it's been my privilege to know a number of very,
34:08
very faithful bishops, and because of their fidelity,
34:11
they carry a heavy cross. And they would
34:15
say, you know, Father, my role in the diocese is to teach, to sanctify,
34:18
and to govern. He says, you know, I teach, and no one
34:21
really protests because they say because, you know, people disobey
34:26
in their hearts. And sanctify, well, no one complains when
34:29
the bishop shows up for confirmation because you need the bishop
34:34
for the photographs, they said their greatest cross is in exercising governance because
34:39
then someone has to be the adult in the room and say no.
34:43
And if you want to get people mad at you, be the adult in the
34:46
room and say no. I'm also not a father. I've not brought children
34:49
into the world, but I hear that saying no to children is also
34:53
the stuff of crisis and drama as well. Do you think that that's
34:58
fair? But the culture of rebellion
35:02
and exaggerated autonomy has seeped into the life of the church
35:06
as well? Oh, absolutely. I mean, the church does not live separate
35:10
from culture, and it definitely is influenced a lot by culture.
35:14
And so you'll— yes, these tendencies,
35:17
they come in, and they do their damage.
35:21
And, you know, there's always those who say we have to keep up
35:24
with the world. There always have been. Right. And in our
35:28
world, it has much, much greater consequences
35:32
than, say, back in the 100 years, 200 years, 300 years.
35:37
We are in a very toxic culture. And when those ideas
35:41
start spreading inside the Church, it has really, really bad effects.
35:45
Right. And that's why I think that, and I know, gosh,
35:48
next year, God save us, there's going to be an ecclesial assembly
35:53
in Rome, which is going to be even more synodal than synod, followed by
35:57
the Ecclesial Assembly of 2028.
36:00
I'm kind of anxious about what might
36:04
come of it. I mean, if, you know, if this be the servant, what be
36:07
the master? If these be the documents, what are going to be the announcements of
36:11
the Ecclesial Assembly? We got about 3 minutes left. If you
36:14
could address those people who are going to synodal
36:18
like we've never been synodaled before, what would you want to say
36:22
to them about Christ the King? Well, I think we'd say that they are going
36:27
in a model that is not popular. It's not understood.
36:30
It's a very complicated thing. And that the
36:35
enthusiasm for synodality since the Synod on Synodality
36:38
has not been that great. It's actually been quite subdued. People don't understand
36:43
it. They want— people want a king. That's what I think we're
36:47
seeing. They want a king in the Blessed the sacrament, they had the adoration.
36:51
All these are very strong symbols and very vibrant symbols
36:55
of not only symbols, but realities of what we, of the
36:59
church life that we live. So I would say that you need to listen.
37:03
That's maybe the, that's a big,
37:06
that's a big buzzword there, but listen and see what has been
37:10
working, not only in our times, but from
37:14
time immemorial. Well, you know, I've never,
37:17
you know, I've been around, I hear a lot of things. I've never heard someone
37:21
say, gosh, if we only had synodaled more,
37:24
or, you know, looking back in my life, I realize now that
37:28
what was lacking was synodality. And oh, what a wonderful thing that
37:32
finally, finally, you know, in the fullness of time, we get to
37:36
synodal together. I think maybe synodality
37:40
is trying to solve a problem that very few people recognize.
37:44
I think people want strong fathers. I think
37:47
they want to be well-led. I think
37:51
they want clarity. They want definition. They want a
37:55
sense of purpose. You know, when I was a young man— gosh,
37:59
I was a junior in college— and I went to see the movie
38:02
Excalibur, which in fairness earned its R rating,
38:06
but there's a wonderful scene where the young Arthur pulls
38:10
the sword out of the stone, realizes he has responsibility,
38:14
and jumps up on a horse and yells, any man who
38:18
would be a knight and follow a king, follow me. And, you know,
38:21
20 years old, I was running down the aisle saying, take me, take me,
38:25
I want to go. There is something that appeals
38:29
not just to the imagination but really to
38:33
the human soul. Again, to have a great
38:36
purpose, to recognize that we follow a
38:40
warrior who sets boundaries, we follow a father
38:44
who gives us horizons, and our, our loving
38:47
father not only teaches us and guides us but
38:51
sacrifices himself for us. That is
38:55
a thrilling moral universe that I want
39:00
to live in. And I will make bold to say it's also a moral universe
39:04
that God intended for his people.
