Article 6

Is the only legitimate world government that of Jesus Christ and his Church?

- Objections:

1. It would seem that, in addition to the spiritual government of the Church, a world government is also necessary. Indeed, such a government is the only way to achieve the unity of the human race and thus lasting peace, as the present Pope has repeatedly pointed out in his encouragement of the United Nations. On the other hand, the multiplication of exchanges and new means of communication have turned the world into a "global village" in which order can only be ensured by global regulations, and therefore by a global authority.

2. Religions in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, tend easily to intolerance, and have often been the cause of war. They must therefore be excluded from world government, which must be built on the secular model of liberal democracy that has brought prosperity and peace to the United States of America.

3. Any government must be able to enforce its laws and obtain obedience. But the Church has no power of coaction over the nations.

4. The Church has not only permitted, but also encouraged the existence of a temporal power that is in some way universal, that of the Holy Roman Empire. It is not fair, therefore, to say that the only legitimate world government is that of the Church.

- However :

The world government, if it exists, is necessarily unique. But one already exists, and that is that of Jesus Christ and his Church, according to what is said in the Gospel of Saint Matthew:

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All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And be sure that I will be with you always, until the end of the age [Mt 27:18].

- Answer:

As mentioned above, the legitimacy or non-legitimacy of a government must be determined according to what is appropriate for the common good. Man's good is twofold: spiritual and temporal. And temporal goods are almost worthless when compared to spiritual and eternal goods. This is why it is said in the book of Wisdom: "All the gold in the world is but a little sand compared to Wisdom" (Wis 7:9). In order to provide for the best interests of mankind, it is therefore essential that the higher authority in the government of human societies should have as its primary objective the spiritual good and the salvation of souls, and should be interested in temporal goods only indirectly, insofar as they are useful to the spiritual good.

This is why Divine Providence, which watches over all things and neglects nothing that can be useful to its creatures, has provided for the best government of human things by establishing, above all temporal princes and governments, the spiritual government of the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ, and of his Church. We can do no better than refer the reader to the magnificent texts of the Church's magisterium on this subject [in particular, Leo XIII's encyclical Immortale Dei (November 1^er 1885) and Pius XI's Quas primas (December 11 1925)], as well as to Opuscula 20 of St. Thomas (De Regimine principum).

World government already exists, instituted by God himself. Any attempt to establish a new one, like that of present-day globalism, is therefore subversive and ungodly, tending by its very nature to overturn the order of values and divert men from the pursuit of true good. This is why God cannot allow the new order to succeed: the globalists' project will necessarily lead to the most horrible confusion, like that of the builders of the Tower of Babel [Gn 11:1-9]. For it is only in the measure of their submission to Jesus Christ that peoples will know peace and happiness: "Blessed is the people who have God as Lord" (Ps 143:15).

Resolving objections :

1. Peace and ease of trade are undoubtedly great goods, but they must not be bought at any price. As St. Thomas says, "we must never do an evil in order to achieve a good, especially when that evil is worse than the good we hope for". And this is the case here: the establishment of an anti-Christian world power as it is taking place before our very eyes, and the evil that will result for the Church and for souls, is far worse than any war, even an atomic one. War is only a physical evil, while the scandal of an apostate government extended to the whole world is an immeasurable moral and spiritual evil. Those who collaborate in its establishment will bear the terrible responsibility before God and history. As for the argument based on the declarations of Pope John Paul II, the unfortunate answer is that, by his unconditional defense of liberal and revolutionary doctrines, the present Pope has lost his right to the confidence of faithful Catholics, at least in all matters of politics.

2. True religion is in itself the cause of unity and peace. If it sometimes leads to war, it is accidental, in order to defend truth and goodness against its unjust aggressors. On the other hand, it is unfortunately true that false religions and impiety are, by their very nature, the cause of many dissensions and wars [Think, for example, of the bloody wars of religion caused in Europe by the Protestant Reformation. Spain and its American empire were fortunately preserved by the beneficent action of the Inquisition]. As for the American democratic religion that is presented to us today as the universal panacea, we should not forget that it has been financing every revolution for the past two centuries. However, even if American liberalism were truly conducive to peace and economic prosperity, it would still be detestable because of the indifferentism and materialism intrinsic to it.

3. The Church was endowed by its divine founder with a dual power of coaction, as Pope Boniface VIII explained in his bull Unam sanctam of November 18, 1302:

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The Church has two swords: the spiritual and the temporal. But the first must be used by the Church, the second for the Church. This one by the hand of the priest, that one by the hand of kings and soldiers, but according to what the priest orders or allows. It is necessary for one sword to obey the other, and for temporal authority to be subject to spiritual power.

The power entrusted to the Church is sovereignly effective: the day priests take up the sword of doctrine and make good use of the powers entrusted to them, the world may well be on the verge of true peace.

4. There is nothing to prevent the existence, in addition to the spiritual power of the Church, of a universal temporal power, provided the Emperor is perfectly submissive to the Pope for the salvation of souls. Without this condition, the Empire becomes an evil rather than a good [This is why, according to Mgr Delassus, Divine Providence had to arm itself with the arm of the barbarians in order to destroy the old Roman Empire: even as Christians, the emperors had not been able to free themselves from the ancient conception and claimed to govern the affairs of the Church as the pagan emperors governed those of the pagan religion. (Mgr Delassus, La Mission posthume de la bienheureuse Jeanne d'Arc, chapters 20 and 21)].

—Guillaume Devillers, FSSPX, Essay on social and political doctrine in the school of Saint Thomas Aquinas