Why the Kingship of Christ is the best set-up for society: War and Tyrants
In her life of St Dominic, Mother Francis Raphael shows us how Christian society vigorously restricted warfare, and held tyrannical rulers to account.
In her life of St Dominic, Mother Francis Raphael shows us how Christian society vigorously restricted warfare, and held tyrannical rulers to account.
Editor’s Notes
The following is the first part of a trilogy of extracts taken from The History of St Dominic, Founder of the Friars Preachers (1891) by the English author Augusta Theodosia Drane – also known as Mother Francis Raphael.
About the Author
Drane was born to Protestant parents in 1894, she converted in 1850; in 1852, she entered the regular Third Order of St Dominic as a sister. She held positions of authority in the convent of Stone, Staffordshire, until she eventually became provincial in 1881.
In addition to the life of St Dominic, she also wrote a life of St Catherine of Siena in two volumes, and other works of Dominican and historical interest.
Bishop Ullathorne – whose autobiography The Devil is a Jackass she edited – described her as:
“… one of those many-sided characters who can write a book, draw a picture, rule an Order, guide other souls, superintend a building, lay out grounds, or give wise and practical advice with equal facility and success.”
The practicality conveyed by the great English bishop is apparent in the book to which we are referring, which is a serious account of the history of her order’s founder.
The Trilogy
This trilogy is intended to illustrate what a society becomes when imbued with Christian principles – in which Christ is King. In recent years, this phrase has been thrown around as a slogan by those who have little grasp on what it means, and would have little enthusiasm for it if they did. In short, the phrase refers to the doctrine of Christ’s universal kingship, which may be summarised as follows:
Our Lord Jesus Christ is not only the King of individuals who choose the accept Him; He is King over the whole of Creation, including nations and states. Civil authority is not only obliged to work for the common good of civic society, namely peace and the common good of the nation; it is also obliged to recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Divinity and His Kingship, to offer Him appropriate homage and public worship, and to govern in accordance with the Gospel.
The texts taken from Drane show us how this Kingship was, to a significant degree, made incarnate during the Middle Ages.
In our day, the “Kingship of Christ” is treated by Americanists and liberals as unacceptably un-American, and akin to a theocracy.1 Only a few months ago, Senator Ted Cruz promoted a long article, apparently generated by AI, which made these claims – and referred to traditional Catholics as “parasites” engaged in a conspiracy against America.
But even aside from its intrinsic necessity, is the Social Kingship of Christ a bad thing for America – or any nation?
The texts in this trilogy refer to the treatment of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, who lived 1156 to 1222.
The Count found himself in conflict with Pope Innocent III not just due to his toleration of the Cathar heretics, but also due to his lawlessness which he permitted in his dominions. The three texts in this series illustrate some aspects of a world in which Our Lord is recognised as King.
Here are the themes of the three parts:
The Church’s influence over how war was conducted, and how tyrants were treated
Interlude: The martyrdom of Bl. Pierre de Castelnau, Papal Legate
What Raymond VI had to do to have his excommunication lifted, and the standards to which civil rulers were held
Even if there were points at which men failed to live up to the ideals presented by the Church, or rebelled against them, there is a great difference between having true principles and not having them.
The Church’s influence on war
The Church’s understanding of “just war theory” is reasonably well known, and many have referred to it in reference to recent conflicts. But these references have tended to refer to when a society may declare war on another, with less reference to how such a war should be conducted.
In this first part of this trilogy, we see that even “just” conflicts had to be conducted along very strict lines.
But before turning to Drane’s account, let us consider the following. While there is undoubtedly still lip service to “international law”, modern conceptions of the rules of engagement have more in common with that expressed in 2009 by Rabbi Manis Friedman, affiliated with the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch group:
“I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.
“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).”2
Chabad-Lubavitch’s headquarters quickly stated that they “vehemently disagree with any sentiment suggesting that Judaism allows for the wanton destruction of civilian life, even when at war.”
Friedman also clarified that his views did not represent those of any organisation, and expressed some caveats about what he had said. However, he discussed his views further in 2024 on the From the Inside Out Podcast w/ Rivkah & Eda, which describes itself as providing “the tools, guidance, and transformative conversations you need to lead a fulfilling life and make a lasting impact on the world around you.”
