So much of modern Catholicism today has been corrupted by Americanism, a heresy that is not only limited to the United States. The Americanist indifference to Catholic monarchy and enmity towards Christ the King is countered by devotion to the grand Feast of Christ the King. So, contrarians that we are, let’s turn to that prototypical contrarian Solange Hertz for today’s essay, which is drawn from her book, .”The Star-Spangled Heresy: Americanism”, LINK
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to Christ the King are inseparable and Mrs. Hertz links both devotions to Saint Joan of Arc, placed in the context of the French monarchy.
“There is no explaining away St. Joan. She is living proof of God’s interest in politics, not to mention His approval of just warfare.”
She furthermore reasserted the ancient tradition that God Himself had constituted the King of France, under the Pope, temporal regent for Christ over all the other kings of Christendom. Why God so decreed is His secret, but Joan understood her orders, for on driving the English from Rheims she insisted on the immediate consecration of the dauphin Charles VII before continuing the campaign further.
“Historians missing this point cannot properly assess the French Revolution of 1789, let alone what followed. Neither will they understand why the Sacred Heart appeared in France rather than in some other nation, to entreat its king at a most crucial point in history to re-consecrate the wayward French royal house to Him.
At St. Joan’s beatification in 1908 Pope St. Pius X took care to quote from the famous letter written to King St. Louis of France by Pope Gregory IX some 200 years before Joan’s birth:
God … having established various kingdoms here below in accordance with diversities of language and climate, has conferred special missions on a large number of governments in order to accomplish His designs. And as once He preferred the tribe of Judah over those of other sons of Jacob, favoring it with special blessings, thus He chose France in preference to all the other nations of the earth for the protection of the Catholic faith and for the defense of religious liberty.
For this reason France is God’s own kingdom, the enemies of France are the enemies of Christ. For this reason, God loves France because He loves the Church which crosses the centuries recruiting legions for eternity.
And St. Pius concludes by instructing the French cardinals to tell their compatriots to “treasure the testimony of St. Remi, of Charlemagne and St. Louis, testimony summed up in the words so often repeated by the heroine of Orleans: Long live Christ, King of the Franks!”
He was attesting to an unbroken tradition dating from the miraculous baptism of Clovis in Rheims Cathedral on Christmas 438, as described by the saintly priest Hincmar:
Suddenly a light more brilliant than the sun floods the church. The face of the Bishop glows with it. At the same time a voice resounds: ‘Peace be with you! It is I! Fear not! Persevere in my favor!’ This was accompanied, we are told, by a heavenly perfume, whereupon the king and queen threw themselves at the feet of the Bishop, St. Remi, who addressed Clovis thus: Know, my son, that the kingdom of France is predestined by God for the defense of the Roman Church, which is the only true Church of Christ.
This kingdom will one day be great beyond all other kingdoms … It will be victorious and prosperous as long as it remains faithful to the Roman faith, but it will be severely punished whenever it is unfaithful to its vocation (J. Gonthier, Malédictions et Bénédictions, Editions du Carmel, pp. 66-67).
This predestination, also confirmed by Pope Anastasius, explains why French kings have been consecrated by a special ceremony never used by other monarchs. “Above all the nations under heaven,” Pope Stephen II told the French, “has been set the Frankish nation, which is favorable to me, Peter, apostle of God. This is why … I have confided to you the Church I have received from God, to free her from the hands of her enemies.” And so through the centuries. Even Leo XIII, generally credited with having “baptized” democracy for motives of expediency, asserted in the encyclical Nobilissima Gallorum Gens:
“At all times has Providence been pleased to confide the defense of the Church to the valiant arms of France.” In 1933 Pius XI asserted that when St. Remi baptized King Clovis, he “baptized the French nation itself,” making of it the political center of the Catholic faith, the foundation stone of temporal Christendom.
Thus can be seen that the very unity of a nation resides in the person of its king. Within natural law it is as impossible to conceive of a nation without its king as the king without the nation. Far from being a tyrant, a true monarch is the very principle of political unity. Nor is his power absolute, for he too is subject to his nation’s laws. The concept of the divine right of kings is a perversion which actually ushered in the downfall of Christian monarchy. As early as the eighth century Pope Zachary told the French,
“The Prince is responsible to the people, whose favor he enjoys. Whatever he has – power, honor, riches, glory, dignity – he has received from the people.”
He does not, however, receive his essential authority from them. Cardinal Bellarmine says: It is false that political princes have their power from God only: for they have it from God only so far as He planted a natural instinct in the minds of men, that they should wish to be governed by someone (See Archbishop Hughes, The Civil and Ecclesiastical Power in the Governments of the Middle Ages, Catholic Cabinet, 1843, pp. 660-1). Before this St. Thomas had laid down that civil governments are not by divine right, but by human right, under God, and “When anything is to be enacted for the common good, it ought to be done either by the whole multitude of the people or by their representative.” Here is no authorization, however, for the oppression of a minority by a majority as interpreted by modern democracy. Ideally the “representative” of a nation is its king, under God.
How well St. Louis understood this is clear in the words he addressed to his barons: “I am not the king of France, I am not the Church; you are, insofar as you are all the King, who are the Church.” This is Christian politics in its deepest dimension.
With such texts before us we can understand better why France, of all nations, is in so pitiable a condition. She has been Satan’s special target. Nevertheless, St. Pius X prophesied back in 1911, “The people who made a covenant with God at the baptismal font of Rheims will repent and return to her first vocation.”
