This is my yearly post.

It was given by a SSPX priest in 2003 for the feast of Christ the King. It has been slightly edited to make it more readable and I have inserted the one footnote.
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In August 1789, the Constituent Assembly of France drew up and promulgated what is called the Declaration of the Rights of Man. In the fourth article of this declaration (1) it is said that liberty is the right to do anything provided that it does not harm anyone else, that is to say, that freedom, instead of being founded in truth and justice liberty is the right that anyone has to decide for himself and to find the norms by which he will regulate his own life. Freedom without any consideration of truth – complete freedom.

In December 1925, Pope Pius XI wrote an encyclical, a letter that he sent to all the bishops of the whole world. This text is called Quas Primas by the first words of this text. It is a text that we can call the declaration of the royal rights of Our Lord Jesus Christ and with this letter, on the occasion of this encyclical, he instituted the feast of Christ the King – the feast that we celebrate today. The rights of Our Lord to govern – Our Lord is King and everyone has to obey Him and has the duty to obey Him. He is the King of all men because He is God and because He is the savior of all men. All men have to obey Him.

These two declarations had been prepared – the Declaration of the Rights of Man had been prepared by three or even four centuries of Humanism, Rationalism – the spirit of the Renaissance. This spirit which despises the grace of God which extols so much of human nature so as to despise what is above nature, that is, the grace of God. Humanism had been prepared also by secret societies – the Freemasons who will be condemned by the Popes just after their foundation. Their purpose was to destroy Christendom and this Declaration of the Rights of Man had been prepared also by the philosophers of the Enlightenment, those philosophers of the 18th century whose writings were read by everybody even in the royal courts and even by kings who would read this text and more or less believe in what they were saying even though these people knew what they were doing and said blatantly what they wanted to do: to destroy the Catholic Church. One of them, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, said if a Church said that “Outside the Church there is no salvation” such a Church dares to say so, this Church has to be expelled from the country. We cannot accept a religion which says that outside this religion there is no salvation and this of course is a dogma of our faith. Yes we believe that outside the Church there is no salvation and this man knew what he was doing, he knew what he was saying, and he knew that he was preaching against the Church and yet people read him and had their minds twisted by these false principles.

And the declaration of the royal rights of Our Lord Jesus Christ had been also prepared, we can say, by the Church as seen in the history of the Church. For centuries the Church had always tried to be united to States – the Church has always tried to have people submit to the law of Christ, obviously, and it is a historical fact that many countries – centuries up to fifteen centuries – countries – these countries were Catholic and believed in Our Lord and publicly worshipped Our Lord. These States, as States, worshiped Our Lord. The name of Our Lord Jesus Christ was written in the constitutions of these countries and this was the desire of good Popes and good bishops and of the whole Church. This is the life of the Church – of course we believe that Our Lord is God. And of course as a consequence, we believe and we want Him to be King - The King of our societies and the king of our families. This declaration had also been prepared by all the popes of the 19th century – these popes who came after the French Revolution: Pius VI, Pius VII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X – all these popes, all of them, explicitly condemned the French Revolution and the principles of the French Revolution – all of them! And they gave us; they laid down the principles of the faith. These principles will show the inanity of this pretentious declaration of the rights of man. What are the rights of man in front of the rights of God? They are nothing! Men have a duty to obey God, or of course we may have to tolerate evil. We may have to accept it because we may not be able to do anything against evil and this is possible. But as such rights belong to the truth. Rights are founded in truth, justice and goodness. What is evil, what is wrong, what is unjust has no rights! Errors have no rights! Once more we can tolerate errors but we cannot approve of them and we cannot give them rights and in fact as Leo XIII explains: the more a state is driven to tolerate evil the further it is from perfection. The more you have to accept evil the less perfect you are, of course. It may be expedient to tolerate evil and errors but it is never, in itself, a good thing. We may have to do it but in itself it is not a good thing.

The State has to protect the Church and try as far as possible to prevent the preaching of errors so that people may not be confused and led away from the Church. This is what happens. If anyone can say anything well many people are going to be confused. They are going to read this text. They are going to listen to these people and they are going to be confused and some of them are going to lose the faith so therefore we cannot give any rights to errors but rights belong to the truth. Therefore today we are very happy to be able to profess our faith in the Kingship of Our Lord. As Pius XI said; the liturgy of the Church is the main organ of the Magisterium of the Church. We preach by what we do and by the way we worship God. This is what we believe. Today is the feast of Christ the King. Of course we believe in Christ the King. Of course the Church believes in Christ the King. And it is for us today certainly a great consolation to proclaim our faith in Our Lord, King. It is more than a consolation, it is a duty today to speak of Christ the King because our faith in Our Lord, King, is under attack. People today do not believe in Christ the King. The constitutions of our countries today, all of them, are tainted, at least, by this liberal spirit – the refusal of the rights of God, the refusal of the rights of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

