The “Royal Identity” of Christians Without Christ the King
Pillar Catholic portal reports on a June 9, 2026, episode of the “Sunday School” podcast, featuring Dr. Scott Powell, JD Flynn, and Kate Olivera, discussing the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time readings (Exodus 19:2-6a, Romans 5:6-11, Matthew 9:36-10:8). The episode, titled “Kings, queens, and mighty deeds,” focuses on “God’s efforts to build Israel into a nation and St. Paul’s call for Christians in Rome to remember their royal identity.” This seemingly innocuous discussion, however, reveals a profound theological void at the heart of post-conciliar catechesis: the complete omission of the doctrine of Christ the King and His public reign over nations, reducing “royalty” to a purely individualistic and spiritualized metaphor, thereby stripping the Faith of its social and political implications and aligning with the modernist error of separating the spiritual from the temporal.
The Erasure of Christ’s Public Kingship
The podcast’s focus on “God’s efforts to build Israel into a nation” and “St. Paul’s call for Christians in Rome to remember their royal identity” presents a dangerously incomplete and ultimately modernist interpretation of Scripture. While the Old Testament indeed chronicles the formation of Israel as a chosen people, and St. Paul speaks of believers as “co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17), the post-conciliar discussion consistently avoids the crucial, public, and social dimension of Christ’s Kingship. This is not merely an oversight; it is a deliberate omission that reflects the conciliar sect’s embrace of laicism and its rejection of the Church’s divinely ordained role in guiding societies.
Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas (1925), unequivocally established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors.” He stated that “the plague that poisons human society” began with “the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations” and the Church’s authority to teach, issue laws, and govern nations for eternal happiness. Pius XI explicitly declared that Christ’s reign “extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” He further emphasized that “men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals,” and that rulers have a duty to “publicly honor Christ and obey Him,” ordering all state relations “on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles.”
By reducing “royalty” to a personal, internal state, the Pillar Catholic podcast, and the conciar sect it represents, effectively denies Christ’s claim to public authority. This aligns perfectly with the modernist errors condemned in The Syllabus of Errors (1864) by Pope Pius IX, particularly:
* **Error 19:** “The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free- nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder; but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church, and the limits within which she may exercise those rights.”
* **Error 24:** “The Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect.”
* **Error 55:** “The Church ought to be separated from the .State, and the State from the Church.”
The podcast’s silence on these fundamental truths is not accidental; it is a direct consequence of the post-conciliar revolution’s embrace of religious liberty and the separation of Church and State, doctrines explicitly condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
The “Royal Identity” as a Modernist Metaphor
The phrase “royal identity” as used in the podcast, stripped of its social and political context, becomes a mere metaphor for personal dignity or spiritual status. This is a hallmark of modernist hermeneutics, which, as St. Pius X warned in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), seeks to “interpret dogmas according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief” (Proposition 26). The modernist approach reduces objective truths to subjective experiences, making faith a matter of personal feeling rather than assent to revealed doctrine.
St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, further exposed the modernist tactic of separating the “Christ of faith” from the “Christ of history,” allowing them to accept a “spiritual” Christ while denying His historical and social claims. The podcast’s focus on an internal “royal identity” without any mention of Christ’s external, public kingship, is a direct application of this modernist principle. It transforms the objective reality of Christ’s reign into a subjective, individualistic experience, thereby neutering its power to transform societies.
This approach also aligns with the modernist error of “indifferentism,” condemned in The Syllabus of Errors:
* **Error 15:** “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
* **Error 17:** “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.”
By failing to assert the necessity of Christ’s public reign and the Church’s authority over states, the podcast implicitly endorses the idea that all religions are equally valid paths to salvation, and that the Church has no business dictating terms to secular governments. This is the very essence of the “spirit of Vatican II” that has led to the current apostasy.
The Omission of the Church’s Social Kingship
The podcast’s discussion of “God’s efforts to build Israel into a nation” is particularly telling in its omission. While the Old Testament clearly shows God as the direct ruler of Israel, establishing laws for every aspect of national life, the post-conciliar discussion conveniently stops short of drawing the obvious conclusion: that God still desires to rule over nations through His Church. This silence is a direct denial of the Church’s social kingship, a doctrine unequivocally taught by Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei (1885):
> “The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each supreme in its own kind, and each fixed within limits which are defined by its proper nature and special object. Each in its sphere is independent of the other; but each is restricted within certain limits, and this with reference to itself and the other.”
The post-conciliar Church, however, has abandoned this teaching, preferring to “dialogue” with the world rather than to command it. This is a direct consequence of the modernist error of “latitudinarianism,” which seeks to accommodate the Church to the prevailing opinions of the age, rather than to transform the age according to the unchanging truths of the Faith.
The podcast’s failure to mention the Church’s social kingship is not merely an oversight; it is a deliberate act of theological amnesia. It reflects the conciliar sect’s systematic effort to erase the Church’s historical role as the guide of nations, replacing it with a purely spiritualized and individualistic religion that has no claim on the public square. This is the “abomination of desolation” spoken of by Our Lord (Matthew 24:15), where the true doctrine of Christ’s kingship is replaced by a false, modernist gospel of human dignity and religious liberty.
Conclusion: A Catechesis of Apostasy
The Pillar Catholic podcast, “Kings, queens, and mighty deeds,” is a microcosm of the post-conciliar Church’s systematic apostasy. By reducing Christ’s kingship to a personal metaphor, by ignoring the Church’s social and political mission, and by failing to condemn the errors of modernism, it presents a gospel that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but the gospel of humanism and religious indifferentism.
This is not merely a matter of poor catechesis; it is a matter of eternal salvation. As Pope Pius XI warned, “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” The post-conciliar Church, by denying Christ’s public reign, has betrayed its divine mission and led countless souls into error.
The faithful must reject this modernist catechesis and return to the unchanging teaching of the pre-conciliar Magisterium. They must proclaim, with Pope Pius XI, that “Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords,” and that His reign extends over all nations, all societies, and all aspects of human life. Only then can the world be saved from the ravages of secularism and restored to the peace of Christ the King.
Source:
Kings, queens, and mighty deeds (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 09.06.2026