Living in a Catholic Monarchy

October 7, 2025

We are called to be leaven in our more local democratic republic

We live in a Catholic monarchy. Jesus our Christ is our King, our Blessed Virgin Mother our Queen. True, in the United States, our local government is, of the moment, if we can keep it, a democratic republic, with regions devolving into anarchy courtesy of modernism's progressivism. Yet, we all, each and every one, regardless of belief, live in a Catholic monarchy. This realization likely leaves us with a lot to (re)examine, including history, monarchy, some of our cherished human rights, and how we Catholics answer Christ's call to be in the world but not of it.

An overarching Catholic monarchy lived by Catholics threatens and terrifies tyrants and anarchists, other despots, and those whose delusions depend on God's non-existence. Interestingly enough, this terror of the Truth (Love, Justice, and Mercy) is part of the proof of the Truth. Catholics, therefore, appear to “hate” much in the modern world, when we love one another as Christ has loved us (Jn 13:34). Pride has those deluded by the various poisons of the fallen world needing to rule at the top; be it a kingdom of many or, in the case of nihilists and anarchists, an ever dwindling kingdom of one.

Monarchy is the governance model God gives us, and He freely shares His authority. He appoint husbands as head of house to love their wives as Christ loves His Church (Eph 5), priests, bishops, and our pope, all as ruling shepherds over the sheep entrusted to them by Christ.

A brief history may help, for modern history ignores the Catholic Golden Age, claiming it was part of the Dark Ages. For 1,200 years, from Charlemagne in 600 to the last vestiges ended unjustly after World War 1 due to the fear and hatred described above, the Holy Roman Empire served her people in various forms and imperfections. Yet, by the grace of God working through His authority on earth, she ushered in a Catholic Golden Age, out of the Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman Empire. Agriculture and trade developed and flourished, universities and hospitals formed, various sciences emerged—advances that occurred nowhere else.

Out of the Dark Age, the Church upheld and recognized and aided the rising authority of Catholic monarchs. Pope Leo XIII, pope from 1878 to 1903, explains: “...when Christian rulers were at the head of States, the Church insisted much more on testifying and preaching how much sanctity was inherent in the authority of rulers” (Diuturum Illud, No. 21) So much so that “Obedience to authority is obedience to God” (Ibid. No. 27).

As Pope Leo XIII explains: “...from the time when the civil society of men raised from the ruins of the Roman Empire, gave hope of its future Christian greatness, the Roman Pontiffs, by the institution of the Holy Roman Empire, consecrated to political power in a wonderful manner. Greatly, indeed, was the authority of rulers ennobled; and it is not to be doubted that what was then instituted would always have been a very great gain, both to ecclesiastical and civil society, if princes and peoples had ever looked to the same object as the Church. And, indeed, tranquility and a sufficient prosperity lasted so long as there was a friendly agreement between the two powers” (Diuturum Illud, No. 22).

Pope Leo XIII goes on to explain the checks and balances on the State, as well as the people: “If the people were turbulent, the Church was at once the mediator for peace. Recalling all to their duty, she subdued the more lawless passions partly by kindness and partly by authority. So, if, in ruling, princes erred in their government, she went to them and, putting before them the rights, needs, and lawful wants of their people, urged them to equity, mercy, and kindness. Whence, it was often brought about that the dangers of civil wars and popular tumults were stayed” (Ibid.)

Arguably, we have fallen into a new Dark Age, under the weight of Martin Luther's attack on God's authority on earth, in the form of the Sola Heresies (I refer to them this way as each of his heresies' first word is “sola”: scriptura, fide, gratia). Pope Leo XIII again explains: “...the doctrines on political power invented by late writers (of the so called Enlightenment and Rationalists) have already produced great ills among men, and it is to be feared that they will cause the very greatest disasters to posterity. For an unwillingness to attribute the right of ruling to God, as its Author, is no less than a willingness to blot out the greatest splendor of political power and to destroy its force. And they who say that this power depends on the will of the people err in opinion first of all; then they place authority on too weak and unstable a foundation...From this heresy (the Sola Heresies of Martin Luther) there arose in the last century a false philosophy—a new right as it is called, and a popular authority, together with an unbridled license which many regard as the only true liberty. Hence we have reached the limit of horrors, to wit, Communism, Socialism, Nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin” (Ibid. No. 23).

This shocks the modern mind: A Catholic monarchy has more immediate and effective checks and balances on it than are built into the Constitution of the United States. A Catholic monarch strives to have bold, humble obedience to God, including His Church, the royal family, and the people of God. Read the writings of the Reigning Prince of Liechtenstein Hans-Adam II in The State in the Third Millennium and The Habsburg Way by Eduard Habsburg, Archduke of Austria and they also describe the workings of these checks and balances of a Catholic monarchy by God's authority on earth.