And this attack is not only from without the Church but it is now from within the Church. Now even many bishops do not believe anymore in the Kingship of Our Lord. And they have proclaimed religious liberty – these rights given to anyone, to everybody to profess publicly his religion whatever it may be. This is contradictory, it is opposed to what the Church has always said and because our faith is under attack we have the duty, yes, publicly, to profess our faith. We believe in Christ the King whatever may be the consequences. Maybe one day, we will be persecuted because of our faith. This persecution may break out at any time but we are ready to shed our blood for that. This is our faith, this is God, and this is our eternal salvation. The only kind of religious liberty that we know of is the liberty of the Church, the Catholic Church, the only bride of Our Lord. The Church received a mission to preach to all men the Gospel and to save all men. Therefore the Church has the right to preach publicly. The Church has the right to worship God publicly but no one else, no one else! There is only one Church and in fact it is exactly what they have done at the Council – to say that there are in fact many Churches – to make this declaration on religious liberty possible they had to say before, and they did, they had to say before that in a certain way, of course, in a certain way all religions are Christian. The Church of Christ subsists, they say, the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church but is not the Catholic Church. They make a distinction between the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church as if the Church of Christ existed in many religions. So all religions, according to the new teaching, all religions are more or less Christian. And as a consequence they could say after, and therefore all men have the right to profess publicly his religion – to say whatever even if it is against the Church – he has the right to do so. And they have even said that this right has its foundation in the dignity of the human person that is to say that it is a natural right; it is something that belongs to our nature. By nature I have the right to say whatever, anything publicly, to write anything. What is this right? The Church has never known – even the Church has always been opposed to that by proclaiming the rights of Our Lord. It is contradictory, it is in deep opposition between the traditional teaching of the Church and the conciliar teaching – the Modern Church and maybe it is at the heart of everything. If I was asked today to explain, to express the opposition between the Modern Church and the Traditional Church, in three words, well I would say: Christ the King. This is the opposition; this is what they do not want. They have said publicly that all religions have the right to be, to exist, and to profess publicly their beliefs. They said it.

The opposition is so strong that some traditional minded priests, well at least priests who say the Traditional Mass have tried to save this declaration on Religious Liberty. To say it is not so bad, maybe there is a way to explain the traditional practice of the Church and this new declaration. Some have said it is a case of evolution. The Church evolves with time and there are priests that say the traditional Mass, they do and yet they have said well there is evolution and what the Church used to say and what the Church says now there may be differences. And now the Church because of the new circuмstances in which she finds herself in understands better her own teaching. They have said so! So now we can now say something else. We used to say only what is true has rights but today we can say something else.

But what is this kind of evolution which is opposed to what the Church has always said. It is absurd. It is absolutely absurd. It is true that sometimes the Church may make explicit something which was merely implicit before, for example, our faith in the Immaculate Conception. This dogma of our faith was not clear before. There can be a certain evolution in this sense but there cannot be an opposition between what the Church used to say and what the Church says today – the truth does not change. Some have said this declaration on religious liberty must be understood within just limits. That is to say at the last Council the Church did not say that we can do anything, we can say anything, we can have any religion but the Church, the Council said that it is only within just limits. But who is going to give, to tell us, what are these just limits? The State and it is in fact what is written, what is said. It is up to the State to decide and to set the just limits. Are they saying now the Church has to submit to countries, to States, are they saying Our Lord Jesus Christ has to submit to man? What are these just limits? The just limits are the enemies of the Church, the Catholic Church. We do not have to look for these just limits. The just limits of religious liberty, they are imposed by God. The limits of religious liberty are the limits of the Catholic Church which the Catholic Church alone has the right to preach publicly because she alone is the bride of Our Lord Jesus Christ who is God. And finally some have said this liberty; this religious liberty is for those who look for the truth, not for everybody, but only those who look for the truth.

This is a pious wish. It is not at all what is written in the text, not at all. And even if it was true it would not explain anything. It is not because subjectively I may be looking for the truth that as a consequence I have the right to say anything in public and even to preach against Our Lord. It is not because I think genuinely that Our Lord is not God that as a consequence I have the right publicly to say that Our Lord Jesus Christ is not God, of course not. The only right I have is to say He is God because this is the truth and only the truth has rights. It is why Our Lord came on earth as He said to Pilate, “I came to bear witness to the truth.” It is what we believe and this is in fact the foundation of this clash between the modern world and the Church, the true Church of Our Lord. It is faith. Do we believe in God? Do we believe in Our Lord? Do we believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth? This is a question of eternal salvation. We have to believe to be saved. We have to proclaim the royal rights of Our Lord if we want to be saved and not only to believe but also to put into practice as far as it is possible. It is the purpose of this beautiful devotion to the Sacred Heart. The enthronement of the Sacred Heart in homes. The public, at least, within the family, the public Kingship of Our Lord. The Catholic family should be a little kingdom of Our Lord. Our Lord should be the King and this doesn’t mean that it is enough to put up a little picture of the Sacred Heart. It must be something real. It must change your life. Nothing in your home should be offensive to the truth, to Our Lord, to modesty, to virtue. What is the meaning of these pictures of Our Lord when there are in the house, magazines, pictures which are sinful, worldly? What is the meaning of this picture of Our Lord when there is a TV set which is vomiting out the spirit of the world? It is meaningless. Our Lord is a King and He must be respected. He must be obeyed. The only right we have is to obey Him, to do what He wants, to worship Him publicly because He is the King of all men and in this way we are going to save our souls. The purpose of the Kingship of Our Lord is the salvation of souls. It is why Pius XI wanted this feast to be before All Saints Day. You become a saint by accepting the Kingship of Our Lord and it is in fact what we say everyday in the Our Father, “thy kingdom come.” This is what we want – the kingdom of Our Lord. That He may be the King here on earth, that Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, may be the Queen here on earth so that we may be received one day in the eternal kingdom of God.

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(1) 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.