Lebanese Christians’ ‘Resilience’ Denies Christ’s Social Kingship

The EWTN News article from March 5, 2026, reports on Christian villagers in southern Lebanon who, facing evacuation orders amid the escalating Iran-Israel war, have chosen to remain in their towns. It describes their refusal to leave, their organization of local watch rotations with church bells as warning signals, their appeals to the Lebanese army and the apostolic nuncio for protection, and their determination to prevent Hezbollah from using their villages as military bases. The narrative frames their stance as one of “resilience” and “stubborn determination to stay,” rooted in love for their land and community, while expressing frustration at being caught in a war they did not choose. The article concludes by noting their faith as a sustaining factor. This humanistic and geopolitical account completely omits the Catholic doctrine of the Social Kingship of Christ over nations and the consequent obligation of the state to recognize and serve the Church, as defined by pre-1958 Magisterium. The villagers’ appeals to secular authorities (Lebanese army, UNIFIL, the “Vatican’s diplomatic channels”) and their reliance on natural means of self-defense, without a single reference to the necessity of a Catholic social order, expose a profound theological and spiritual bankruptcy: a Catholicism reduced to cultural identity and natural resistance, devoid of its supernatural mission to subject all human societies to the law of Christ the King.