Love of nation must be subject to the laws of God – Pope Pius XI
The national interest does not determine what is right and wrong.
The national interest does not determine what is right and wrong.
Editor’s Notes
In 1932, Pope Pius XI promulgated an encyclical titled Caritate Christi Compulsi, on the Sacred Heart.
But this was not a merely devotional encyclical. In it, the Pope denounced the evils of both Capitalism and Communism – and ways in which civil authorities attempt to uncrown and dethrone Christ the King.
Although written a few years before his later encyclical Quas Primas, on the Kingship of Christ over societies, Pius XI anticipated its teaching by proclaiming the necessity of prayer, penance and reparation as the means of restoring order to society.
It has become very trendy to say that “Christ is King” – so much so that the enemies of the Church have responded in a most risible way, by saying that this phrase is anti-semitic.
However, while rejecting such response, it has become clear that this phrase is an empty slogan for some of those who proclaim it. For such persons, Christ is not King.
National Interest is not the summum bonum
In a nation over which Christ is King, the Gospel and the law of God are the supreme good by which everything else is judged. This includes both domestic and foreign policy.
Under such an arrangement, a phrase like “America First” could indicate a healthy patriotism, in which attaining peace and the common good for the nation and its people is given a priority over “do-gooding” for other nations abroad, or foreigners living in the country. That said, there can still be cases when the law of justice or charity (as opposed to naturalistic humanitarianism) truly require action at home or abroad than may come “even at the cost of serious loss” to individuals or to the nation (n. 12).
We have written about this topic elsewhere:
However, a phrase like “America First” may also indicate a political arrangement in which a nation treats its own good as the supreme value by which everything else is judged, without regard for the Gospel or God’s law. Such an arrangement constitutes a rejection of Christ as King; for those who advocate it, their own nation is their King – or even god.
Such a nation makes its own the words of the Psalm:
“Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things?
“The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord, and against his Christ.
“Let us break their bonds asunder: and let us cast away their yoke from us.”
Psalm 2.1-3.
This is why such a “philosophy” is simply another form of liberalism and naturalism, even if some Catholic elements are incorporated.
Patriotism, love of nation, and even the prioritisation of the good of one’s own nation and people over that of others: these are all legitimate goods, provided they stay within the bounds of the Gospel and God’s law. But these goods cannot be elevated to such a degree as to determine what is right and wrong, or to justify violations of God’s law. This is the doctrine of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical.
Any nation or political movement that seeks to do so, invites the following verses of the same Psalm to be applied to them:
“He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them.
“Then shall he speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in his rage.
“But I am appointed king by him over Sion, his holy mountain, preaching his commandment.
“The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
“Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.
“Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron, and shalt break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
“And now, O ye kings, understand: receive instruction, you that judge the earth.
'“Serve ye the Lord with fear: and rejoice unto him with trembling.
“Embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way.
“When his wrath shall be kindled in a short time, blessed are all they that trust in him.”
Psalm 2.4-13.
This was a recurring theme throughout Pope Pius XI’s pontificate (for obvious reasons given the time period) and so many other examples could be drawn from the acts of his magisterium – as well as from other Popes, and other Catholic authorities.
Following these excerpts, we will briefly consider an example of how this doctrine is rejected today, even by those who claim that “Christ is King.”
S.D.Wr.
Caritate Christi Compulsi
Encyclical of Pope Pius XI
On the Sacred Heart, 1932
4. Now if this excessive love of self and of one's own, by an abuse of the legitimate care for our country and an undue exaltation of the feelings of piety towards our own people (which piety is not condemned but hallowed and strengthened by the right order of Christian charity) encroaches on the mutual relations and the ties between peoples, there is hardly anything so abnormal that it will not be regarded as free from fault; so that the same deed which would be condemned by the judgment of all when it is done by private individuals, is held to be honest and worthy of praise when it is done for the love of the country.
In this way, a hatred, which must needs be fatal to all, supplants the Divine law of brotherly love which bound all nations and peoples into one family under one Father who is in Heaven; in the administration of public affairs the Divine laws, which are the standard of all civic life and culture, are trampled under foot; the firm foundations of right and faith, on which the commonwealth rests, are overturned; and, lastly, men corrupt and obliterate the principles handed down by their ancestors, according to which the worship of God and the strict observance of His law form the finest flower and the safest pillar of the state.
