When Kings Replace the King: The Idolatry of Royal Spectacle in a Catholic Town
The National Catholic Register reports on the visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla to Front Royal, Virginia, on April 30, 2026 — a small town that is home to Christendom College and the historic St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. The article, filed by senior editor Ann Schneible, describes the enthusiastic reception afforded to the British monarch: crowds waiting for hours, children dressed for the occasion, parishioners peering through binoculars from church steps, and residents comparing the event to a visit by Bing Crosby decades prior. The tone is one of breathless civic pride, historical wonder, and communal celebration. Not a single word is devoted to the Catholic Church’s teaching on the proper ordering of temporal power under Christ the King, the heresy of the Anglican schismatics who occupy the British throne, or the spiritual peril of a Catholic community treating a Protestant monarch’s motorcade as an “iconic moment” worthy of its collective memory. The silence is deafening — and damning.






