☔️ Pastor’s Desk ~ November 24, 2024 ☔️

Dear Fellow Parishioners,

As I write this, we are in the midst of the first “atmospheric river” which used to be called “heavy rain” or, at most, “a storm system.” Either way, it’s good to have it, especially if it means delivery from drought in the months to come.

This Sunday has two titles: The 34th Sunday of Ordinary Time and the Solemnity of Christ the King. Despite the venerable tone of that title, it was entered into the Church liturgical calendar only in 1925, the year before the construction of our current church building in Petaluma,

Over the course of roughly 60 years – 1870 to 1929 – Europe underwent a rolling revolution in which one great empire or governing regime after another fell, or was completely secularized. Before these revolutions, the ruling principle had been the divine right of monarchs, believed to be anointed with not only civil, but also divine, authority. The unification of Italy in 1869 resulted in the loss of the Papal States and the isolation of the Pope within the Vatican, a territory smaller than Disneyland. The Vatican was like an embattled island within Rome for 60 years, until 1929, with the signing of the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and the Italian state. During this 60-year period, relations between the church and state were quite hostile. Popes refused to leave the Vatican or even enter St. Peter’s Square, so as to avoid even the appearance of recognizing Italian sovereignty. Popes imparted their Urbi et Orbi from a balcony facing the interior of the Vatican complex, and papal coronations took place privately in the Sistine Chapel. This “fortress mentality” occurred within the living memory of nearly all bishops that attended Vatican II.

The signing of the Lateran Treaty in 1929 was an exercise of worldly – even kingly – power between a Pope (Pius XI) and a King (Victor Emmanuel III) which created for the Holy See, among other things, freedom from the burden of governing the large Papal States, while still guaranteeing the church a safe and secure base of operations within Rome, which was for centuries the center of both the civil state and the church.

In closing, this feast makes two points worth reflecting on as we approach Thanksgiving and Advent. Jesus’s kingdom is already in our midst, but it is not entirely of this world. and will be fulfilled and fully understood only in the fullness of time. The second is that the leaders and “influencers” of this age, and the makers and breakers of peace now more emboldened than ever, will one day appear alongside us before Christ the King as judge. In the meantime, we prepare to give thanks for the blessings of our lives, and prepare for Christ the Child once again being born anew.

Blessings,
Fr. Bill Donahue