King

With the establishment of the office of king, God now cared for Israel through three human offices: the office of priest, the office of prophet and the office of king. Saul was to be the first in a line of kings of Israel, but because he interfered with the office of priest and ignored the office of prophet, his royal line ended with himself.
King Saul did not listen to the prophet Samuel concerning the conduct of war, and King Saul offered a sacrifice to God by his own hands rather than through a Levite priest of Aaron’s line. What Saul failed to observe was that all legitimate authority comes from God, and so must follow the Law of God in its exercise. Saul’s behavior, then, was an abuse of God’s authority and an offense against God.
Since the time of Christ, history has witnessed many instances of civil authorities interfering with the work of God’s priests or failing to listen to God’s prophets. The first few hundred years of Christianity were marked by waves of persecution against the Sacrifice of Christ in the Holy Mass. This persecution renewed itself a thousand years later when Protestant reformers sought to outlaw the Holy Mass and stamp out the priesthood. There are still lands where offering the Holy sacrifice of the Cross is outlawed by the civil authorities, or controlled by them, such as in China.
As for the prophetic voice of Christ’s Church, we may look first at the practice of racial injustice to see Christ’s prophets speaking out but the civil leaders not listening. Pope Eugene IV condemned the practice of enslaving Black Africans in his 1435 letter Sicut Dudum. Pope Paul III issued a similar condemnation against the enslavement of aboriginal Americans in his 1537 letter Sublimis Deus. In the last century, as Nazi’s were preparing to enslave the Jewish race in labor camps, Pope Pius XII had his timely letter against national racism Mit brennender Sorge read out in every Catholic church in Germany on Passion Sunday (the Sunday before Palm Sunday) 1937. This letter had to be delivered to the churches secretly, and was kept in the tabernacles until the day it was read.
Unborn babies do not constitute a race among themselves, but many governments now allow them to be treated with a savagery one associates with slave traders or Nazi camp guards. Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI have all used their prophetic voices to condemn abortion, but many politicians and judges, including too many Catholic leaders, fail to listen. Just like the Catholic kings of Spain and Portugal, and the fallen-away Catholic Adolf Hitler, these political leaders imitate Saul when they fail to obey the prophetic voice of God speaking though God’s prophetic shepherds.
But just as there once was a goodly and Godly King David to follow the bad King Saul, let us pray for political leaders and judges who will conform their decisions to the Law of God, establishing justice and peace in our land.