Furthermore - and this may be called the most perilous of all these evils - the enemies of all order, whether they be called Communists or by some other name, exaggerating the very grave straits of the economic crisis, in this great perturbation of morals, with extreme audacity, direct all their efforts to one end, seeking to cast away every bridle from their necks, and breaking the bonds of all law both human and divine, wage an atrocious war against all religion and against God Himself; in this it is their purpose to uproot utterly all knowledge and sense of religion from the minds of men, even from the tenderest age, for they know well that if once the Divine law and knowledge were blotted out from the minds of men there would now be nothing that they could not arrogate to themselves. And thus we now see with our own eyes - what we have not read of as happening anywhere before - impious men, agitated by unspeakable fury, shamelessly liking up a banner against God and against all religion throughout the whole world.
12. Wherefore, We exhort all, private individuals as well as states, in the Lord, that now when such grave matters are agitated, critical questions concerning the welfare of all mankind, to lay aside that sordid and selfish regard for nothing but their own advantage, which blunts even the keenest minds, and cuts short even the noblest enterprises if they go the least bit beyond the narrow bounds of self-interest.
Let all, then, join together, if need be even at the cost of serious loss, so that they may save themselves and all human society. In this union of minds and of forces, those who glory in the Christian name ought surely to take the foremost place, remembering the illustrious examples of the Apostolic age, when “the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul” (Acts iv. 32). but besides these, all whoever sincerely acknowledge God and honor Him from their heart should lend their aid in order that mankind may be saved from the great peril impending over all. For since all human authority must needs rest on the recognition of God, as on the firm foundation of any civil order, those who would not have all things overturned and all laws abrogated, must strive strenuously to prevent the enemies of religion from giving effect to the plans which they have so openly and so vehemently proclaimed.
20. Men who in every nation pray to the same God for peace on earth will not kindle flames of discord among the peoples; men who turn in prayer to the divine Majesty, will not set up in their own country a craving for domination; nor foster that inordinate love of country which of its own nation makes its own god; men who look to the “God of peace and of love” (II Cor. xiii. 11), who turn to Him through the mediation of Christ, who is “our peace” (Eph. ii. 14), will never rest until finally that peace which the world cannot give, comes down from the Giver of every good gift on “men of good will” (Luc. ii. 14).
24. But We, on the other hand, Venerable Brethren, in virtue of Our pastoral office, must bear aloft these names and these ideas, and preserve them in their true meaning, in their genuine dignity, and still more in their practical and necessary application to Christian life. To this We are urged by the very defense of God and Religion, which We sustain, since penance is of its nature a recognition and a re-establishment of the moral order in the world which is founded on the eternal law, that is on the living God. He who makes satisfaction to God for sin, recognizes thereby the sanctity of the highest principles of morality, their internal binding power, the need of a sanction against their violation.
Certainly one of the most dangerous errors of our age is the claim to separate morality from religion, thus removing all solid basis for any legislation. This intellectual error might perhaps have passed unnoticed and appeared less dangerous when it was confined to a few, and belief in God was still the common heritage of mankind, and was tacitly presumed even in the case of those who no longer professed it openly. But today, when atheism is spreading through the masses of the people, the practical consequences of such an error become dreadfully tangible, and realities of the saddest kind make their appearance in the world.
In place of moral laws, which disappear together with the loss of faith in God, brute force is imposed, trampling on every right. Old time fidelity and honesty of conduct and mutual intercourse extolled so much even by the orators and poets of paganism, now give place to speculations in one's own affairs as in those of others without reference to conscience. In fact, how can any contract be maintained, and what value can any treaty have, in which every guarantee of conscience is lacking? And how can there be talk of guarantees of conscience, when all faith in God and all fear of God has vanished? Take away this basis, and with it all moral law falls, and there is no remedy left to stop the gradual but inevitable destruction of peoples, families, the State, civilization itself.
The Solution – and The Choice
28. Prayer, then, and penance are the two potent inspirations sent to us at this time by God, that we may lead back to Him mankind that has gone astray and wanders about without a guide: they are the inspirations that will dispel and remedy the first and principal cause of every form of disturbance and rebellion, the revolt of man against God.
But the peoples themselves are called upon to make up their minds to a definite choice: either they entrust themselves to these benevolent and beneficent inspirations and are converted, humble and repentant, to the Lord and the Father of mercies, or they hand over themselves and what little remains of happiness on earth to the mercy of the enemy of God, to the spirit of vengeance and destruction.
“The problem is sin, flesh, and the devil, which we all know. The solution is carrying our cross, sanctifying ourselves, sanctifying our families, sanctifying our countries. And the end result of that is the re-establishment of Christendom.
“It’s that simple. It’s that simple.”
Afterword
By contrast with the above – which might be labelled “naive about the nature of the world” – consider the words of Nick Fuentes on US intervention in Venezuela in January 2026, delivered in a video titled VENEZUELAN WAR??? Trump KIDNAPS Maduro, SEIZES Oil | America First Ep. 1619, streamed live on 19th January 2026.