In this interview, Friedman claimed that the “noble idea of proportionate response” in war – which he mischaracterises – is “embarrassing” and “so childish.” He also discussed the morality of killing non-combatants in war, redefining “civilians” as those who surrender, and claiming that those who make bullets or boots are not civilians. He also extended this judgment to mothers “who make soldiers” – which was met by an awkward silence and an initially disbelieving question by one of the “momtrepeneur” hosts.
But whether Friedman’s views are representative of groups like Chabad-Lubavitch or not, mainstream or fringe, true or false, he is not the only one to express them3 – and, notwithstanding the Geneva Convention and the concept of war crimes, modern warfare seems to be conducted along lines closer to these views than to those expressed by Drane below.
As such, these views provide a dramatic point of comparison between warfare as tolerated under the Kingship of Christ, and as conducted and even celebrated without regard for him. It is not surprising that societies which are not properly ordered towards the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ come to adopt ethics which are opposed to his law. As Christ said, “He who is not with me is against me”; there is no neutral ground with regard to his Kingship over society.
As we read this extract from Drane, readers are invited to consider whether they might not prefer to live in a world in which war is so regulated and restricted – and in which wicked rulers such as Raymond VI are so strictly and effectively condemned by the the spiritual power of the Church.
From
The History of St. Dominic, Founder of the Friars Preachers
Augusta Theodosia Drane
Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1891. pp. 65-70
The state of Toulouse
Dark clouds, indeed, just then hung over the horizon. Whatever success had attended the labours of the missioners in the conversion of individuals, and even of considerable numbers of the better disposed among the heretics, it was far from being universal.
Encouraged by the example of their princes, the great mass of the people showed themselves wholly indifferent to the pacific measures hitherto exclusively employed to reclaim them. To use the expression of the poet of the Crusade,4 “they cared no more for preaching than for a rotten apple.”
On occasions indeed when the Legates hinted at the possibility of interference on the part of the temporal power, as at Toulouse in 1204, a wonderful alacrity was shown in expelling the Albigenses and meeting every demand. But as soon as the danger was over all things went on as before; until after ten years of these successive and all but fruitless legations it became clearly apparent that the evil was one which called for a severer remedy.
Peter of Castelnau
By none was the unsatisfactory result of these negotiations more keenly felt than by Peter of Castelnau, who was accustomed to say that religion would never again raise its head in Languedoc till the soil had been watered by the blood of a martyr, and it was his constant prayer that he himself might be the victim. The special enmity of which he was the object on the part of the Albigenses has been sometimes attributed to the uncompromising severity of his character.
But it must be borne in mind that in his office as Legate he was charged with the onerous duty, not merely of preaching to the heretics, but of rebuking and pronouncing censure on those who were the real authors of the existing troubles. We have seen with what courage he had enforced the authority of the Holy See against the slothful and unfaithful pastors of the Church; and he showed no less firmness in dealing with those who held and misused the temporal power.
Of these the one most conspicuous, both by his rank and by the long tissue of his crimes and treacheries, was Count Raymund VI of Toulouse. He showed no sympathy with the better dispositions evinced by his father towards the close of his life; but from the day of his accession acted as the avowed protector of the Albigenses. Nor was this by any means his sole offence. Through him the whole of the south of France was plunged in petty wars, which he promoted for his own aggrandizement, taking into his pay large bands of the excommunicated Cotteraux or Routiers, with whose aid he ravaged towns, churches, and monasteries.
Paucity of chivalrous men
It is necessary to remind ourselves of the real condition of society in these lawless centuries, left as it too often was at the mercy of ferocious tyrants. Doubtless among the feudal rulers of the land many were to be found who exhibited the true virtues of chivalry, men who were the protectors of the Church, the champions of the oppressed, the friends of the fatherless and the widow.
But others, and it may be feared the larger number, hardly rose above the level of brigand chiefs. Their sole occupation consisted in raids one upon another which do not deserve the name of wars, and which were made the excuse for every species of violence and rapine.
In these intestine and bloody quarrels the petty rulers of southern France were incessantly engaged, and the Cotteraux found constant employment under the banners of the rival chieftains.
