An essay that I once wrote to a fellow seminarian, to better answer a question...

         Ecclesia monarchia est:           

On the Monarchical Constitution of the Catholic Church

Robert Lathlaen Thomas-Becket Miskell, M.A.

One of the more controversial truths of Catholic ecclesiology, particularly for today’s society, is that Jesus Christ founded His Church with a monarchical constitution.  Even Catholics today may find the idea unpalatable, when considered in these terms.  This is due to the enormous influence of the (so-called) Enlightenment upon today’s culture.  The current predisposition toward popular government is sustained largely by a revolutionary patriotism and historicism that often hinders the openness of individuals to thinking in a temporally or nationally transcendent manner, especially with regard to traditional, monarchical forms of governance.  The capacity to recognize the objective good of monarchy is inhibited by a modernist enculturation that has indoctrinated people into believing that monarchy is inherently repressive.  It is further held that its foundational principle—that the right to rule is a gift given from heaven to specific individuals—is false and backward.  Current society, instead, champions the idea that all authority derives from the ruled.  An orthodox Catholic Christian cannot hold this modernist view, especially when considering the perfect society of the Church.  Pope Leo XIII, the father of modern Catholic social doctrine, makes this clear in his encyclical Diuturnum.[i]

First, we should consider the nature of monarchy itself.  What constitutes monarchy?   Lester J. Bartson III, reflecting upon its Greek etymology, has defined monarchy as essentially the primacy of one within a defined society.  As he explains, monarchy comes from the root words monos (one) and arkhé (first, prime).  Monarchy, thus, is the situation when a single individual holds a position of primacy, of "firstness".  The monarch is first in honor, in prestige, in authority, etc.  Bartson distinguishes monarchy from dictatorship, also with reference to the Classical Greek.  Dictatorship is signified by monocracy, the combination of monos (one) and kratos (might, power).  Monocracy is thus the might or power of one.  Monocracy is merely the capacity of one to command obedience, without a moral reference.  Monarchy, on the other hand, is an inherently moral situation.  It can exist without a simultaneous monocracy (there can be a monarch without absolute political power).  Similarly, monocracy can, and often does, exist without a real, monarchical moral authority residing in the monocrat; this is dictatorship.  Monocracy is defined by power, and monarchy, by authority, the moral right to govern and establish.  The distinction between authority and power is key.  Authority, which derives solely from God, is the inherently moral right to command and expect obedience.  Practical political power, however, relies upon the activity of the ruled.  Thus, practical, earthly might is seen in the will and responsiveness of the people, but not authority.[ii]  Bartson further clarifies this with his five criteria for monarchy.  They are:

1.      Religious primacy

2.      Judicial primacy

3.      Military primacy

4.      Simultaneity of function

5.      Expectation of succession[iii]

These categories of primacy have flexibility.  For example, there are often cases where kings do not hold the full primacy in either military or religious affairs, such as the early Germanic kings (who were not always the chief war leaders) or the seventeenth-century, absolutist Catholic monarchs (who always acknowledged the papal primacy in spiritual matters).  The key is that monarchs hold a unique position of honor and moral influence with respect to these three areas of life, that their authority is simultaneous in each function, and that there is a common, cultural expectation of monarchical succession.  This last aspect is rooted in the fundamentally paternal character of monarchy, as witnessed throughout the world’s history and upheld by cultural anthropology.[iv]

A crucial question with regard to the distinction of monarchy is that of the importance of hereditary succession.  It is certainly an important and common characteristic of monarchia, as it reaffirms its inherently familial orientation.  However, this form of societal organization is not strictly hereditary in application.  There have been numerous examples of electoral succession.  First, in the temporal sphere, one can cite the Roman emperorship (which was officially at the will of the Senate), the Holy Roman emperorship, the kingship of the Poles, the accession of the Capetian dynasty, etc.  In the ecclesiastical realm, one can begin with the traditional abbatial constitution of monasteries.  Abbots have customarily been elected by their brother monks, been confirmed by bishops or popes, and ruled their houses as royal, priestly fathers.  The papacy is the ultimate example, for the popes are elected by the Sacred College and possess supreme authority, singularly.

