Fr. Denis Fahey on the Social Kingship of Christ

Fr. Denis Fahey on the Social Kingship of Christ

This is an extract from The Kingship of Christ (1931), a book by the Irish priest Fr Denis Fahey.

It shows the same themes as Fahey's other work.  He thought highly of mediaeval Christendom, but believed that civilisation had declined with the Reformation and the French Revolution.  He saw modern constitutional governance as inconsistent with the transcendent order established by God.  He had a dualistic view of the world, which he saw in terms of a great battle between "naturalism" and "supernaturalism", waged between Freemasonry and Christianity, and ultimately between Satan and God.

"We frequently see it stated that modern Constitutions are the embodiment of the spirit of the present age of progress, as the principles of State-organization of the thirteenth century expressed the ideas of that obscurantist epoch. Behind this attitude there is, of course, the horrible error with which Pantheism and Materialism have so impregnated modern minds, namely, that there is not one definite order laid down by the True God for man's return to Him through Our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the present disorder, instead of being taken for the disease, which it really is, is looked upon as a sign of health; it is only when minds have been poisoned that such a mistake is made....

Pope Leo XIII points out... that modern so-called statesmen are simply introducing into the domain of morality and politics what the Naturalists or Rationalists lay down in philosophy....

Another influence, tending in the same direction, has been and is the success of human reason in the practical conquest of matter, that is, in the utilization of the forces of nature for man's purposes.... These currents have contributed considerably to what, following Pope Leo XIII, we may call Naturalism, or the Naturalistic spirit of this age. This spirit is characterized, as has been said, by the denial of the Divine Supernatural Life coming to us from Our Lord Jesus Christ Crucified, and by the social refusal to take into account that supernatural life and the order of its flow into our souls, accompanied, of course, by the claim to be able to make good men and good citizens by purely natural efforts. But one fact stands out clear for all thinking men to see in the history of the world for the last century and a half. The propagation of Naturalism prior to and since the French Revolution is characterized by organization. The spirit of this age is neither the inevitable result of the necessary progress of the human race nor the product of individual efforts, with a more or less haphazard co-ordination.... But what then is this organization aiming at the promotion of Naturalism and Atheism?... One short quotation from Pius VII will suffice. In his Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam a Jesu Christo... the Pope applied to the Italian secret society of the Carbonari the condemnation of Clement XII and of Benedict XIV against the Freemasons, saying that along with these latter they propagate "indifference in religion, the most dangerous of all systems." Masonry, then is the organized promoter of the natural man's contempt for God's plan of restoration of the supernatural life of the world, with, of course, inevitably, the persecution of the Church by the State....

State supremacy over and indifference to all religions is then the steady aim of Freemasonry.... But there has been a difference in the mode of procedure of Masonry in Protestant and Catholic countries, and it is well at this point to say a few words about this. Protestants find little difficulty in accepting that religion be a purely private matter, since, logically for them, all visible Churches are purely human organizations. As Catholics, on the contrary, believe in the existence of one True Church, through which alone one becomes member of the Mystical Body of Christ, which they know to be supra-national, and to which they claim that all States should be indirectly subordinate, in view of man's real end, union with God in Supernatural Life, they are bound to oppose this sectioning of public and private life.... In the Latin countries, in spite of much decay, down to the French Revolution, the social institutions retained the impress of the Kingship of Christ. Revolution then has always been aimed at by Masonry in these countries in order to get rid of the existing social structure in which the Kingship of Christ is respected, and to install Naturalism. In Protestant countries, on account of the public rejection of God's order, the gradual ousting of what is retained of Our Lord's doctrine from the constitution and public life of the country goes on inevitably. The advent of Naturalism in Protestant countries being only a question of time, there is in general no need for Masonry to take forcible steps for the uprooting of the past. Satan can there afford to bide his time in his struggle against Christ the King.

....The 16th July, 1889, there was held at Paris a universal Masonic Congress destined to commemorate and celebrate the principles of 1789, in other words, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Revolution. It was there clearly established that the Declaration of the Rights of Man proceeds from Freemasonry and that the doctrines of the Declaration constitute purely and simply the quintessence of Masonic teaching.... Freemasons avow that they have realized a part of their programme....

...[W]e find in Masonry the two characteristics which we have seen to be amongst the hallmarks of so-called "progress" in modern States - social indifference to religion and superiority of the natural organization over the Catholic Church. As this society... has gained in power, it has gradually moulded the outer visible State to its own image and likeness. Thus, where the Constitution of a State proclaims that State indifferent to ordered return to God, and guarantees equal favour to what God considers order and to what He terms disorder, a Mason can be quite at home while a Catholic cannot.

....There is no need, after what has been written, to dwell upon certain of the influences that were and are working against the Kingship of Christ in Ireland. Freemasonry and that Sub-Masonry, the Orange Society, were, of course, two of them. Before passing on, however, it will be well to draw attention to another influence that was directed against our country's acceptance of the Kingship of Christ. Article 19 of the Constitution of the Irish Republican Brotherhood lays down that "there shall be no State religion in the Irish Republic." This means the impossibility for the Irish State, as a social unit, to acknowledge the order established by God....

It makes any thoughtful mind sad to contemplate the state of slavery that is being prepared for future generations in the name of "liberty" and "progress." And yet, even the most cynical avowals on the part of the leaders of modern democracy fail to awaken people to a sense of what is really taking place...." 

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