The Truce of God
No one even superficially acquainted with the history of European Christendom can be ignorant how unceasing were the efforts of the Popes to repress these evils. From the gigantic wars between France and England down to the ignoble strife that armed baron against baron, the voice of the Sovereign Pontiff was always heard above the din of battle pleading for peace.
If the Church failed in putting an end to war, she did her best to mitigate its atrocities. By the Truce of God she did actually set limits to the violence of the age.
Under this title was understood the law by which her councils forbade all men under the severest spiritual censures to carry on any hostilities public or private during certain specified seasons. These were, generally speaking, in every week from Wednesday evening to Monday morning, from the beginning of Advent to the octave of the Epiphany, from the first day of Lent to the octave of Easter, and from the Rogation Days to the octave of Pentecost. A number of holy days differing in different parts were likewise included in the Truce, and during all these times it was forbidden not only to fight, but to lay waste lands and carry off cattle.
Churches and cemeteries were also placed under perpetual protection, and it was declared to be a violation of the Truce to kill or wound peasants engaged in agriculture, or helpless women, or to destroy or injure the implements of husbandry.
Special officers with an armed force at their command were appointed to guard the observance of this sacred law, the infraction of which was regarded as an offence of the deepest dye, and those found bold enough to violate its prescriptions were held in universal reprobation.
Nothing, perhaps, is more extraordinary or more admirable in history than the fact that such a law should not only be promulgated throughout Christendom, but that on the whole it should have been observed, and it speaks volumes as to the beneficent influence exercised by religion in those wild and troublous times.5
Count Raymund’s crimes
The Church then, and especially the Holy See, acted as the universal peacemaker. The Legation sent into Languedoc by Innocent III was far from being exclusively directed against the heretical doctrines of the Albigenses. One of its main objects was the pacification of the country by the extinction of these miserable wars and the expulsion of the Routiers. As we have said, Raymund VI was one of their chief protectors.
“He had,” says a contemporary writer, “a wonderful liking for these men.” His partiality for them may perhaps be explained in the words of Michelet, who after drawing a frightful picture of the excesses perpetrated by the Routiers, particularly in the south of France, observes that nevertheless “they were dear to the princes of the country precisely on account of their impiety, which made them indifferent to the censures of the Church.”
It was then not merely as an abettor of heresy, but as the promoter of bloody and unjust wars, and the protector of excommunicated ruffians who lived only by crime and violence, that Innocent III addressed to the Count that celebrated letter in which he enumerates his offences against God and man, and calls on him to make reparation.
“Would that we could open your heart,” he says, “and make you see the enormities you have committed! What pride has seized possession of you, that you will not keep peace with your neighbours, and that you break the laws of God by allying yourself with the enemies of the faith! …
“If you do not stand in fear of eternal punishment, at least fear that which is temporal: fear, lest by the hostilities you wage against your neighbour and the offence you offer to God by protecting heresy, you draw on yourself a double punishment…
“Who are you, that you alone should refuse to make peace, in order that you may profit by these miserable divisions, whilst the King of Aragon and all the other most powerful lords of the country have at the entreaties of our Legates solemnly sworn to do so? Do you not blush to remember how often you have broken your oaths to drive the heretics out of your dominions?
“And was it not you who, laying waste the province of Arles with your hired bands, were entreated by our venerable brother the Bishop of Orange, to spare the monasteries and to suspend your ravages, if it were but during the holy season6 and on feast-days. Then you took the bishop by the right hand, and swore on that hand, that you would have regard neither to the holy time nor to Sundays, and that you would spare neither consecrated places nor persons.
“And this oath, if we ought not rather to call it this profanation, you have observed better than your other oaths, taken in a lawful cause.”7
This accumulation of outrages at last met with its well-merited punishment, and after repeated warnings and remonstrances the Legate pronounced against the Count sentence of excommunication. For the spiritual censure, Raymund cared little enough; but in the thirteenth century excommunication, by the common law of the Church, bore with it certain temporal penalties. At any moment the decree might go forth which would deprive him of his territories, and already a league was formed against him among certain of his barons who would joyfully have put such a sentence into execution. It was necessary therefore to temporize.
