Louis Veuillot: The Liberal Illusion [1866]

[Stone]

The Liberal Illusion

Chapter IX

Jesus Christ is the King of the world, He speaks to the world through His Priest, and the decrees of this Priest, being an expression of the  royal rights of Jesus Christ, are eternal. They apply not to one time alone, but to all times; not to one society alone, but to all societies; not to some men, but to all men. And since they have been prescribed in accordance with the nature of Humanity by the Creator Himself of Humanity, everywhere human society has need of them, everywhere its instinct calls for them by dint of cries, of sighs, of recurrent troubles, of unutterable pangs; for outside their empire nothing good exists, nor has anything good the fullness and assurance of life. That is the reason why there is no time, no society, no man from whom the faithful of Christ ought not to exact some form of obedience to the decrees of the Priest of Christ the King of the World.

The children of the Christ, the children of the King, are kings. They form an absolutely superior society, whose duty it is to take possession of the Earth and reign over it for the purpose of baptizing all men and of raising them to that selfsame supernatural life, that selfsame royalty and that selfsame glory for which Christ has destined them. They ought to strive for that goal, because the only way of realizing the ideal of universal liberty, universal equality, universal fraternity is to establish the universal reign of Christ. For the liberty that is man’s due is liberty to attain his supernatural end, which is union with Christ; and the only society ever known to recognize all men as equals and as brothers is the society of the disciples of Christ.

In the normal order, Christian society is maintained and extended by means of two powers that ought to be distinct — not separated; united — not confused; one above the other — not equal. The one is the head, the other the arm; the one is the supreme and sovereign word of the Pontiff, the other the social power.

Christian society, being firstly and above all Christian, submits wholly to this first law; and it puts all things in their place, because it first of all puts in His place its sole Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. It puts Him in His sovereign place in society, as all the faithful put Him in His sovereign place among souls; and out of this arises order, liberty, unity, greatness, justice, empire, peace.

Thus, across the breaches opened by human passions, by human weakness, and in spite of them, was formed in its magnificent variety that commonwealth of Europe which could be called the Christian Republic or even the Christian Family; a wonderful work, broken up by heresy just when the internal peace and the progress of the arts gave glorious promise of extending to the entire human race the fruits of the Redemption. Had Catholic unity been maintained until the XVIth century, there would no longer be any infidels, nor idolaters, nor slaves; the human race would be Christian to-day, and owing to the number and diversity of the nations coalescing in the unity of faith, it would be safe from the danger of universal despotism so imminent to-day.