Is it a crime to be a king? Leo XIII taught that “Catholics, like all other citizens, are free to prefer one form of government to another precisely because no one of these social forms is, in itself, opposed to the principles of sound reason nor to the maxims of Christian doctrine.” It seems to follow that each form must have advantages and disadvantages. What are the pros and cons of hereditary rule, in particular of a true hereditary monarchy?
A. Cons
1. Most obviously, the ruler is not chosen on merit but by the accident of birth. This may be described as letting God choose the ruler, but as Aelianus has remarked on these pages, He does this through secondary causes and has given us no guarantee that in this case secondary causes, undirected by human intelligence and will, will produce a particularly good result.
2. Since the ruler cannot in the normal course of things be deposed, he is liable to grow careless of good government.
3. There is no good remedy to a bad ruler, but only revolution, which is always an evil and very often a grave sin.
4. Since the people cannot choose their ruler they may grow apathetic as to the common good and slack in the practice of civic virtue.
5. It is perilous to the soul of the ruler to be surrounded by admiration and, frequently, flattery, and to know that he will always be so surrounded.
6. The hereditary principle once accepted tends to create an entire class within society that owes its rank to its birth rather than to useful activity; moreover, the souls of all in this class are imperiled for the same cause as the ruler’s.
B. Pros
1. There seems to be a certain humility, pleasing to God and therefore fruitful of blessings, in not presuming to select one’s own ruler.
2. A king need not seek to be popular, since he will not need to seek a mandate from the people; therefore he may enact difficult but necessary measures.
3. A king will be more likely to think not just of the immediate future of his country, but of the needs of the common good throughout his lifetime and in the lifetimes of his heirs.
4. The hereditary principle by placing a family at the head of the state in some way honours every family and enshrines the truth that the family has in some respects priority over the state.
5. The hereditary ruler more easily impresses on men’s imaginations the authority of God which every lawful ruler exercises, since his rule comes not from men’s choice nor does it last only according to their determination. This will foster humility and obedience in the many and be profitable for the salvation of their souls.
6. The ruler’s identity being generally known in advance, he may be educated with a view to his future office.
7. The hereditary ruler will be more easily free from the vice of ambitious than the elected man.
8. The hereditary ruler bearing the stamp of divine authority more vividly than the elected man (see no. 5), he may without incongruity be consecrated as a monarch and become in this sense a sacral person. But such a consecration seems to bring with it greater graces of state.
9. Hereditary rule, continuing down the centuries, carries with itself a sediment of traditional ceremony, clothing and nomenclature. Now this is picturesque and innocent and gives men pleasure. Since man cannot live without pleasure and many pleasures are noxious, whatever gives innocent pleasure is to be fostered.
Doubtless there are many others, on both sides. To some people, A1 will probably seem to outweigh all the B’s. To me it is striking that the nations of Catholic Christendom organised themselves as hereditary monarchies more often than not, as far as I know. Also, there are many canonised saints among hereditary monarchs, but not yet any among the presidents and prime ministers; perhaps Moreno will be canonised one day.
Laodicea 
October 14, 2015 at 7:21 pm
Rebuttals to the pros:
ad1 – This is throwing oneself from the temple parapet. God is not pleased by being put to the test. The apostles only selected by lot before the descent of the Holy Spirit (and even then they produced a short list of two)
ad2 – Like Henry VIII? In actual fact hereditary regimes do need a strong base of support it is just occult and non-representative (the land hungry gentry in Henry VIII’s case) and so they have to govern for this group rather than the common good while pretending to govern for everyone while there is no one to hold them to account.
ad3 If he does concern himself with this matter this is true. However the same effect can be achieved by having limited terms (say two) of reasonable length (ten years) for an elected ruler.
ad4 I think rather it confuses the unique attributes of the family and the state. It is clear that in many elected systems such as the Roman Republic families have been important and they have taken great pride in their history of service to the republic over many generations but they obtained these offices by election. As St Severinus Boethius says “who does not see how empty, how foolish, is the fame of noble birth? Why, if the nobility is based on renown, the renown is another’s! For, truly, nobility seems to be a sort of reputation coming from the merits of ancestors. But if it is the praise which brings renown, of necessity it is they who are praised that are famous. Wherefore, the fame of another clothes thee not with splendour if thou hast none of thine own. So, if there is any excellence in nobility of birth, methinks it is this alone—that it would seem to impose upon the nobly born the obligation not to degenerate from the virtue of their ancestors.”