39:08
And I am disinclined to trust,
39:11
praise, or be enthusiastic about anyone or
39:15
anything or any group or individual says, nah,
39:19
we don't really need that. In fact, we got too much
39:23
fatherhood, we got too much leadership, we have too
39:27
much vision. We have too much protection. We have too much guidance.
39:31
I'm not interested in following that, and if
39:35
I'm wrong about it, someone needs to explain it to me very slowly and
39:40
clearly. John Horvat of Tradition, Family, and Property, thank you for another very
39:43
good conversation. God bless your good work. You're always welcome
39:47
here, and I do look forward to next time. Great. Thanks. Thanks for having
39:51
me on. I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague, your host every day of The Catholic Current.
39:55
Today is a Timely Tuesday. You know what that means? You want to stay with
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus,
41:24
your daily host for the Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
41:28
the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios,
41:30
the local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app. We proclaim the
41:34
fullness of truth with clarity and charity. Here we are, the last segment of a
41:38
Timely Tuesday. You know what that means— you and me sharing timely thoughts reflecting on
41:42
what we've heard today. My guest was John Horvat of Tradition, Family, and Property.
41:46
We're talking about the kingship of Christ and why we must proclaim Christ
41:52
as King. Well, what if we don't? What if we don't?
41:56
Well, there is, uh, author H. Richard Niebuhr was writing
42:00
back in the '40s, did a book called The Kingdom of God
42:04
in America, and he says this is what happens
42:08
to Christians especially Christians in America,
42:12
if we don't explain, if we don't proclaim Christ as King.
42:15
He says this: a God without wrath brought men without sin
42:20
into a kingdom without judgment through
42:23
the ministrations of a Christ without
42:27
a cross. So says H. Richard Niebuhr
42:31
in his work The Kingdom of God in America. And I think
42:35
he's right on. Unless we proclaim Christ as
42:38
King— Christ crucified, risen, reigning, and returning— then
42:43
we just have nice Jesus, we have therapeutic
42:47
Jesus, or we have Christ who is the mascot for
42:51
our political causes. So let's not do that.
42:55
If we don't proclaim Christ as King, if we don't say
42:59
that we are servants of a kingdom that is not of this world,
43:03
then we will not rise to the heights that God
43:07
wants and needs for us. And this is not just my
43:10
opinion. Fulton Sheen wrote about this. It was
43:14
an address he gave on January 31st,
43:17
1932, a long time ago,
43:21
even before I was born. And one of the reasons I
43:25
bring this up is because, you know, I've been doing an on-again, off-again series on
43:28
Fridays on the written work
43:32
of Fulton Sheen. His media work is well known, but his written work
43:35
deserves to be discovered. And I want to do this as part
43:39
of leading up to his beatification, and I'm very pleased
43:43
to see that I've gotten very positive feedback from the audience for that. So I'm
43:47
going to read this to you, because if we don't have
43:51
Christ as King and we're not servants of
43:54
his kingdom everything else becomes hollow. Listen to this.
43:58
This is Fulton Sheen, and my goodness, listen to the structure
44:03
of his sentences. Every word is carefully
44:08
sculpted. He says this: There is a famine abroad on the
44:12
earth, a famine not of bread, for we have too much of that,
44:15
and our luxury has made us forget God. A famine not
44:20
of gold, for the glitter of so much that has blinded us to the meaning
44:23
of the twinkle of the stars, but a famine
44:27
of more serious kind, and one which threatens
44:31
nearly every country in the world— the
44:35
famine of really great men.
44:40
In other words, the world today is suffering from a terrible nemesis
44:45
of mediocrity. We are dying of
44:50
ordinariness. We are perishing from
44:54
our pettiness. That's just the first paragraph.
