An Everlasting Kingdom
The structure of the Catholic Church is more like a monarchy than a democracy. It’s more of a kingdom than a country. The language alone is a giveaway. We call Christ “Lord,” and the Blessed Mother “Our Lady.” Bishops are referred to as “Excellency,” and cardinals as “Princes of the Church.” The faithful rejoice to enter into the “courts” of the King, offering obedience to his Vicar on earth, Pope Francis, who was chosen by conclave, not by popular vote.
This makes it really quite fun to be Catholic. As children, we dreamt of the realms of royalty! With the exception of those few precociously prudish friends (which we all had), most of us imagined belonging not to a democratic republic, but to a kingdom. Children’s movies about U.S. Senators were not particularly enthralling, but stories about kings and queens captivated us over and over, inspiring us to fall in love and to desire virtue. If we did love stories about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln it was because they were portrayed as kingly in character.
In my opinion, the movie Frozen was one of the world’s more obvious efforts to subvert children’s natural aspirations away from the prince. That story was the thin end of the wedge. But the human longing for the love of a king, not a president, can never be snuffed out entirely, because the desire for God on the heart of every person is the desire for Christ, the King. And yet his is not a political kingdom. Rather, Christ’s kingdom is spiritual and religious. It is theological and sacramental. It is not of this world. It is the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is why it’s hard for us to reconcile our American identity with our Catholicism. These days, to be American almost exclusively means to have strong opinions about our particular form of government. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; we should care about politics. But ours is only one of the many forms of modern earthly government. One might argue that it’s the best form of government, but only judged to be so among the earthly ones. And while I’m not saying that temporal monarchies are the best form, it is interesting that the Scriptural revelation of heaven lends itself most fittingly to that of a sovereign state, or a kingdom.
To me, this truly is good news, because while even the best of men’s worldly projects ultimately fail, the Roman Catholic Church is an everlasting kingdom. Like Greece and Rome before us, the American empire will collapse. Even Jerusalem is in ruins. But the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. Christ has conquered the sin and death that infects men with oppressive ambition, and gives to his faithful subjects the antidote to that poison of the ancient serpent. Those who eat and drink of this sacred vaccine will live forever. +