Each year the Catholic Church marks the end of the liturgical year with the Solemnity of Christ the King, a feast that was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925. As secularism and atheism took deeper root in Europe, the pope inaugurated the annual celebration to underscore the biblical truth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and his Kingdom embraces all of heaven and earth. As Pius XI established the solemnity with his encyclical Quas Primas, he declared, “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.”

November also brings a great season of anticipation, as we wait in eager expectation of the coming of someone to save us. Just as the Old Testament people waited in darkness, looking forward to the light that their Messiah would bring, we spend this entire season in anxious hope of a leader who will deliver us.

I’m referring, of course, to election season.

I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but only a little bit: In today’s politics, we treat every single election – even midterm ones – as “The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime,” as if the fate of humanity itself hangs in the balance. Some seem to cling to their candidates like messianic figures, as if they alone can usher in a world worth living in. We’re two weeks past the 2022 midterm election day, and election results are still (somehow) not finalized, but campaigning and punditry for the 2024 Presidential election have already begun. Political passions will only intensify over the coming months.

I’m sure politics will be discussed at many Thanksgiving dinners. Some love these conversations and others – like me, frankly – find them tiresome.

How does Jesus want the people of his Church to think about politics? My expertise is in theology, not politics, but I find myself wrestling with this question quite a bit. I don’t have any sort of strategies or practical recommendations for fellow Catholics, but I offer this important point, which I’ve struggled to articulate over the past few years: We cannot reduce the Kingdom of God to our partisan politics.

To appreciate what I mean, let’s briefly examine some recent theological history. In the late twentieth century, especially after the Second Vatican Council, a movement among Catholics called “liberation theology” emerged in Latin America. This movement, which has spread in various ways throughout the West, reinterpreted the Gospel as a political call to liberate the oppressed, especially the poor. Echoing Marxist ideas, proponents of liberation theology called for the overthrow of oppressors, using violence if necessary. The people could be truly free, it was said, only if unjust social structures were torn down. Concern for personal sin and holiness dwindled as the Gospel was reduced to mere a political movement.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) offered an authoritative critique of liberation theology in 1984 that remains instructive today. Perhaps it’s easy to see how the politics of the left (e.g., wokeness, critical race theory) resembles liberation theology, but the right today also has a lot to learn from this magisterial document, which was written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Let’s walk through four points from the document:

First, personal sin is always the greatest evil. Christ cares deeply for the oppressed and he wants us to work earnestly to help them, but He did not come to give us merely economic or political freedom. He came to give us freedom from sin. The document states:

New Testament revelation teaches us that sin is the greatest evil, since it strikes man in the heart of his personality. The first liberation, to which all others must make reference, is that from sin.

The left wants to fight things like structural racism and the right wants to fight things like “the establishment” and  abortion, but few today see the gravity of personal sin. You’re more likely to hear a discussion about “sin” from the right than from the left, but neither side is good at admitting their own. As the Catholic philosopher Dr. Peter Kreeft once quipped, “A liberal is someone who doesn't believe in evil, except for the evil in conservatives. A conservative is someone who does believe in evil—except for the evil in conservatives.”

The primary Gospel imperative is not to name other people’s sins or even overthrow sinful structures – as admirable as that effort can be – but to remove “the wooden beam in your own eye” (Matthew 7:1-5). The mudslinging and name-calling that is characteristic of today’s politics has no place among us as Catholics. At our eternal judgment, God is going to be looking primarily at what you and I did about our own sins, not whether we sufficiently complained about the sins of politicians and public figures that we heard about online. In fact, Jesus says we'll have to “render an account for every careless word” we speak about one another (Matthew 12:36).

Second, we can experience the freedom of the Gospel without political change. When Jesus gave the Great Commission to the Church two thousand years ago, he did not instruct the Church to bring down the corrupt Roman Empire, even though many Jews expected the Messiah to do just that. Jesus’ plan for changing the world instead involved proclaiming and spreading the Kingdom of God, which is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). We can experience this spiritual freedom no matter who is in charge. The Vatican instruction states:

Unquestionably, it is to stress the radical character of the deliverance brought by Christ and offered to all, be they politically free or slaves, that the New Testament does not require some change in the political or social condition as a prerequisite for entrance into this freedom.

Although we ought to be engaged in secular politics and should work to bring about a more just and holy nation, the Kingdom of God itself is not at stake! If the early Christians could joyfully follow Christ under the harsh persecution of Roman Emperors, you and I should be confident that we can experience the holiness and happiness of the Gospel no matter who has control of the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, or local governments.

Third, we must always respect each other's human dignity. We absolutely should pursue a just society that enables the oppressed and the poor to flourish, but can never resort to sin or violence to do so. After all, the New Commandment of the Kingdom of God is that we should love one another as Jesus loves us (John 13:34). As quaint as it may sound, charity alone can build up the Kingdom of God. The CDF document explains:

The truth of mankind requires that this battle [for a more just society] be fought in ways consistent with human dignity. That is why the systematic and deliberate recourse to blind violence, no matter from which side it comes, must be condemned. To put one's trust in violent means in the hope of restoring more justice is to become the victim of a fatal illusion: violence begets violence and degrades man.

A survey earlier this year found that about a quarter of Americans on both the left and the right believe that violence is sometimes justified to protest the government. While the Church agrees that we must fight for a better world, we must never resort to actual violence to do so.

Respecting each other’s dignity, however, means much more than merely avoiding physical confrontation: We must also speak and act charitably toward one another, even when engaged in politics. Today, it’s said that we need politicians who “tell it like it is,” and that it’s “sanctimonious” to be too worried about good conduct. After all, we want to win, don’t we? As soon as we begin to downplay, justify, or even glorify sin, though, we’re losing the only battle that matters – the battle for holiness.

Finally, we should not politicize our entire existence. The Kingdom of God is not an earthly political project, but transcends the back and forth of partisan politics:

One needs to be on guard against the politicization of existence which, misunderstanding the entire meaning of the Kingdom of God and the transcendence of the person, begins to sacralize politics and betray the religion of the people in favor of the projects of the revolution.

Today, nearly everything is partisan. Media producers, brands, celebrities, companies, and much more are all expected to take sides in the culture wars. Are you left or right? Blue or red? In our secular culture, partisan politics has assumed the importance that religion once had, and everyone is expected to bow down to one party or the other. A 2019 survey showed, for example, that both Republicans and Democrats were far more concerned about their children marrying someone from the opposite party than about their children marrying someone from another religion.

Yes, elections do have consequences, and politics does matter. Our lives, however, are about so much more than this wearisome tug of war for governmental and cultural control. You and I have been called by Jesus Christ to live a new way of life in the Kingdom of God, a life that is in this world but is detached from the passing things of this world. This life is characterized by wholehearted love of God and unconditional love of one another, even our political enemies.

I can absolutely assure you that Jesus Christ, the absolute Lord of all of history, is not wringing his hands on each election night, waiting with bated breath to see if his agenda is going to be enacted or not in our nation. He remains in charge of the details of history regardless of who is in charge in politics. As Jesus instructed, therefore, we ought to put holiness first, making politics a distant second: “But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides” (Matthew 6:33).

The message of the Feast of Christ the King in the end is quite simple: Make Jesus Christ the Lord of your own life and do your part to order society according to God’s will, but have absolute confidence that God remains in control no matter what.