To understand history, and the rise and eventual neutering of Protestant monarchies, we need only understand that Martin Luther's Sola Heresies evaporated these checks and balances, leaving Protestant monarchs deluded into believing they alone were the highest authority to interpret God's revelation, something no good Catholic would do (keeping in mind Christ Himself defers to the will of the Father).

Is a Catholic monarchy perfect? Not this side of death's veil; it is, however, the best governance model there is, divinely instituted. As near as I can see, based on the nurturing and defense of obedience to God's authority on earth in each: Catholic monarchy > democratic republic >> Protestant monarchy >>>> all others.

As with any shifting and developing relationship, the emergence of a Catholic emperor caused challenges as the papacy and monarchy sorted out how and where authority flowed. Much the same long term learning is occurring in these recent centuries between emerging democratic republics and the papacy and society at large, especially with the added shift of the disenlightenment and rise of irrationalism that now infuses society. Time and experience improved the relationship with the Holy Roman Empire through the centuries, as both chose bold, humble obedience to Christ and thus learned and improved how each filled their divinely appointed office.

Jump forward to the current challenge between the papacy and modernist society: Is similar improvement possible when one of the parties rejects the existence of God? Improvement depends on bold, humble obedience to Christ; thus, the question becomes one of how to shepherd a wayward child who has turned away from Truth, Love, Justice, and Mercy. How did this happen? Since 1517, society has been in decline, not ascent. Authority—which is only granted by God—on earth, the Church, Catholic monarchies, and in individuals, was attacked by Martin Luther's Sola Heresies. The Church has reeled since with how to shepherd. How does one shepherd amidst the confusion of modernism? Naming and lamenting the errors, including that only the individual can discern Truth and the authority to rule derives from the people, not from God, is a start, yet how do we answer Christ's call of the spiritual act of mercy to “admonish the sinner”? Shepherding people out of modernism's many errors is akin to parenting a wayward teen running with the wrong crowd, relishing sex, drugs, and violence.

In theory, in a democratic republic, a well formed, faithful people have a collective authority of sensus fidelium, sense of the faithful, in discerning how they vote (the same authority that is a check and balance against a wayward Catholic monarch); yet when society erodes the “fidelium”, the authority decreases; so to, as leaders have less or no fidelium, what authority they had also erodes, for they have no Christ compass to recognize Truth, Love, Justice and Mercy.

Pope Leo XIII explains part of the root of this shepherding challenge with the many flavors of modernism—including liberalism, progressivism, communism, socialism, nihilism, and anarchy—“For fear, as Saint Thomas (Aquinas) admirably teaches 'is a weak foundation: for those who are subdued by fear would, should the occasion arise in which they might hope for immunity, rise more eagerly against their rulers, in proportion to the previous extent of their restraint through fear'” (Diuturum Illud, No. 24). With diminished authority, fear of punishment is the remaining motivation to obey to the law and there is no motivation to obey what is just.

This explains the chaos of our time. How, then, are we to be Catholic in a local democratic republic? Firstly, we ought always remember we are within the rule of Christ our King. Secondly, much as early Christians were faithful leaven as citizens of the Roman Empire, which persecuted them, we called to be leaven.

Saint Alphonsus De Liguori described Saint Sebastian's martyrdom: “Sebastian answered that he considered he was rendering the greatest possible service to the emperor (as a soldier), since the state benefited by having Christian subjects, whose fidelity to their sovereign is proportionate to their devotedness to Jesus Christ. The emperor, enraged at this reply, ordered that the saint should be instantly tied to a post and that a body of archers should discharge their arrows upon him” (Victories of the Martyrs, Ch. LXII).

In more modern times, Pope Leo explains: “The Church of Christ indeed cannot be an object of suspicion to rulers, nor of hatred to the people; for it urges rulers to follow justice, and in nothing to decline from their duty; while at the same time it strengthens and in many ways supports their authority” (Diuturum Illud, No. 26).

As faithful Catholics, our challenge is to be formed by the Church. We are called to turn to the shepherds Christ entrusts us to so Christ, through them, may shepherd us. As we become more formed, we become leaven throughout society. No matter the local government, or the state of society, Christ within us rises, elevating society. This is how the Church can shepherd manfully amidst these modern errors, and how we faithful can be manfully shepherded. Who but Christ through His Church can name error of our modern ways? For we hold as cherished rights these errors, so turned around by Satan are we: the supposed even plane of ideas, the individual as the highest authority of Truth, and the people, not God, as the source of authority to rulers, among others.

We Catholics are called to elevate public discourse, both with how we live our lives and how we converse with others who do not yet understand. We ought never entertain the voice and temptation and lies of Satan in modernism's many flavors. To modernist eyes, any just voice elevating discourse spouts authoritarian hate. To anarchists, everything looks like fascism.

We Catholics are called to be leaven. Let us turn to our shepherds to form us, that by living our Faith we elevate the city of man, in which we live but are not of, toward becoming the City of God, by being the light of Christ on the hill.

Now, how do I get this bushel off my head?

May Christ startle you with joy!

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