From: The History of St Dominic, Founder of the Friars Preachers
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From my foreword to the upcoming edition of The Social Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie, by Fr Théotime de Saint-Just:
Cardinal Pie defines theocracy as “the temporal government of a human society by a divinely revealed political law and by a supernaturally constituted political authority”; but this is not what is entailed by the Social Kingship. Cardinal Pie rejects such ideas, stating that “since Jesus Christ there has been no legitimate theocracy on earth.” States, he notes, are free to govern themselves according to laws of their own choosing, and free to arrange their leadership in accordance with these laws—provided that they are within the bounds of what permitted by the Divine Law of the Gospel.
To be sure, the Church is a superior society to that of the state, having a supernatural end; the state also depends on the Church for the presentation of the Gospel, and the means to attain the supernatural end to which we are called. However, the Social Kingship does not entail a “theocracy” or the Church ruling society.
This is because both the Church and civil society are ruled by God. It is in this sense, after presenting Cardinal Pie’s comments on theocracy, that Fr. Théotime writes,
Let us note, however, that if by theocracy we simply mean a political constitution in which God is what He is, the first Sovereign, then we can say that Christian law is theocracy.
https://momentmag.com/ask-the-rabbis-how-should-jews-treat-their-arab-neighbors/
Incidentally, in 2023, Senator Cruz spoke at a conference in honour of Chabad-Lubavitch’s founder, “Rebbe” Menachem Mendel Schneerson – and has claimed that the Holy Scriptures require Christians to “bless Israel.”
See also the conception critiqued by Israel Shahak in his book Jewish History, Jewish Religion:
“[…] various rabbinical commentators in the past drew the logical conclusion that in wartime all Gentiles belonging to a hostile population may, or even should, be killed. Since 1973 this doctrine is being publicly propagated for the guidance of religious Israeli soldiers. The first such official exhortation was included in a booklet published by the Central-Region Command of the Israeli Army, whose area includes the West Bank. In this booklet the Command’s Chief Chaplain writes:
‘When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or in a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then according to the Halakhah they may and even should be killed… Under no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilised… In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good.’
He continues, presenting and “exchange of letters between a young Israeli soldier and his rabbi, published in the yearbook of one of the country’s most prestigious religious colleges, Midrashiyyat No’am, where many leaders and activists of the National Religious Party and Gush Emunim have been educated.”
‘The non-Jewish nations have a custom according to which war has its own rules, like those of a game, like the rules of football or basketball. But according to the sayings of our sages, of blessed memory, […] war for us is not a game but a vital necessity, and only by this standard must we decide how to wage it. On the one hand […] we seem to learn that if a Jew murders a Gentile, he is regarded as a murderer and, except for the fact that no court has the right to punish him, the gravity of the deed is like that of any other murder. But we find in the very same authorities in another place […] that Rabbi Shim’on used to say: “The best of Gentiles – kill him; the best of snakes – dash out its brains.”
Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, pp. 92, 93. Pluto Press, London, 2008.
William of Tudela was the author of the first part of the Song of the Crusade, a poem in the Provençal language which is regarded as reliable authority for the history of the war. The Song was continued by an anonymous troubadour to whose statements the same credit does not attach. The other contemporary authors on whom we chiefly depend are Peter de Vaulx-Cernay and William de Puy-Lamens; the first a Cistercian monk, the latter chaplain to Count Raymund VII., and a singularly impartial writer.
It is remarkable that at first the ecclesiastical authorities endeavoured to abolish the custom of making war altogether and to establish what was called “the peace of God.” Needless to say the measure failed of success by attempting too much, and about the middle of the eleventh century, the truce of God was substituted for the peace, and men to whom fighting was a kind of second nature were only required to restrict their hostilities within certain limits. Henry II of England, when resolved on establishing the reign of social order throughout his dominions, found no better means of doing so than by copying this institution of the Church. He proclaimed what he called “the King’s peace,” and the officers he appointed to enforce it were known as “justices of the peace,” phrases still in use in our own day. For a full treatment of this interesting subject, see Rohrbacher, Histoire de l’Eglise, vol. xiii. pp. 466–474.
i.e. of the Truce.
Epist. Innoc. III. t. x.