Monarchy, as a concept, has a complicated history.  It has a more fluid application today, particularly when one observes its etymology strictly.  It is now effectively interchangeable with the term kingship, and it is really through the lens of kingship that one studies most of historical monarchy.  In its earlier Christian application, monarchia had a grander meaning.  The monarch, originally, was truly one who was prime, in a global context.  As best demonstrated by Dante Alighieri’s De Monarchia, monarchy was understood to constitute the authority of one over the whole (known) world.  Alighieri was reflecting upon the Holy Roman Emperor as the inheritor of the Roman Empire’s claim to world governance or overlordship.  The Church condemned De Monarchia to the Index, as it constituted a threat to papal authority.  It has been said that the work’s vision of monarchy is orthodox, so long as it is envisaged in the Person of Jesus Christ, the true monarch.  Early Christian usage of monarchia, therefore, should be understood in the original context of emperorship, or the singular overlordship of all nations.  With the renewal of Catholic interest in Roman law during the late eleventh and early twelfth century, the language of emperorship, and thus monarchy, became more diffuse.  Various kings, such as those of France, England, and Leon, together with the high kings of Ireland, asserted their independence from the Holy Roman Empire by claiming an imperial authority within the context of their own kingdoms.  Monarchy, therefore, gradually came to be understood as the character of any singularly prime authority, for each such ruler enjoys temporal sovereignty over his own land, at least in law.[v] 

The monarchical character of the Catholic Church finds its ultimate foundation in the divine monarchy of the Holy Trinity, long expressed in the iconography of Jesus as the Pantokrator.  Pope Pius XI reminded the world of Christ’s kingly rule of the Church and the world in his encyclical Quas Primas, whereby he established the Solemnity of Christ the King. [vi]   The visible Church is ordered monarchically through the Petrine ministry. Pope St. Pius X makes this explicit in his letter Ex quo, nono to various Eastern archbishops apostolic delegates:

…de Ecclesiae constitutione…primo renovator error a decessore Nostro Innocentio X iamdiu damnatus…quo suadetur, S. Paulum haberi tanquam fratrem omnio parem S. Petro; —deinde  non minori falsitate inicitur persuasion, Ecclesiam catholicam non fuisse primis saeculis principatum unius, hoc est monarchiam…[vii]

The English translation provided in the reprint of Denzinger’s thirtieth edition is:

…first of all an error, long since condemned by Our predecessor, Innocent X, is being renewed…, in which it is argued that St. Paul is held as a brother entirely equal to St. Peter;—then, with no less falsity, one is invited to believe that the Catholic Church was not in the earliest days a sovereignty of one person, that is a monarchy…[viii]

His Holiness follows the old convention of defining matters negatively, by positing errors so as to highlight the truth.  Here, it requires thoughtful reading.  In reminding the archbishops of the previously condemned error that the Church was originally not a monarchy (in the person of St. Peter), he is affirming that the Church was, in fact—from Her earliest days—a monarchy, by reason of the special ministry assigned to Simon Peter by Jesus Christ.  On the authority of this sainted modern pope, we can continue to rightly define the Catholic Church as a monarchy, through God’s own divine rule and the pope’s vicarious rule as the Successor of Peter. 

Together with their supreme spiritual authority, the Supreme Pontiffs bear the fullness of temporal authority in the global sense, although they do not have the ordinary, executive use thereof.  This is a striking statement, and has a long and contentious history.  Basically, it has two roots.  First, it was long argued on the basis of the Donatio Constantini, which the majority scholarly opinion still holds spurious.  Most are still willing to admit its having underlying historical precedents, and its land grants were repeatedly reaffirmed by successive emperors.  Second, it is more validly understood as being comprehended within the supreme spiritual authority of the Petrine ministry.  Considering this in Thomistic terms, it resembles the understanding we have of the human, intellective soul.  Rather than having multiple souls, corresponding to the varying powers of the human person, man has a single, intellective soul that comprehends, or contains, within the higher intellective soul such lower material powers as vegetation and locomotion.  The spiritual imperium, being of a higher order, can be understood to contain or have within itself the fullness of the powers and authorities of the lower temporal order.  Due to the special, high priestly character of the Petrine ministry, the Supreme Pontiff does not have the ordinary execution of his imperial authority, but delegates it to suitable, non-ordained persons.  This is an older vision, and is not spoken of much today, but it was part of the longstanding exposition of the papal authority and cannot be discarded out of hand, as that would be a clear rupture.[ix]

