CHAPTER V: RECAPITULATION - THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING S. As we are now about to conclude would you mind repeating for convenience the principal truths set out in this work? T. With pleasure. They are as follows: 1. God is the Supreme Being, independent and sovereign. All that exists apart from Him has been created by Him, and its dependence on Him is absolute and complete. He alone has complete power and authority over all things. Not only does all depend on Him, but all must return to Him as its only ultimate end. In a word, all societies, nations and States belong to God, Who is their Creator and final end. 2. Jesus Christ our Lord, God and Man has received from God in His Humanity all power in Heaven and on earth; all authority is subject to Him. He is invested with a power truly royal, and this power is shared by the Pope and the Bishops who rule the Church. 3. From these explanations it follows that all constitutions ought to have as their head and their foundation God, Christ Jesus and the Church. 4. By the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," God and all that is Divine were eliminated from constitutions and legislation, and replaced by man usurping the place of God. 5. The result of this substitution is the abolition of all Divine law and the proclamation of so-called human rights alone. It means the triumph of laicism, of atheism and of all the errors which are the logical conclusion of the "rights" of man. 6. From this it would follow that man is independent of God and must be free from all restraint, must have license of conscience, of teaching, of the press, of association, of religion. In strange contradiction to this is the power he claims to make laws and to impose them by force. 7. Unless we wish one day to be punished by God and meet with dire calamities of every sort, all the so-called liberties and the general foundation of them must be abolished. With this object in view, we must make use of all the liberties which are granted to us, to bring about the suppression of all false and subversive principles and to do all the good we can. We must use permission to instruct to teach freely the doctrine of Jesus Christ; we must use permission to print to make known saving truth; we must take advantage of permission to associate to join together to procure the good of souls; we must openly profess the worship of the true God. We must profit by all those pretended rights to make men realise that only truth and goodness have rights, that error and evil have not. 8. Thus all will return to peace and order, because all will be subject to God and our Lord Jesus Christ through the Church. Nations will be united in the bonds of justice and charity in Christ and under the supernatural guidance of the Pope. All nations will then form a real Apostolic League of Nations. The world will have found the path of salvation. S. What was the intention of Pius XI in instituting the Feast of the Kingship of Christ? T. The Pope wished by this special feast to bring to mind all the benefits conferred by the God-Man on the human race, especially the blessing of ordered organisation of society, which is the condition of peace in the internal and external affairs of peoples. It will be best to allow the Sovereign Pontiff himself to express what he had in view. Any commentary would but weaken the force and the lucidity of the terms in which Pius XI instituted that feast which he invites the whole world to celebrate. ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI: THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING, QUAS PRIMAS VIEW THE WALLPAPER   E-MAIL  HOME--------------DIRECTORIES-------------CATHOLIC CLASSICS www.catholictradition.org/Christ/christ5-15.htm