Countless saints and mystics have persistently foretold a “great monarch” of French royal blood who would arise near the end of time to restore Christendom, no less an authority than St. Thomas promising, “A king will reign who will be wise … From him flows the royal priesthood” (See Pierre Virion, Le Mystere de Jeanne d’Arc et la Politique des Nations).
St. Joan is therefore not just a French patriot, a national saint, but a saint for the Universal Church.
Popular painters who depict her at the head of her army carrying a banner sporting the lilies of France are falsifying history. Documents of the period tell us she carried no such thing, but a banner bearing the figure of Christ the King reigning in glory. She furthermore testified at her trial that the standard had been designed by our Lord Himself, as relayed to her by her Voices.
Joan’s mission was not just to save France from the English, but to save Christendom, at a particularly poignant moment in history. As she declared at Rheims, “Those who war against the Holy Kingdom of France war against Jesus the King.” She could not save Christendom without first saving France, the apex of the political order whose authority comes from above.
The occult forces plotting this destruction were already well organized before Joan’s birth, working through the human ambitions of the English king, Henry V of Lancaster. In league with France’s internal enemies, he was already laying out the one-world superstate built on rational power principles independent of religion when he declared himself “King of France and of England.”
His strategy for the domination of Europe is known to historians: By mercantile and marital alliances he sought unified control of the three great old world capitals: London, Paris and Jerusalem.
It was into the teeth of this that Joan came to cast her battle cry, “Our Lord served first!” Sent by heaven at an eleventh hour, she was empowered to thwart the enemy – for a time.
The Lord who appeared to St. Margaret Mary and declared that He wished to be honored in the house of the King of France is dwelt upon mostly by specialists in mysticism. Few Americans have even heard of the vision (LINK) subsequently accorded to St. Catherine Labouré, of Christ the King in anguish, despoiled of His royal insignia; nor do they know that she was told concerning the destruction of the French monarchy, “Little do you know what you have lost!” Yet the consequences of the French Revolution are clear in the world today.
Our Lord did not stand before Pilate and declare “I am a President.” Nor your Big Brother. He said simply, “I am a King.” During His public ministry He had furthermore specifically characterized his enemies as men who “will not have this man to rule over us” (Luke 19:14). Countless times in the Gospels He spoke of a Kingdom which is to come, one He taught us to ask for daily in the Lord’s Prayer.
Is it possible He was ignorant of the progressio populorum bound to take place? His apparently archaic politics have, alas, been treated as just that. We are led to believe that He really doesn’t care about politics, yet the implication is that if He were on earth today He would favor democracy or communism as more highly evolved forms of Christianity.
As those bent on His destruction ever maintain, “Whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar” (John 19:12). This explains why even the Infant of Prague, clad in royal robes and diadem, with the world in His hand, has been largely reserved to the piety of little old ladies with financial problems. It would hardly do to publicize the fact that this miraculous image was originally granted as a focus for the prayer of royalists pitted against ravaging democracy, and known as “le petit Roi de Gloire.”
To keep our Lord out of trouble with secular authority it is essential to relegate His kingship to the purely spiritual – whatever that is. But then, why did God become man? Wouldn’t His divinity have sufficed for purely spiritual ends? If the Gospels are to be believed, our Lord had something more in mind. Faith without works denies the Incarnation. As Pius XI laid down in Quas Primas, “the title and power of King belongs to Christ as man in the strict and proper sense,” not just “figuratively and spiritually.”
(Our Lord) told Pilate His Kingdom is “not from hence” (John 18:36) This formally excludes modern democracy, whose sole raison d’être is derivation of authority “from hence,” that is, from here below; but this doesn’t mean that Christ’s kingdom isn’t here, in the world, embedded in time and space, producing visible effects in society. He assured the venal bureaucrat Pilate that even he would have no power over Him if it hadn’t been conferred from above.
Our Lord reigns as absolute monarch in this world: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18) Evil exists here only by His express permission, for our perfection or chastisement. If His Kingdom appears to be waning, it does so only in men’s wills, for His rule continues intact.
Editor’s note: I’m unable to write more, due to increased health problems, but posted this particular essay for a reason. Solange Hertz’s untimely death robbed us all of the clear and brilliant voice of one who foresaw this ongoing revolution as the work of the dark forces which were chronicled in Sacred Scripture. From the Passion of Christ, through the Protestant Revolution (it “reformed” nothing but was a revolt against Christ in His own Church), until this very time of Chastisement, you see the dark hatred of satan against Christ’s reign.
Again, I assert, only in Our Lady of the Rosary can we win this battle, for as Our Lord Jesus told Sister Lucia, “To her it has been given.”
Remember – Our Lady needs us to obey: First Saturdays of Reparation, daily rosary, at least 5 mysteries, wear her brown scapular and live your Total Consecration to her Immaculate Heart, offering our daily duties in reparation and for the conversion of poor sinners.
Open your hearts to the Lord and serve Him only: and He will free you from the hands of your enemies. With all your heart return to Him, and take away from your midst any strange gods” (I Kings 7:3)
✝︎ Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of our hearts, Mother of the Church, do thou offer to the Eternal Father the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the conversion of poor sinners, especially our Pontiff.
✝︎ Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come! Viva Cristo Rey!
✝︎ St. Joseph, protect us, protect our families, protect our priests.
✝︎ St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Pray the Rosary for a Pope and Bishops who will obediently consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
~ by evensong for love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, King.
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O Sacred Virgin! Give me strength against thine enemies!