What is relevant here is not whether this intervention was right in itself, or in US interests – both of which would have to be established on independent grounds. Rather, what is relevant is how far the political “philosophy” expressed below departs from the doctrine expressed above by Pope Pius XI.
“Above all else, the show is called America First. And so our moral world, that we live in, our ideological priors, our doctrine, when it comes to foreign policy and the behaviour and actions of our government, is that the survival and prosperity of the American people, come before everything for our government. That’s the intellectual core. That’s the moral foundation. That the US government has to do everything in its power, first and foremost, to look out for the survival of the American people, the continuity of the American Republic. But also its prosperity, its interests – of which there are many. And they are concrete, and sometimes they involve kinetic action.
“And so it is from that axiom, rightly understood, that we look at military action in the Caribbean, and people can have differing opinions about this, but when we look at it from that axiom, you can justify that this was a positive. An unequivocal positive for the United States.
“[…] When you look at an intervention in Venezuela, this is:
In our neighbourhood
It comprises a core US interest, which is articulated in the Monroe Doctrine, to have no outside influence in our hemisphere
It was quick
It was cheap
And it is not debatably in the interest of the United States – and like I said we’ll lay that out.
“But I think this is going to be a year of refinement. And we have to lay down the law, that this is a right wing movement. It is an Israel-critical movement; we seek to counter Jewish power in the Jewish oligarchy, but it is a right-wing, realist movement. It is a pro-America movement. It is a movement that is not naive about the nature of the world, and the nature of other countries. And if you think this is the place where we’re going to come around and tell America to get to the back of the line, and submit their concerns to the United Nations, and we’re going to go and cape and die for the sovereignty of third-world countries filled with illiterate peasants that don’t even know how to read or write – this is just not the movement for you. Communists, liberals, leftist – that’s down the hall to the left. If you’re some kind of America-hater from some third-world country, if you’re from Europe, you hate American power, you’re threatened by American power – this is not the movement for you.
“This is a movement for U.S. citizens. This is a movement for Americans. It’s a movement for right-wing Americans, that want America to have primacy over the entire planet – as much power, as much abundance, as many resources as possible. So if you’re coming around with this nonsense about, They stole the oil, that’s not moral! They intervened in another country, you violated their sovereignty—
“I don’t give a sh**! I don’t care at all, we do it all the time! And we’ve done it for centuries. It’s called Manifest Destiny! It’s called the Mexican American War, the Spanish American War, the Bay of Pigs. We do it all the time. This is our world – and at the minimum this is our half. This is our half of the world, for us to have uncontested, undisputed dominance – military, commercial, naval, every way shape and form. And we will take what we are entitled to. We will take what makes us safer, richer, more prosperous — we will take what we want.
“Nobody can stop us, and we’ll do it again, and I hope we do.
“And I hope we do it in Greenland, and I hope we do it in Panama, and I hope we do it in Cuba, I hope we do it everywhere where it makes sense for us. You got a problem with that, I don’t know, go back to f***ing Pakistan. Go back to some other country and complain about it on the Internet, invented by America.
“So anyway. I don’t know if I wanna hear – I don’t know if I wanna hear the comments. Botted the dislikes on Telegram award, Pakistanis botted the dislikes on Telegram – it means nothing.
“We could kidnap your leader too. If it was necessary.
“Anyway. So!”
Here is a final contrast, from Cardinal John Henry Newman:
“The Church aims, not at making a show, but at doing a work. She regards this world, and all that is in it, as a mere shadow, as dust and ashes, compared with the value of one single soul. She holds that, unless she can, in her own way, do good to souls, it is no use her doing anything; she holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse.
“She considers the action of this world and the action of the soul simply incommensurate, viewed in their respective spheres; she would rather save the soul of one single wild bandit of Calabria, or whining beggar of Palermo, than draw a hundred lines of railroad through the length and breadth of Italy, or carry out a sanitary reform, in its fullest details, in every city of Sicily, except so far as these great national works tended to some spiritual good beyond them.”
Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, Volume 1, Lecture 8
The national interest does not and cannot determine what is right and wrong. Saying Christ is King is nonsensical if we hold such a doctrine.
It would be a great shame for a movement of well-intentioned young men to be herded into an alternative pen of the same liberalism and naturalism that has caused so much harm to their nation.
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Despite the claims that the USA is a “Christian” nation, it is not and never has been. Christ has never reigned over it as King. He has reigned over some few individuals, but never over the nation. A country founded on and espousing Enlightenment principles is anti-Christ.
An excellent post, well written.