"Where Christ does not reign, the dictatorship of Satan prevails"
-Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano
The school of the Holy Liturgy repeats cyclically, year by year, the Mysteries of the Savior’s life, showing them to us in the threefold light of the Old Law that prefigured them, the New Law that fulfills them, and the End of Time that leads them back to their eschatological and eternal dimension. Like the wheel of a chariot or the orbit of a planet, the liturgical year turns on its axis as it moves along an ever wider path, so that with each turn it has made the final goal come closer and closer and, in some ways, clearer. The Mysteries of Holy Week respond to this highly pedagogical approach, recalling the figures of the Old Testament, manifesting the reality of the New Testament, and progressively thinning out the fog that envelops the future of the Church and of all humanity.
In this light, Our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which repeats the royal liturgical ceremonial of David’s coronation (1 Kings 1:38-40), fulfills Zechariah’s prophecy (Zech 9:9) and anticipates the return in glory of the Supreme Judge, when He will reveal himself on the day of judgment (Zech 14:4). The cloaks spread by the people as the Messianic King passed, and in particular along the steps of the temple (2 Kings 9:13), also allude to the accession to the throne and perfectly fulfill the words of the Psalmist: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, we bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God and enlightens us. Celebrate the solemn day with thick branches, up to the corners of the altar. (Ps 117:26-27).
In the economy of Salvation, everything is recapitulated in Christ the King, He who is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End: Heri, hodie et in sæcula. Our society’s contemporary mentality, narrow-minded in its ignorance that uproots it from the past and deprives it of a future, does not tolerate the possibility of acclaiming a King today. It does not tolerate it because every sovereign, especially if he is a Christian, brings to mind the One Universal King, from whom all earthly authority emanates. It does not tolerate it because all earthly Monarchy – both the temporal and the spiritual – is intrinsically consistent with the divine κόσμος [order], to the point that even animal creatures organized in society, such as bees, have their own queen. It does not tolerate it because kingly power is necessarily of divine origin: regnum meum non est de hoc mundo (Jn 18:36), the Lord says to Pilate, signifying not that His authority is not exercised over human societies, but that the origin of this authority is supernatural and therefore superior. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have fought that I should not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingdom is not of this world (Jn 18:36).
That is why the Revolution, which is the earthly realization of the infernal χάος [chaos], imposes “democracy” as a model: not because it is not lawful for men to give themselves a regime in which the multitude governs, but because precisely in proclaiming that the people are “sovereign” it intends to dethrone Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Divine King. And the people who delude themselves into thinking they are masters of themselves and their own destinies inexorably end up being slaves of potentates and tyrannical lobbies, devoted to evil. Because where Christ does not reign, the dictatorship of Satan prevails. Temporal power, which in the order willed by God is the vicar on earth of His power, once it has been torn from its origin and perverted in its ultimate end, becomes illegitimate, because it is exercised against the Divine Majesty and against His Law.
The Revolution has also entered the Catholic Church, and with it the blasphemous idea that even the Papacy can be distorted in its essence, “reinterpreted” – as the Bergoglians hypocritically like to say – in a “synodal,” that is, democratic, key. It was all anticipated in the texts of the Second Vatican Council, in which, like those who poison wells, the neo-modernists poured out their heresies, allowing the passage of time to bring them back at the right moment in their devastating destructiveness. The collegiality of Lumen Gentium is nothing but the infected seed of Bergoglian synodality. The usurper who impiously occupies the Throne of the Prince of the Apostles knows well that the premises laid down by the Renunciation of Benedict XVI and the creation of an “emeritus papacy” allow him to hypothesize a “president” of the Papacy who holds the munus petrinum, and a college of Cardinals – and Cardinalesses, why not – who exercise the ministerium. In this case too, papal authority, separated from Christ the Eternal High Priest, becomes illegitimate.
The vacancy of both civil and religious authority is a recurring element in sacred history. When Our Lord became incarnate and was born of Mary Most Holy, both the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas and King Herod had come to power through fraud and manipulated appointments and therefore did not represent legitimate power. When Jesus Christ returns to take possession of what is His by Divine Right, by lineage, and by conquest, both civil and religious authority will also be vacant. And behold, this situation, for those who know how to read the events sub specie æternitatis, is already present before our eyes.
To place one’s hopes in men, however well-intentioned, is always a deception: maledictus homo qui confidit in homine, says the Prophet (Jer 17:5); and he continues: I will make you a slave to your enemies in a land you do not know, because you have kindled the fire of my anger, which will burn forever (Jer 17:4). Today we no longer recognize our land, devastated in nature, invaded by hordes of barbarians, devastated by crimes and sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. We are strangers in our homeland and enemies of those who claim to govern us. To think that salvation comes from men is illusory and blasphemous. Our only salvation, in fact, is the Cross of Christ: O Crux, ave, spes unica! A salvation that the Lord grants us only on condition that we follow Him, until we reign with Him in eternity.
In the Lord welcomed triumphantly into Jerusalem, we see the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy: Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and victorious, humble, he rides on a donkey, a colt son of a donkey (Zech 9:9). Humble, he rides a donkey. Because the divine Kingship of Christ wants to be recognized in humility: in the humility of the One who, out of obedience to the Father, became incarnate, propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem, for us men and for our salvation, offering himself as a divine Victim. If Christ had not been recognized as King and High Priest in the supreme act of His Sacrifice, He would not have represented before the Father either the individuals or the nations that are the object of the Redemption. But, at the same time, if we want to reign with Christ, we must also with Christ ascend the Throne of the Cross. Saint Peter reminds us of this: For you were called to this, because Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow in his footsteps (1 Pt 2:21).
He is just and victorious, humble (Zech 9:9). The justice violated by our sin demanded reparation: He is just. Reparation required the Passion and Death to overcome death: He is victorious. His throne is a scaffold, his crown is one of thorns, his scepter is a reed, his robe the clothing of fools: He is humble.
In this royal humility we cannot fail to recognize Mary Most Holy as Our Lady and Queen, the Regina Crucis. Let us take her as our model, in these hours of darkness which, just as in the darkness of Good Friday, are a prelude to the triumph of the Resurrection. Let us never forget it: it is at the foot of the Cross, the throne of the Lamb, that the Divine King established the Most August Virgin as our Mother, and we as Her children. And so may it be.
Carlo
Maria Viganò, Archbishop
