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The War for Christendom

Tag Archives: Pope Leo XIII

Is the De Facto Power Always Legitimate Authority?

24 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Authority, Essay, Hans Karl von Zessner-Spitzenberg, History, Legitimacy, Pope Leo XIII, Ralliement, rebellion, The Josias Podcast

To despise legitimate authority, in whomsoever vested, is unlawful, as a rebellion against the divine will, and whoever resists that, rushes willfully to destruction.

-Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei

As I was listening to the latest episode of the excellent Josias Podcast, two sentences stood out to me, one referring to revolutions as “intrinsically immoral”, the other stating that “we are obliged to accept the De Facto Power by Catholic Doctrine.” To take the second statement first as it naturally leads to the other, are Catholics always obliged to accept the De Facto Power as legitimate? Is this really the doctrine that was established by Pope Leo XIII?

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On Pope Leo XIII and the Legitimacy of Authorities

25 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom, HRM Archive

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Authority, Hans Karl von Zessner-Spitzenberg, Legality, Legitimacy, Legitimist, Pope Leo XIII, Ralliement, Restoration, Restorationist

“Did not Pope Leo XIII declare, in an Encyclical to French Catholics, that a new authority might, for the sake of the Common Good, receive the right to rule, when the rightful authorities have been removed and are no longer available, and a chaos has arisen so that the maintenance of order requires that new powers be established?

This is to be answered, new legitimacy comes from such emergency power only when the old Authorities and their rightfully appointed successors are not only removed from power, but no longer actually exist. In that case the path lies open, indeed it creates a new necessity, for the establishment of a new legitimate authority.  So long as the rightful Authorities are merely hindered and incapacitated, the emergency order is only permitted as an emergency order, that is to say as a curator or guardian, for so long as the rightful Authority is repressed and its Restoration hindered. However it must not set itself in opposition to this. It is therefore merely legal.”

-Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg, Legitimität und Legalität

(The full text of Dr. H.K. von Zeßner-Spitzenberg’s Legitimität und Legalität is in the process of being translated and will be published in full on The War for Christendom)

“Without morality the State cannot endure…”

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

America, John Carroll, Pope Leo XIII, United States, Washington

Flag_of_the_United_States

Nor, perchance did the fact which We now recall take place without some design of divine Providence. Precisely at the epoch when the American colonies, having, with Catholic aid, achieved liberty and independence, coalesced into a constitutional Republic the ecclesiastical hierarchy was happily established amongst you; and at the very time when the popular suffrage placed the great Washington at the helm of the Republic, the first bishop was set by apostolic authority over the American Church. The well-known friendship and familiar intercourse which subsisted between these two men seems to be an evidence that the United States ought to be conjoined in concord and amity with the Catholic Church. And not without cause; for without morality the State cannot endure-a truth which that illustrious citizen of yours, whom We have just mentioned, with a keenness of insight worthy of his genius and statesmanship perceived and proclaimed. But the best and strongest support of morality is religion. She, by her very nature, guards and defends all the principles on which duties are founded, and setting before us the motives most powerful to influence us, commands us to live virtuously and forbids us to transgress. Now what is the Church other than a legitimate society, founded by the will and ordinance of Jesus Christ for the preservation of morality and the defence of religion? For this reason have We repeatedly endeavored, from the summit of the pontifical dignity, to inculcate that the Church, whilst directly and immediately aiming at the salvation of souls and the beatitude which is to be attained in heaven, is yet, even in the order of temporal things, the fountain of blessings so numerous and great that they could not have been greater or more numerous had the original purpose of her institution been the pursuit of happiness during the life which is spent on earth.

-Pope Leo XIII, Longinqua

Liberty and Catholicism

11 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

Authority, Catholicism, christendom, Common Good, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Freedom, Integralism, Liberalism, Liberty, Pope Leo XIII, Reactionaries, Tyranny

Krafft,_Peter_-_Zrínyi's_Charge_from_the_Fortress_of_Szigetvár_-_Google_Art_Project

This post was written with the help of my good friend The Catholic Professor.

“When it is all over, will ordinary people have any freedom left or will they have to fight for it, or will they be too tired to resist?”- J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters

Pope Leo XIII called Liberty “the highest of natural endowments”¹, yet in these modern times there are those who claim to represent the Catholic Tradition who wholeheartedly reject that Liberty can have anything but a negative position in the political order, if even that. By subscribing to an artificial, indeed Leftist definition of Liberty, they defeat the own cause. In the following body of the post I hope to demonstrate the traditional Catholic and Intergralist understanding of Liberty and its place in government.

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Pope Leo XIII on the Holy Roman Empire

21 Thursday May 2015

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

christendom, civil society, History, Holy Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Politics, Pope Leo XIII

But 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 Empire, consecrated the 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 these two powers. 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.

–Diuturnum Illud (On the Origin of Civil Power)- Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII

S. Mauritius

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