The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism
By Fr. Denis Fahey
“The art of manoeuvring human beings towards a certain goal,
without their being aware that they are being so manoeuvred,
has been brought to a pitch of perfection never before attained.”
"The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism" is a powerfully enlightening book, both comprehensive and concise, and an excellent reading for any Catholic who wants to learn more about the forces of order and disorder in the world.
To understand the immense value of this book, we must address an important question: What is naturalism? The author, Fr. Denis Fahey, introduces naturalism to us as a denial of the supernatural, and a propping up of the supremacy of human reason. It is a rejection and denial of the truths revealed by God, including that human nature is stained by original sin and more inclined to vice than to virtue.
Naturalists therefore deny that a virtuous life requires us to restrain the disorderly inclinations of the soul and bring the passions into subjection to reason, and as Fr. Fahey explains, they hold that human intelligence is the best and most trustworthy source and rule of justice. From this, we begin to learn how naturalism is fed to us from the influence of Freemasonry and other organised forces, which reject Christ and aim at imposing on society a direction in utter opposition with God’s Divine Plan.
As Fr. Fahey details the motives, methods, and effects of naturalism, we can notice a constant and eerie ring of familiarity. The characteristics of naturalism are familiar to our ears, which reveals its pervasiveness; it has seeped into almost everything we know in our modern world. We are no strangers to it. And yet, the word “naturalism” itself may not be so familiar at first glance. It is everywhere, yet hiding behind many faces, making it difficult to understand what it is, how it works, and how to guard against it. Fr. Fahey’s illuminating book serves to pull away the flimsy masks and acquaint us with the programmes of organised naturalism that oppose the Kingship of Christ and the Divine Plan for Order.
Skillfully and eloquently, the author sets up a clear contrast between the natural and the supernatural, drawing together excerpts from papal encyclicals to detail Our Lord’s Plan for Order and Satan’s Plan for Disorder. There are also excerpts from influential texts, helpful diagrams, and footnotes, pulling together a complete picture of the opposing forces.
Throughout the book, in contrast to Our Lord’s Divine Plan, we learn about the artful characteristics of Satan’s program. For example, we learn that the naturalists do not always attain their influence through direct opposition to Christ, but a more passive spirit of indifference that induces doubt and disregard for the things of God and the supernatural life. They place Christ’s Church on the same level as all other religions, as we see in the following quote:
“Satan spreads perplexity and disorder in minds by confusing the false tolerance of liberalism, by which equal rights are granted to truth and error, with the true tolerance of the Catholic Church.” The author includes the words of Pope Leo XIII: “It is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.”
To illustrate this point, Chapter III outlines the visible and invisible organised forces, noting the differences in Satan’s approach to destroying spiritual life between Protestant and Catholic countries. In Catholic countries, violent revolution is always aimed at the social structure in which the Kingship of Christ is respected. Whereas, in Protestant countries, owing to their explicit rejection of the Divine Plan for Order in the world, Satan can “bide his time” and leave them to the inevitable naturalism and moral decay that “requires no forceable steps.”
As we read, it becomes clear that societies, like individuals, experience moral decay and fatal issues when they resist God and depart from the supernatural Order of the world. They wander confused, without a compass of truth and principle, having lost the end for which God created them. In other words, when truth and morals are stripped away from the rock of faith in Christ and His Church, then they have lost their foundation and support and can no longer stand.
The author also takes us through a brief account of history, looking to the example of Western Europe in the thirteenth century, where the social life and spiritual life were not divorced from each other: “Society had been organised in the thirteenth century and even down to the sixteenth, under the banner of Christ the King. Thus… man’s divinisation, through the life that comes from the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, was socially favoured. Modern society, under the influence of Satan, was to be organised on the opposite principle, namely, that human nature is of itself divine, that man is God, and therefore, subject to nobody.” We see this transition play out as Fr. Fahey goes on to detail the effects of the Lutheran Revolt.
This small book serves as a powerful reminder that forces of evil do not simply exist in some far-off spiritual realm, but here, in our material world. These forces operate in social organisations which exert their naturalistic influence on many aspects of our world, whether we realise it or not, in media, governments, education, culture, marriage and family life, entertainment, and the list goes on, in every way seeking to exclude completely from modern life the sacred duties of men towards God.
And of course, the reverse is also true. The book shows us that since there is no separation or opposition between invisible grace and visible organisation, it follows that in order to oppose the forces of naturalism in the world, it is incumbent upon us to share in the spiritual life of grace through membership of Christ, also visibly in the world, which reflects the interior life of grace and union with the Divine Plan for Order.
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