I suppose it would be very different in different situations, since it would be a society for the sake of people rather than people for the sake of any society.
For one thing, it would look like Saint Benedict– not the Benedict Option but the real Saint Benedict– founding a monastery away from the world but still welcoming, feeding and caring for anyone who came to him. It would look like Saint Francis turning his back on his comfortable place in an opulent, ostensibly Catholic household and going to live among lepers before founding the Friars Minor. It would look like Saint Catherine refusing a convenient Catholic marriage and caring for plague victims instead, or Saint Elizabeth of Hungary carrying bread to the poor no matter how weak it made the royal family seem. It would look like Saint Damien giving up everything to serve lepers, Saint Patrick going back to the Ireland that enslaved him, Saint Raymond remaining a hostage in another’s place, Saint Maximilian going to Block Thirteen to starve to death so that somebody else might not. It would look like the exploits of Venerable Dorothy Day.
A Catholic society wouldn’t resemble some fruity, idealized painting of a European monarchy. It would resemble Christ, the Head of the Church. Christ did not find Himself a good wife. He took for His bride you and me– our souls, each of our souls individually and the whole ragtag bunch of us as One body, not because we were strategically convenient but because He loves us. Christ did not raise traditional children; He did not start an earthly dynasty. Instead, He commanded that we be one family, that everyone who hears His voice and keeps His commands be His brother, sister and mother. He brought not peace but the sword to traditional, complacent, materially convenient families; he turned fathers against sons and mothers against daughters, because anyone who loves his place in an earthly family more than they love Him is not worthy of Him. He chose the weak, not as vassals but as brothers, friends, apostles, and gave over to them the keys to the Kingdom which is not of this world. He set a little child in our midst and named that child greatest in that Kingdom.
His Kingdom is still not of this world. We who serve Christ the King live in the world, but we are not of the world. We cannot use people and worship power the way earthly kingdoms do. It’s antithetical to everything Christ taught. It’s quite literally Anti-Christ.
I don’t think there’s any danger that the Facebook Monarchists will succeed in their Seven Steps.
But if they somehow do, it will be the duty of every Catholic to oppose them in the name of Christ.
(Image via pixabay)
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