On the last Sunday of each liturgical year, we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. In his 1925 encyclical Quas Primas, which established this feast as a response to growing secularism among nations around the world, Pope Pius XI declared Jesus Christ “is very truth, and it is from Him that truth must be obediently received by all mankind.”
When the church invokes the image of Christ the King, we must realize that Jesus defies the earthly notions of a king. Rather than a ruler who is full of ego, Jesus comes as a humble servant who models love and mercy, especially towards the poor, the outcasts and the forgotten. And Jesus expects us to model these behaviors as well. Encouraging the faithful to remain steadfast in their orientation towards Christ in all aspects of life, Pius XI wrote, “He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to Him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls.”
In modern times, one of the ways that efforts to put Christ first manifests itself is in the area of religious freedom. Identifying this struggle in our own nation, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the American bishops in 2012, noting, “Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience. Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.”
That same year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued the statement Our First, Most Cherished Liberty, which opens with these words: “We are Catholics. We are Americans. We are proud to be both, grateful for the gift of faith which is ours as Christian disciples, and grateful for the gift of liberty which is ours as American citizens. To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other. Our allegiances are distinct, but they need not be contradictory, and should instead be complementary.”
This statement highlights the opportunity we have to show how a free people can hold Christ up as the center of our lives while remaining fully engaged in a pluralistic society. We can respect the rights and faiths of others while still modeling Christ for them and potentially allowing them to be drawn to his light that they see within us. We must never be complacent. We must move forward in love and peace, with a commitment to rational discourse, because it is only in this way that conversion can take place in each human soul, where the true kingdom that Christ wishes to reign over exists within us all.
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Maryknoll Father Edward M. Dougherty (CNS photo)
