EDITORIAL

Christ the King brings peace to society

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Throughout the world there seems to be a growing malcontent among the nations and the war drums are sounding off in the political, social and economic arenas. North Korea is agitating its neighbors through the testing of long range missiles and threats to destroy the United States. China continues to manipulate commodity markets and its currency in order to expand its influence throughout Asia. Russia continues to build up its military and forge economic alliances with other nations in order to separate itself from the oil hegemony of the United States and the use of the petrodollar. The moral decay in the United States, as well as in other western countries, is slowly eroding the social fabric of these societies. The world is becoming more and more disordered and the ills of society are incurable by man.

Pope Pius XI, in his 1922 encyclical “On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ,” was dealing with the fallout from World War I and the disorder it caused through the world. He was living in a world not so different from today’s problems. Pope Pius XI stressed that the lack of peace in the world was a result of evil that comes from within the sinful heart of man. He writes about the treaties that were signed after the war, “This peace, however, was only written into treaties. It was not received into the hearts of men, who still cherish the desire to fight one another and to continue to menace in a most serious manner the quiet and stability of society.” Pope Pius XI stated that “if men want peace, they must follow Our Lord as He has revealed Himself through His true Church and bear one another’s burdens.” When Jesus Christ becomes the king of our hearts, evil is conquered and true peace will reign supreme among the nations.