The Social Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie

This work gathers and arranges the many scattered writings, sermons, letters, and pastoral works of Cardinal Pie, whose episcopal mission in nineteenth-century France made him one of the most ardent champions of the doctrine that Our Lord Jesus Christ reigns over both individual souls and over human society in all its collective and institutional dimensions. In these sources, the good Cardinal repeatedly affirms that the supernatural order, established by God in creation and consummated in the Incarnation and Redemption, remains obligatory and indispensable; the establishment of Christian piety and divine law in private life must find its complement in the public, civic order so that society might reflect the order of grace. Through the methodical work of Fr. Saint-Just, the book renders accessible this comprehensive vision: Christ’s kingship is universal, lawful, and foundational for all legitimate human community.

Very apt for our time, in its systematic chapters the book shows that to deny the social reign of Christ — that is, to limit Christianity to private devotion or mere “personal morality” — is to accept the desacralization of society. Society is thusly reduced to a bifurcation in which the temporal order is autonomous, dechristened, and exposed to the revolutions of impiety, materialism, and social discord. Cardinal Pie, as Fr. Saint-Just presents him, insists that when the State or civil institutions abandon the recognition of Christ’s sovereign kingship, they relinquish their legitimacy.

LAUDS AND APPROBATIONS

“A beautiful book.”
—Br. M.-B. Lavaud, O.P.

“We are pleased to recommend this book in the wake of the Encyclical [Quas primas] on the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ… Fr. Théotime’s work will be very useful to priests and educated laymen in understanding the views of the Pope.”
—Revue des lectures

“In today’s society, which is in the throes of a profound crisis of authority, Fr. Théotime presents an ideal program.”
—Nouvelle revue théologique

“Three quarters of a century ago, a great bishop, Mgr. Pie, later Cardinal, arose with courage and vitality against… official naturalistic liberalism… We were not yet in the age of modernism, nor its substitutes, but Mgr. Pie—a true prophet—had seen clearly and afar. He preached from the mountaintop, and his words still echo today.”
—Études franciscaines

An “excellent work, so full of doctrine and piety… The relevance of the subject-matter and the sound, clearly-expounded doctrine ensure this book’s apostolic success, which will be the best reward for the author.”
—Polybiblion 

"Cardinal Pie was, in the last century, the Doctor par excellence of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ. Although his teachings did not always receive the recognition they deserved, they have lost none of their verity or relevance. The Rev. Fr. Théotime de Saint-Just had the very happy idea of gathering them so that they might be heard by the present generation. He establishes, through textual quotations borrowed from the Bishop of Poitiers: (1) the right of Jesus Christ to reign over societies; (2) the all-too-certain fact of general apostasy; (3) the means for a possible restoration of this reign; (4) the future that is promised to Him. We must hope for the widest possible dissemination of these pages of sound doctrine and valiant faith."
—Adhémar Alès, Études, 61st year, vol. 180.