ad5 I concede this
ad6 Also true, although this may be true of a group of people with a familial tradition of public service.
ad7 But not many other vices such as lust and pride which have far more scope for exercise and development. Furthermore, the absence of any principle of merit to justify the ruler’s position encourages irrational pride of blood with sometimes very serious long term consequences.
ad8 Elected monarchies such as the Eastern and Western Empire have had just as extensive rites (in fact the other lesser royal rites are largely taken from these).
ad9 This is also true of Catholic republics and elected monarchies.
October 14, 2015 at 8:21 pm
Replies to the rebuttals:
ad ad 1. This begs the question. The question is whether a better ruler is attained by man’s effort or by heredity. It is not relying on a miracle without warrant, since it may be that natural causes (e.g. the pro’s that I list) will effect the latter.
aa2 The argument is not that the king would always govern well, but that the security of his tenure will free him from a certain temptation suffered by the man who must seek re-election.
aa3 This would only extend his provision to 20 years, decreasing with each passing year. A king of 60 who sees his grandson born will be thinking 80 years ahead. A king of 40 who hopes to have a grandson in 20 years time will be thinking 100 years ahead.
aa4 I agree that the con is real, but it does not seem to me to remove the particular pro
aa7 Likewise
aa8 I concede this while noting that it remains an argument for monarchy as opposed to a citizen-president
aa9 I concede this, while noting that familial pietas would strengthen the traditions in the case of hereditary rule
October 14, 2015 at 10:15 pm
aaa3 How is it reliance on the providence of God if heredity is a mechanism designed to produce good rulers? Either it is just casting lots or it is not reliance on divine providence any more or less than any other system. If it is just casting lots then I submit it is not reliance on the providence of God at all but putting God to the test.
aaa2 You do not deal with the argument that his tenure is no more secure than the elected ruler it just relies on occult deals with parts of the population to the prejudice of the population as a whole instead of relying on a public and legal appointment effected by the whole people.
aaa3 But if you have families distinguished by public service over generations then they will be thinking of the impact the long term effects of their actions will have upon the esteem in which their house is held over many generations and so the same effect as you attribute to hereditary monarchy can be achieved without resorting to a governmental lottery of birth that puts God to the test.
aaa4 Hmmm… well I might concede a weak pro here if you are conceding the con.
In summary therefore I cannot see why all the pros cannot be achieved in a republic with many strong houses with a tradition of public service.
How would you answer the point that hereditary monarchy is implicitly Pelagian because it implies that sanctifying grace is still transmitted by natural generation? For the King is the one under whose direction men attain their end therefore there is no possibility of any post-lapsarian king other than Christ.
“…because a man does not attain his end, which is the possession of God, by human power but by divine according to the words of the Apostle (Rom 6:23): “By the grace of God life everlasting”—therefore the task of leading him to that last end does not pertain to human but to divine government. Consequently, government of this kind pertains to that king who is not only a man, but also God, namely, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who by making men sons of God brought them to the glory of Heaven.”
The first human person to call himself king is Nimrod and when the people of Israel seek a created king God says they are rejecting Him.
October 15, 2015 at 2:50 pm
aaaa1 It could be relying on divine providence more than elections, in that there is no room for sin to enter in to determine the ruler, i.e. the result is obtained without any opposition to the antecedent will of God, which must as such be pleasing to Him.
aaaa2 Ι agree that your point could be put into the cons, yet without nullifying the pro (which is not the same as to say that it does not outweigh the pro; that is another question). Also, it is not inevitable that he govern for the benefit of the powerful few (especially if they are not allowed to become too powerful) nor will the elected ruler be free from the temptation to do so.
aaaa3 The hereditary monarch has nevertheless a greater degree of certainty that his heir will rule, and therefore will tend to have a correspondingly keener interest in the future.
“The King is the one under whose direction men attain their end therefore there is no possibility of any post-lapsarian king other than Christ.” But this would rule out elected monarchs also, wouldn’t it?
