God created this world as the place where all men are to work out their eternal salvation. All creation has no other basic purpose. God did not create men in such a way that each person can work out his living on earth and his eternal salvation all alone. Hence, men must work together. They must work in a social order, and that social order is always dictated by God Himself. All that man can do in order to accomplish his end is to obey God.
The Family – the Basic Unit of Society
The basic unit of society is the family. The husband and the wife have their order in the family from God. The husband is the head of the family by God’s ordinances, and the wife is his helper: “…let us make him a help like unto himself.” (Genesis 2,18). She is not the head of the family, and where that order is broken, the family and all of society suffers. It should be noted that in all society God’s ordinance for women is as He stated above – she is the helper of man. The “women-libbers” have no ground on which to stand – unless they prefer hell to heaven.The State is Needed
The family, by God’s ordinances, is an imperfect society, in that it does not have within itself all the means to accomplish its end. It needs police protection and all the things that honest states provide for families. Obviously, they do not need state assistance for abortions, for that is sinful for both the family and the state.Right order demands that the state does not step in and do the things that the family is able to do for itself. It may not take from the family the right to teach their own children. Mandatory state schooling (a Masonic invention for their evil purposes of destroying society) is a violation of right order.
If and when the family comes upon a problem that is too big to cope with by itself, it can and sometimes must call on the state for help. If there is a murder in the family only the state can try and punish the criminal. The state may not tell the parents that they may not discipline their children in the normal fashion – with the right use of the rod.
Families Build Two Perfect Societies
Families are the building blocks of the two perfect societies, namely, God’s one and only Church, and God’s civil states. If families are weakened or destroyed then the perfect societies are affected. In these times, there are several defects in families that must be condemned. The first is the high rate of divorce, which destroys the family before God and honest men. Second and third marriages, so-called, are no marriages at all. Civil law cannot change that fact, even when it admits divorce and remarriage. God has not given the state such powers over marriages.Free love, where the men have live-in girl-friends and women have live-in boy-friends, has become a way of promiscuous living, and society does nothing to curb that dreadful insult to the true family where only husband and wife live together as a family with their children.
Internal to true families there are also aberrations which call for correction. Abortions and unnatural birth prevention practices are abominations before God and destructive forces which corrupt the family. Individuals and families must build their lives on the principle of self-sacrifice. We go to Christ for this admonition. It comes from Matthew 11, 29 & 30:
“Take up my yoke upon you and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.”Compared to divorce and remarriage, true unbroken marriages are the yoke that is sweet and the burden that is light. Compared to debauchery, holy purity is a yoke that is sweet and a burden that is light. With God’s help, and through His Church, individuals and families must learn how to carry their yoke and burden of life. Thus they will experience what Christ promised: “…my yoke is sweet and my burden light.”
While keeping in mind that a true society is built on the firm rock of permanent and holy marriages, it is opportune to deal with the two swords that protect and direct true social order. Families contribute to those societies, and they receive from those societies. God made it so.
Teaching of Pope Boniface VIII
Rather than re-invent the wheel by making a new document of doctrine on the two swords at this time, We shall use the teachings of Pope Boniface VIII given in the Bull Unam Sanctam. It was given in order to correct state governments of his time. This document is found in Denzinger, #469, and it is dated November 18, 1302. Although the part of the document that We quote is quite lengthy you will see that the doctrine of the two swords cannot be stated in a shorter and clearer form.We now quote from Unam Sanctam as found in Denzinger (The Sources of Catholic Dogma), #469:
“And we are taught by evangelical words that in this power of his (Peter and his successors) are two swords, namely spiritual and temporal…. Therefore, each is in the power of the Church, that is, a spiritual and a material sword. But the latter, indeed, must be exercised for the Church, the former by the Church. The former (by the hand) of the priest, the latter by the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest. For it is necessary that a sword be under a sword and that temporal authority be subject to spiritual power…. It is necessary that we confess the more clearly that spiritual power precedes any earthly power both in dignity and nobility, as spiritual matters themselves excel the temporal…. For, as truth testifies, spiritual power has to establish earthly power, and to judge if it was not good.… Therefore, if earthly power deviates, it will be judged by spiritual power: but if a lesser spiritual deviates, by its superior; but if the supreme (spiritual power deviates), it can be judged by God alone, not by man, as the Apostle testifies: “The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one”(I Cor. 2:15). But this authority, although it is given to man and is exercised by man, is not human, but rather divine, and has been given by the divine Word to Peter himself and to his successors in him, whom the Lord acknowledged an established rock, when he said to Peter himself: “Whatsoever you shall bind” etc. (Matt. 16:19). Therefore, “whosoever resists this power so ordained by God, resists the order of God” (cf. Rom. 13:2), unless as a Manichaean he imagines that there are two beginnings, which we judge false and heretical, because, as Moses testifies, not “in the beginnings” but “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (cf. Gen. 1:1). Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
Two Swords
Soul & Body,
The Spiritual Sword & the Material Sword
The above-quoted Catholic doctrine on true social order as mandated by
God, and as laid out by Pope Boniface VIII, is seminal for what is to follow.
