The Author hopes that this work, imperfect though it be, may contribute in some way to the rebirth of order in the world, by helping Catholics to grasp the integral truth.  When the nightmare of modern disorder shall have run its course there will come a reaction, in fact it is with us already.  To guide that reaction, a clear-cut view of what Our Lord Jesus Christ means to the world is indispensable.
    For the Letters of Pope Leo XIII, the translation published by Benziger Brothers, the Letters of the other Sovereign Pontiffs quoted the source is indicated in the text.  If no reference is given, it means that the translation has been made directly from the text published by La Bonne Pressse. (Paris)
    I beg to thank Messrs. Browne and Nolan for permission to reprint as an Appendix, with some additions, an article on the relation between Nationality and our Supernatural Life which appeared in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record in March, 1923.
    My most grateful thanks are also due to the Very Rev. J. C. McQuaid, C.S.Sp., formerly Dean of Studies and now Supreme of Blackrock College, without whose kind encouragement and unstinted help neither this work nor anything else I have written would have seen the light.

                                                                                            Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp.

Senior Scholasticate, Blackrock College,
Feast of the Sacred Heart, 1931.

    This book is chiefly a Confession of Faith in Our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ.  It proclaims that He is God and that, therefore, His rights over mankind are absolute.  It also declares that He is Man, and that, as such, He is Head of the Mystical Body, Priest and Universal King.
    Dr. Fahey develops his thesis on the Kingship of Jesus Christ by applying the Doctrine of the Incarnation to the history of the modern world.  He is guided throughout by the safe principles of the Prince of Theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas.  Students of St. Thomas will readily see that this work is not--in fact within its scope cannot be--an exhaustive treatise either of the Doctrine of St. Thomas concerning the Kingship of Jesus Christ or of the modern acceptance and rejection of that Doctrine.  They will, however, see, especially if they are accustomed to the handling of historical documents, that this slender volume is a valuable summary of Dogmatic Truths and historical facts.  There is not, as far as my knowledge goes, certainly not in the English language, any other work which attempts such a synthesis of principles and events.  In modern works one often notices a tendency to substitute for grave historical documents the deductions, however correct, of commentators.  It is then a delight to the serious reader to find such a wealth of documentation as this book supplies.
    To the study of his sources, Dr. Fahey has brought a rare maturity of scholarship.  Not merely does he share with all fellow-Priests the ripe judgment developed by the incomparable training which is a Catholic Priest's grounding in Scholastic Philosophy and Theology (in both of which Sciences the author holds the Degree of Doctor) but he has had the privilege of personal access to the literature and scholarship of at least five European countries.  He holds, moreover, a First Class Honors Degree of the Royal University of Ireland in Civil and Constitutional History, Political Economy, and General Jurisprudence.  I consider it useful for a reader, in these days of anonymous journalism, to have a fair knowledge of the qualifications of an author, especially of a Catholic author.  Besides, the conspiracy of deliberate silence which permits so much of Catholic Scholarship to be passed over in the public Press, and therefore to be nullified, may well be expected to bring its forces to bear on this important work.
    The public Press is usually not a stimulus but a soporific.  If Catholics duly study this book, overcoming bravely the initial difficulty of a little hard thinking, they will find themselves not only roused to the significance of current events but also possessed of a power to judge rightly concerning the modern world.  For the value of Dr. Fahey's work is largely in this--that he sets forth clearly the things that are of God and the things that are of Ceasar, or, in harder terms, that he explains the interrelation between Church and State which is called the "Indirect Power."
    Thus expressed, the doctrine sounds to us vague and abstract, but, in real life, it means the acceptance or rejection by all States of Jesus Christ and His Church, with, as necessary consequence, the true progress or certain decay of these States.  The acknowledgment of the Kingship of Jesus Christ in all its implications is, and must be, in the plan of God for men and for nations, the acid test of ordered life.  God the Holy Ghost has said it--and the words are firm solace to us of the Faith in these darkening times-- "other foundations no man can lay, but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus," (I Cor. xii. II.)  and again: "the Stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the Head of the corner.  By the Lord this has been done and it is wonderful in our eyes.  And whosoever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever It shall fall, It shall grind him to powder." (Matthew xxi. 42, 44.)
    It is very strange how even Catholic historians have not grasped the importance of this Doctrine of the Indirect Power, which in our day is, by the action of God we must believe, forcing itself into more urgent prominence.  Of two important Histories of Europe recently published by Catholic authors, one work shows a grave misconception of the value of the doctrine of the Indirect Power of the Church in things temporal; while the other is rendered almost useless by its failure to explain the revolutionary movements of the last century, in the light of their true origins, the effort to dethrone Jesus Christ in favor of a religion of Naturalism and the action of secret societies that espouse this cause.  Both authors would have profited much by the scholarship of the non-Catholic, Mrs. Nesta Webster, who, though she has been always gravely hampered by the want of the True Faith, has yet proved one of the most able historians of the origins of political revolutions.  One would have thought that at least the published official statements of successive Sovereign Pontiffs might have been utilized by these Catholic authors.  Dr. Fahey, on the other hand, has woven both the statements of the Vicars of Jesus Christ and pertinent secular documents into his commentary on current history.  Taken in conjunction with Godefroid Kurth's Les Origines de la Civilisation moderne and Maritain's La Primaute du Spirituel, (in English, "The Things that are Not Caesar's".)  this present work will, I trust, prove a storehouse of defensive arguments for Catholic students, Clerical and lay.
    I may be permitted here to thank the Author for the privilege of being associated with him in the strong act of Faith which is this book, and I unite with him in the prayer that the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, may be in some way benefited by this public assertion of the inalienable rights of Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, Our Priest and King!

                                                                                  John C. McQuaid, C.S.Sp.

    O Christ Jesus, I acknowledge Thee as Universal King.  For Thee all creatures have been made. Do Thou exercise over me all Thy rights.  Renewing my Baptismal Vows, I renounce Satan, with all his works and pomps, and I promise to live as a good Catholic.  Especially do I pledge myself to work with all my power for the triumph of the rights of God and of Thy Church.
    Divine Heart of Jesus, I offer Thee all my poor actions to obtain that all hearts may recognize Thy Sacred Royalty, and that thus the Reign of Thy peace may be established throughout the entire world.  Amen.

Plenary Indulgence once a day on the usual conditions.  Sacred Penitentiary, 21st February, 1923.

Impratur:
    Mechiliniae, 20 Maii, 1927.
J., THYS, can. lib. cens.

Permissu Ordinarii Dioec. Dublinen, die 17 Augusti Anno 1927.

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