Connected to this grand vision of pontifical authority is the particular temporal power of the popes over the Patrimony of St. Peter, or the Papal States for short.  These were lands granted originally by Constantine the Great and expanded over the centuries.  Despite the efforts of many to deprive the Holy See of temporal sovereignty by force, or to deny Her the right to them, the Church has held strong to the need for papal temporal sovereignty.  It is, in fact, a Magisterially condemned proposition to suggest that the Pope should not have an independent political state of his own.  The Holy See requires this situation in order to assure the full freedom of the Magisterium to preserve the faith and the unity of the Church.  Also, it is consonant with the proper prestige of the Supreme Pontiff to be a temporal sovereign, with the earthly majesty that accompanies such an honor.  This further allows the Holy Father to be the model of virtuous principality for the world.  However, appealing again to the Gospel of St. Matthew and the aforementioned letter of St. Pius X, it is not in the temporal authority that the monarchical character of the papacy (and the Church) primarily lies, but in the special, spiritual commission of the Lord Jesus to Simon Peter. [x]  

One may ask what value there is in defining the Church, and the papacy, as a monarchy.  It certainly would not be considered the most pastoral approach in our heavily democratist age, but it is important for reminding the faithful of the timeless truths of God and nature.  Whereas man can go through varying periods of obedience and rebelliousness, God does not change.  He established Creation in a hierarchical fashion.  The peak of the hierarchy of being is God, Who is esse subsistens.  Thomistic metaphysics prefers the term analogy, but the effect is basically the same; created being and essence have a visibly hierarchical structure.  Likewise, God ordered the government of the universe in a hierarchical manner, with His monarchy as the guiding principle.  Traditional societies have practically all witnessed to this reality in their organic development.  Historical and politico-anthropological studies show that early cultures developed their sense of authority primarily on the basis of fatherhood, which blossomed into kingship.  With (very) rare exceptions, populist regimes have been the fruit of revolutions, which by nature reject the spiritually-based monarchical forms and favor the secular idea of popular sovereignty.  We find this among the Greeks and Romans, and later in the turbulent revolutions of the modern world.  The American Revolution is not innocent on this count.  Driven by the rationalist ideals of the “Enlightenment”, it rejected the divine basis of political authority, preferring to assign the source of authority (the moral right to command obedience) to the people.  Although the American Republic early on professed its devotion to God as sole king, the restless movement of revolution has continued toward virtual state atheism.[xi] 

As Catholics, we must uphold the Scriptural truth that all authority, including political authority, comes from God, rather than men.  Many in the contemporary Catholic Church, purportedly following the mind of Bl. John Paul II, have worked to make the Church a mouthpiece of political democratism.  Although this has a tradition even among the earlier Jesuits, due to an overzealous papalism, it has evidently undermined the effectiveness of and obedience due to the Magisterium.  It also has the danger of introducing a disunifying, relational dualism into our understanding of the human person.  John Paul placed great emphasis on the familial ordering of man and society, but at the same time he favored democracy, which is inherently contrary to that understanding.  Modern democracy is grounded upon a liberal interpretation of individual freedom, one that makes political society a collection of individuals who form a contractual association and relinquish authority over themselves to an elected regime.  This is not in line with the familial character of man; nor does it follow the teaching of Leo XIII.  As the Scriptures and the traditional teaching of the Church shows, we are to understand society as the greater family, and that includes the political dimension.  Monarchical government best reflects this in its paternal character.  Furthermore, the traditional understanding that political authority is a gift from Heaven to a “greater father” (the monarch)—something added to basic human freedom and individual self-governance—better preserves both the dignity of man and the sanctity of authority.  Rather than individuals feeling that they must relinquish part of themselves, they can order themselves toward a higher authority that personifies God’s loving attention to them.[xii]  

As a culture, we are spiritually poorer because of populism.  Just as it ensnared the minds of men in terms of secular politics, so has it now become a serious problem in ecclesiastical politics.  The Church, like the State, is a polity.  It is true that the Church is different in essence from the State, but the basic structures of life properly remain the same.  Nature is a hierarchy, both in the spiritual and material realms.  The human person, as a composite of spirit and body, is bound to both.  The unity of the person demands that both components reflect a hierarchical and familial character.  If the spiritual realm is ordered vertically toward God, so must also be the material.  If contemporary popes and prelates, in their expressed opinions, begin to treat one element of human life as non-familial and populistic, it is only logical for the faithful to consider other elements as negotiable in this direction.  The drive for democratism in the political order has crossed over into its ecclesiological complement.  The answer to this attempted revolution lies in reaffirming traditional teaching about nature, authority, and the true unity of the human person.  With St. Pius X, we must reaffirm the truth that is uncomfortable to democentric ears: Ecclesia monarchia est.