With the poisonous gas of liberalism spreading in public by diabolical
secret societies, even Catholics become confused. Catholics may never
accede to the Satan-inspired dictum of a social order where it is falsely
claimed that there is separation of Church and state. By the
ordinances of God there is no such a thing as separation of Church and
state. The social structures of the Church and of the state are distinct,
but they are not separated. The human soul and the human body are
distinct entities, but in a functioning human being they work together
all the time. Separation of soul and body, a punishment because of
original sin, means death. And death continues until the soul and
body are reunited again at the end of the world. The present-day
civil society has, for the most part, effected a de facto separation of
Church and state, and therefore it is dead. That dead body is useful
only as a paperweight. Nearly every time a new law is made, it is
worse than the last one, until wholesale abortion and euthanasia become
the foul order of the day.
When Our Lord put things into order in regards to just taxation, He said: (Mark 12,17) “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” At the present time the world is groveling in bloody wars. Countries that are, or should be, independent states are looking for assistance from an illicit government called the United Nations Organization. Stated simply, the legitimate rulers of nations are in Christ’s words, “Caesars.” However, the United Nations Organization can claim no such title from Our Lord. God’s “Caesar” over the entire world is His Vicar, the Roman Pontiff. As you see from the above quotation from Pope Boniface VIII, he says that the spiritual sword is over the material sword. We quote him: “For, as truth testifies, spiritual power has to establish earthly power, and to judge if it was not good.” There you have God’s ordinances. The Pope has the last word “to judge if it (the material sword) was not good.” Nobody, not even a one-world unanimous court, can ever overturn the judgments of the Pope. Again We quote Pope Boniface VIII: “…but if the supreme (spiritual) power deviates, it can be judged by God alone, not by man, as the Apostle testifies: ‘The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one’ (I Cor. 2:15). ” When the Pope judges something to be evil there is no place to go for an appeal on this side of heaven.
An example will be helpful in the understanding of the above teaching. Pope St. Pius V spirited (lead by his preaching) the countries of Europe to go to war with the Muslims at sea at Lepanto. The Muslims were destroying countries, taking one country after another for their evil religion, by fire and sword. They were pushing to move throughout Europe, and the Pope drew the line. He urged the leaders of many nations to join in putting down that evil. With great odds against them, the European Catholics, fortified with the Sacraments and the fervent use of the Holy Rosary, went into battle. The Catholic countries of Europe won that war which can be labeled no less than miraculous. Had that turning point in history not taken place it is likely that a very large part of the world would be Muslim today. You do not need a civilian United Nations Organization to get united action against evils in this world. The Pope is deputed by God to lead the way for willing subjects to justice and peace. When there are only a few willing subjects God’s Vicar can do very little in stopping evil in the world and inspiring peace and harmony among peoples and nations.
Pope Boniface VIII made it clear that every human creature, in order to be saved, must be subject to the Roman Pontiff. Within that statement is included, implicitly, the mandate that every single state must be Catholic. If all the people are Catholics then it will follow that their governments will also be Catholic. We shall state a cold fact. Every religion that man concocts (past, present or future) is against the first commandment of God – they “…bring false gods before Him,” and they will pay the price for their sins in this world and in the next.
It should be clear that the spiritual sword does not take over the functions of the material sword. It makes the material sword do its job correctly. God, through His Church, guides the material swords in a veto fashion. No priest or bishop will become a ruler in a hamlet, state or country. In history it is known that many Catholic Kings have kept their priest (confessor) at their side for even daily consultation. The Church does not concern itself with how people want to be ruled, provided God’s laws are obeyed. They can have a king, a president or a prime minister – all well and good. The state can determine their roads, their industry and the like. However, all must be within common sense and the natural rights of the citizens.
The state has from God all the powers that it needs to protect the lives, property and general welfare of its citizens. Hence, it has the right to call up its strongest young men to defend it from outside forces. It has the right to punish violators of the law, even with capital punishment when just laws dictate such action.
From what has been said, it may appear that the state has for its purpose merely the defending of the lives and freedom of its citizens. It does not stop there. Pope Boniface says: “But the latter (material sword), indeed, must be exercised for the Church.” Read old catechisms, and you will see that expressed. The state must supply the common sense material needs of the Catholic Church, for the Catholics pay just taxes, and included in those taxes is service of the state for the Church. Some readers now must make a great summersault. Our social order is like the human body. The body needs the soul, and the soul needs the body, for they have but one reason for existence. They are supposed to work together to help each individual on earth make his way to the joys of heaven.
A sword also means authority. The authority of the state is no less divine than that of the Church. However, it is bolstered by the Church. A state that does not recognize the true God finds itself helpless in keeping order unless it uses brute force. True authority, both ecclesiastical and civil, is divine, and obedience to God brings its reward in this life and in the next.
Once again, the Church and state are distinct entities just as the human soul and the human body are distinct entities. Rightly they must be united as soul and body in order to make a living, functioning organism. What God has united, let no man split asunder!
Given in Spokane, WA, USA
Pius, pp. XIII
October 1, 1999
Top of Page |
Pope's
Homepage |
Email
to Papal Secretary |
 |