Re-establish All Things In Christ

The verse from the first chapter of Saint Paul’s letter to the Ephesians “to re-establish all things in Christ” is a well known one and it was meant not just for the Church in Ephesus but also for all men and for all time. We live in trying times, albeit these are not the first of trying times in the history of the world. But it is without a doubt that we live in a post-Christian era, where the majority of the culture has rejected the Social Reign of Christ the King.

It is no secret that the west has abandoned not only the true Faith, but its intellectual tradition, which reaches back to antiquity, and has roots in Ancient Israel, Athens, Rome, Christendom, and for the United States, bringing us to London and eventually Philadaelphia. This was highlighted by the famous American intellectual Russell Kirk, in one of his great
works, The Roots of American Order. Not only do we have a unique intellectual, moral, and political tradition handed down to us through the ages, but we also have the Faith of our fathers, which is the true Faith; the Catholic Church.

In order for our republic to be restored, I would argue that we have to delve ourselves back into this tradition, to educate ourselves correctly in the rich Catholic tradition, but most importantly, we have to start with an interior transformation of the self. Our ultimate goal is for the Social Reign of Christ the King, but that means starting with ourselves first. This is not a new ideal which I draw from our Catholic tradition. We must rightly order ourselves in order to rightly order our country. We must live a sacramental life, going to Confession and receiving Holy Communion. We must raise families centered around the Faith and we must build up our towns to where the Faith is in common practice. The Faith must be the focal point of the body politc.

Realistically speaking, I do not think that the United States, or any other western nation for that fact will magically convert overnight, unless the Almighty God in His great mercy plans otherwise. That is why in order for us to convert this country which is worthy of our love, we have to start on the smallest level and work our way up. But let us not be fooled, for we should not divorce faith from reason, because in order to re-establish all things in Christ, we must not only practice the Faith but draw from the great intellectual tradition that it offers.

In my formal education and personal reading, it has been taught to me that Catholic political thought is both theory and practice. This is because, as Thomas Molnar wrote, “theory developed at the contact of historical events in which the Church took a most active part,” and went on to write, “But, even more important, the continuity of involvement with concrete
political realities was paralleled by the continuity of a solidly held concept of man, society, and the nature of politics, an unchanging concept rooted in revelation and in the structure of human nature.”

One must also recall that there is compatibility between the Catholic tradition and many in the American founding generation who understood that cultivating at least natural virtue and the principle of subsidiarity were important aspects of a functioning and proper society. They were not perfect nor where they all uniform in thought, but drawing on the tradition of antiquity, for example Cicero, find common ground with the likes of Saint Thomas Aquinas in making an understanding of what a good form of government should be.

There are principles and teachings in this tradition that can, should, and have to applied, whether that is in regard to the relationship between man and the state or just economic practice. In order for us Catholics to help our Blessed Lord bring about His social reign, let us remember to start with ourselves, our families, and our local polities, and to draw on the rich Catholic political tradition that has been handed down to us in order to do so.