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[i] Romans xiii: 1-5; St. Gelasius I, Pope. Letter to Emperor Anastasius (494). Ed. E. Schwartz. Trans. Brian Tierney: The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 13-14;  Bl. Pius IX, Pope. Qui Pluribus (1846), 4, 22; St. Pius X, Pope. Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), 38; Leo XIII, Pope. Diuturnum (1881), 5.  Holy Scripture, and the long traditional teaching of the Church, represented by these sources, clearly supports the divine origin of human political authority, rather than the modernist, democratic principle.

[ii] Lester J. Bartson III, Ph.D. is a retired professor of ancient history and former chair of the History Department at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.  A specialist in the history of monarchy, he was my mentor and supervised my undergraduate thesis: Birth, Baptism, and Confirmation: The Origins and Development of Sacral Kingship in Western Christendom.  The information used here is drawn from notes for his course Monarchs, People and History, which I took in the spring semester of 1999.  Prof. Bartson, a Canadian-American, served for years as head of his local branch of the Canadian Monarchist League.  He retired to Canada in 2005.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Dante Alighieri. De Monarchia. Trans. Prue Shaw (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996), introduction, bks. 1-3; James Bryce. The Holy Roman Empire (London: MacMillan and Co., 1890), 104-107, 182-195; Ernst H. Kantorowicz. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,  1997), 97.

[vi] Pius XI, Pope. Quas Primas (1925), 7-21.

[vii] St. Pius X, Pope. Ex quo, nono (1910). Errores Orientalium. Ed. Heinrich Denzinger and Adolf Schönmetzer: Enchiridion Symbolorum: Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum ed. 36 (Barcelona: Herder, 1976), 3555.

[viii] St. Pius X, Pope. Ex quo (1910). Certain Errors of the Orientals. Ed. Heinrich Denzinger and Karl Rahner, S.J.: Enchiridion Symbolorum: Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum ed. 30. Trans. Roy J. Deferrari: The Sources of Catholic Dogma (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2007), 2147a.

[ix] St. Gregory VII, Pope. Dictatus Papae (1075), 1, 8-9; Summa Imperatoriae Majestate (1175-1178). Ed. Brian Tierney: The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 120; Rufinus. Commentary on Dist. 22 c. 1. Summa Decretorum. Ed. Brian Tierney: The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 119-120; Innocent III, Pope. Sermon on the consecration of a pope. Ed. Brian Tierney: The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 131-132; Innocent III, Pope. Letter to the prefect Acerbus and the nobles of Tuscany (1198). Ed: Brian Tierney: The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 132; Aegidius Romanus, Archbishop of Bourges. De Ecclesiastica Potestate, I: 2-5, 7-9, II: 4-10, 12-15, III: 4-10; William A. Wallace, O.P. The Elements of Philosophy (New York: Fathers and Brothers of the Society of St. Paul, 1977), 80-84; Bl. Pius IX, Pope. Syllabus of Errors, 24-27, 75-76.

[x] Matthew xvi: 18-19; St. Pius X Ex quo, nono (DS 3555); Bl. Pius IX, Syllabus, 24-27, 75-76.

[xi] St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. Summa Theologiae, I q. 2-6, I q. 9; Wallace, 88-90, 125-126, 131-132, 208; Chester G. Starr.  A History of the Ancient World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 13; Mason Hammond and Lester J. Bartson. The City in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 15, 22; Aristotle. Politics. Trans. C. D. C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing Company, 1998) i: 2; Raymond Scupin and Christopher R. DeCorse. Anthropology: A Global Perspective: Second Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1995), 82, 139, 170, 174-175, 178-180, 260-261, 373, 379-381; Robert Miskell. Thesis: Birth, Baptism, and Confirmation: The Origins and Development of Sacral Kingship in Sacral Kingship (Department of History, University of Massachusetts Boston, 2002), 4-7; Bernard Bailyn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1992), 22-320.  This selection of consulted sources is only a beginning, due to the limited purpose of this essay.

[xii] Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Washington: USCCB Publishing, 2007), 390, 395; Bl. John Paul II, Pope. Centesimus Annus, 46; Johann P. Sommerville. “Introduction”. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought: Filmer: Patriarcha and Other Writings (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999), xv-xvi; Bl. John Paul II, Pope. “On the Family”. Go in Peace: A Gift of Enduring Love. Ed. Joseph Durepos (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 143-166; Leo XIII Diuturnum, 1-27; Catechism of the Council of Trent (Roman Catechism), III: 4.