Christ Must Rule Over Nations

One of the elements from President Obama's speech was the emphasis on diversity and working together to meet the problems we all face as individuals and as nations. Unfortunately what is absent from his plan is that it neglects the place Christ must hold. He stated that no religion holds all the answers. Well I beg to seriously differ.

Read the following excerpt from The Kingship of Christ by Cardinal Pie of Poitiers and the re-read the speech Obama gave at UND in light of this text.

"So long as Christ does not reign over nations, His influence over individuals remains superficial and precarious. If it is true that the work of the apostolate consists in the conversion of individuals and that nations as such do not go to heaven, but souls, one by one, we must not forget, nevertheless, that the individual member of society lives under the never-ceasing influence of his environment, in which, if we may not say that he is submerged, he is, at least, deeply plunged., If the environment is non-Catholic, it prevents him from embracing the faith or, if he has the faith, it tends to root out of his heart every vestige of belief. If we imagine Catholic social institutions, with Our Lord no longer living in the hearts of the individual members of society, then religion has there become merely a displeasing signboard which will soon be torn down. But, on the other hand, try to convert individuals without Catholicizing the social institutions and your work is without stability. The structure you erect in the morning will be torn down by others in the evening. is not the strategy of the enemies of God there to teach us a lesson? They want to destroy the faith in the hearts of the individuals, it is true, but they direct still more vigorous efforts to the elimination of religion from social institutions. Even one defeat of God in this domain means the weakening, if not the ruin, of the faith in the souls of many.

President Jenkins has supported his decision to honor President Obama because of his commitment to other issues that are consistent with other social teachings of the Church. The problem I have attempted to raise the past year is that while many rightly attempt to defend the right to life position as trumping these other social issues in terms of importance, they frequently fail to address the myth that Pres. Obama's understanding of these issues is equivalent with the Catholic understanding of them. One can search my past posts as I have shown that his positions vis a vis healthcare, education, economics etc are more often contrary to Church teaching than in agreement. Perhaps the problem is that too few Catholics fully comprehend the Catholic Social Teaching but take them to be the platform of the Democrat Party.

Recalling what Cardinal George had to say after his earlier meeting with President Obama,

"He'll tell you anything to make you think he agrees with you."