44:59
And he goes on to say, if we don't want to drown in
45:02
mediocrity, we have to answer the call of
45:07
Christ the King and his kingdom. He goes on,
45:11
the world's greatest need is great men,
45:14
someone who will understand that there is no greater conquest than
45:18
victory over oneself. Someone who will
45:22
realize that the real worth is achieved not so much by
45:25
activity as by silence.
45:29
Someone who will seek the kingdom of God and his justice and put into
45:33
actual practice the law that it is only by
45:37
the dying to the life of the body that we ever live to
45:41
the life of the spirit. Someone who will brave the
45:44
taunts of a Good Friday to win the joy of
45:47
Easter Sunday, who will, like a lightning flash,
45:51
burn away the bonds of feeble interests which tie down
45:55
our energies to the world, who,
45:58
with a fearless voice, like John the Baptist, will arouse
46:03
our enfeebled nature out of the sleek dream
46:07
of unheroic repose, who will gain
46:11
victories, not by stepping down from the cross and compromising
46:15
with the world, but who will suffer in order to
46:19
conquer the world. People used to write
46:22
like that and speak like that. My goodness, what an impoverished
46:27
time we live in. Listen to this phrase: the enfeebled nature
46:33
of the sleek dream of unheroic repose.
46:38
Think of that— unheroic repose. And then he, he brings
46:41
it home. He continues, in a word, What we need
46:45
are saints, for saints are the truly great
46:49
men. I assume without further ado that the grace of God is
46:53
the one thing necessary, and that God will give
46:57
that grace to those who do his will.
47:01
So says Fulton Sheen, soon to be Blessed Fulton
47:05
Sheen. So really, friends, that we
47:10
will only reach as high as our aspirations.
47:14
Saint Ignatius Loyola knew that, so when he founded the Society of Jesus,
47:18
he said he wanted men who wished, who wished to distinguish
47:23
themselves in the service of Christ
47:26
the King. He wanted a kind of
47:30
excellence from people who saw that good enough
47:34
wasn't good enough. Remember when I was a new priest,
47:37
I remember talking to a retired
47:41
Army sergeant. He was a Ranger, he was Special Forces,
47:44
and he said that one of the reasons he appreciated Saint Ignatius and the
47:48
Society of Jesus was because, like the Special Forces,
47:53
there was an urgency for excellence
47:57
and for achievement and for the giving of our
48:00
best. Christ the King can
48:04
draw the best out of us and have
48:08
us offer it for the highest good,
48:11
which is his kingdom.
48:15
Or we can settle for mediocrity.
48:22
We can settle for meh. We can
48:27
lead a spiritual life where we make the deal that if we allow God
48:30
to interrupt our weekend, our weekend for as long as
48:34
almost an hour, and we throw a couple of bucks in God's tip
48:38
jar that for that week, if we get hit by a bus,
48:41
God owes us heaven. We can drag ourselves
48:45
to Mass and to prayer and
48:49
maybe once in a great while to confession,
48:54
but we won't change and we won't love and
48:58
we won't improve. We won't suffer, but we won't sacrifice,
49:02
and we won't know what victory is. Is.
49:07
And if, God forbid, we live and die like
49:11
that, then as eternity begins,
49:16
I don't think the saints will rush to
49:20
Christ the King on our behalf and say, he is
49:24
one of us. He lived and died for
49:28
all the things that we lived and died Lord.
49:33
He lived and died for your kingdom. And if we're
49:37
not confident that the
49:41
saints will say that about us at the threshold of eternity,
49:45
then we're not ready to die, and we certainly have
49:49
some living to do, beginning with repentance,
49:53
beginning with conversion to Christ the King.
49:56
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague, your host every day here at The Catholic Current.
50:00
Join us tomorrow for another lovely, lively episode of The Catholic Current.
50:04
Great topic, great guest, great conversation, because that's how we
50:07
roll here at The Catholic Current and The Station of the Cross, where we strive
50:10
to be so very much more than merely relevant.
50:14
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list,
50:18
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50:29
Carmel, may God our Lord surround you with a legion of guardian angels with flaming
50:33
swords to light your path, to protect you from all harm and every
50:37
evil until you reach the happiness of heaven. May Almighty God bless
50:41
you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Go in peace, and please do pray for me,
50:44
for I am a sinner.