I think the reason that it was wrong for the people of Israel to seek a king was that before Christ had come, it would be dangerously easy for them to transfer to their sinful human king a devotion that is due only to the Man-God. Once the incarnation has happened and the Face of Christ has been made known, there is less likelihood of this happening, and indeed, there is the possibility of the human king reflecting, and turning their minds towards, the glory of the Word made flesh. As presumably was the case with e.g. St Edward of England and St Louis of France.
October 15, 2015 at 7:01 pm
aaaaa1 this would only not be putting God to the test if your other points were sufficient to show heredity was not a reckless for of government and so this argument has no weight in itself.
aaaaa2 But I am denying the reality of the phenomenon you allege. The hereditary ruler does not owe his position to no one. He owes it to a convergence of hidden forces upon which he must rely and which he must appease before he has any concern for the common good of the people. If he fails to do this the entire regime collapses (see: Louis XVI and Charles I). The hinterland of an elected politician is overt and corruption may be monitored by the electorate. A hereditary regime is founded upon the nepotism and the suppression of meritocracy and so there is no principle by which corruption may be judged without undermining the regime.
aaaaa3 The republican politician knows that his progeny will have live under the institutions and suffer the effects of the policies that he has enacted. He therefore has a far greater motive to ensure that he has acted for the good of the whole people. He also knows that the chances of his descendants being elected to office will be affected by the gratitude or disapproval with which posterity regards his own policy.
The word King (Rex) means sovereign – ruler without qualification – by innate right. It is certainly better that this title be reserved to Christ to whom it truly belongs and some lesser title such as Princeps or Imperator be given to the elected temporal monarch. there is always a tendency to idolatry of the temporal power because if man had a natural right to the supernatural end then the temporal ruler would be king in sense St Thomas reserves to Christ and this is why it is safer to make it clear that the temporal ruler is subordinate official to the true sovereign and to reserve the title king for Christ Himself.
October 17, 2015 at 3:32 pm
aaaaaa1 or rather, it would not be putting God to the test unless it could be shown by considering the other pros and cons that heredity would be a bad form of government. If this cannot be shown by considering the other pros and cons, then this point would still have weight.
aaaaaa2 But the forces influencing elected politicians can also be occult and oligarchic (e.g. bankers or newspaper owners). It is true that the king would have to be strong and rich enough to repress the ambition of the class immediately below him.
aaaaaa3 agreed, but the king also knows this, and in addition knows that if these effects are bad his progeny will suffer not only discomfort or inconvenience but also the disfavour of the men of that time.
About nomenclature, you may well be right. But has not ‘imperator’ come to sound like a greater thing than ‘rex’?
October 17, 2015 at 8:32 pm
aaaaaaa1 So are you saying that if you advocated selection of ruler by lottery the burden of proof would be on me to prove that this was not putting God to the test? That seems a very odd contention.
aaaaaaa2 But the elected ruler is only there for a limited period and so long as usury is illegal the concentrations of wealth should be too small to suborn an elected ruler. Whereas a hereditary ruler is permanently beholden to the fixed interests which sustain his regime. If he were strong enough to suppress them what would ensue would by tyranny followed by revolutionary (eventually bureaucratic) dictatorship (see eighteenth century again).
aaaaaaa3 But why would he care? One of the advantages of hereditary rule on your account is precisely that he can ignore this (See: Julio-Claudian dynasty).
Well that is true but the title of the temporal ruler always acquires a certain mystique. Nevertheless, King retains an aura of original right that the others lack.
October 19, 2015 at 8:04 pm
aaaaaaaa1 If it could be shown that designation by lottery had other inherent good tendencies then that would tend in the same measure to show that it was not putting God to the test.
aaaaaaaa2 Yet elected rulers will often seek re-election; also, the vested interests in the hereditary monarchy cannot eject the king save by revolution, whereas those in the republic can eject him by maniupulating public opinion in view of the next election; but the latter process is easier than the former and much less risky and so more likely to happen.
aaaaaaaa3 He naturally wants his son and grandson to be honoured as good kings.
What do you think of the suggestion that Christian kings are less problematic than kings before the incarnation? [under 4 above]