The stories of the Judean kings of David’s dynasty are given to us in Scripture to show us what good and bad spiritual leadership look like. They are meant as examples for all ages. They show leaders what to do and what to avoid, and they help the faithful understand whether their leaders are acting rightly or wrongly. Notably, the best kings are those who eliminated false worship.
There are obvious parallels with the papacy. Both were founded on the faith of the first ruler: David’s faith and Peter’s confession of faith. Both contain stories of those first rulers committing grave sin, repenting, and being forgiven. And both contain sterling men and dreadful men.
Therefore, it’s fair for us to see Popes through this lens.
Judean king: Josiah
Pope: Saint Pius X
Josiah was one of the few kings to eliminate the high places of pagan worship. Pius X launched an aggressive campaign against heresy, in particular Modernism. Josiah did his best to restore the fullness of temple worship. Pius X made great efforts to restore sacred music and a strong sense of Eucharistic faith to the Church by ensuring First Communion was administered at the age of reason, and not at adolescence. Josiah found the Mosaic law and demanded it be read aloud to all the people. Pius X codified the Code of Canon Law.
Both died during and because of an outbreak of war.
Their efforts did not produce the lasting effects these men sought. Judea quickly returned to idolatry after Josiah’s death (and archaeological evidence of idols in private homes suggest they never really left it). Likewise, Catholics generally preferred nationalism and assimilation to Christendom, obeying their suicidal national war cries without question. And we all now what happened fifty years later, in the 1960s.
Judean king: Hezekiah
Pope: Pius XII
Hezekiah begin co-reigning with his father Ahaz, much like Pius XII (then Cardinal Pacelli) exercised significant power as Cardinal Secretary of State under Pius XI. As Hezekiah fought against false worship, Pius XII fought against Nazism, fascism, and communism going back to his time as a nuncio in Germany in the 1920s. He had no qualms about publicly reprimanding out-of-line clerics, including Cardinal Innitzer after the Austrian cardinal welcomed the anschluss and Father Leonard Feeney due to his overly stringent teaching of “outside the Church there is no salvation.”
As Hezekiah trusted in the Lord when the enemy was ravaging the land, Pius XII likewise was a public voice of continued faith as Europe was annihilated and Italy itself was a focal point of the war.
Both went through a gut wrenching illness. Hezekiah’s is dramatically related in the canticle in Isaiah 38. Pius XII’s began in 1954, and led him to treatment that produced hallucinations and nightmares.
Both were sidetracked by politics toward the end of their reigns. Hezekiah proudly showed the Babylonians all he had in the aftermath of the Assyrian attack on Judea. Pius XII likewise became “NATO’s chaplain”, throwing the Vatican’s lot in with the secular postwar order of the western allies. Pius XII also prioritized material aid to postwar Europe over a fundamental effort to restore Europe’s spiritual health. Both rulers thus cozied up to regimes that would sow the seeds of later destruction.
The legacy of both is tarnished by their last years. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, born in the extra years of life granted to Hezekiah after his illness, became one of the most wicked kings in Judean history. Pius XII revved up the “liturgical reforms”, throwing out Holy Week, the ranking of the saints’ feasts in the calendar, and small but noticeable aspects of the Mass like multiple Collects and proper last Gospels. He also put in position those who would annihilate the Mass in the decade after his death.
Both ultimately failed to inculcate virtue in their successors and administrators. Manasseh presided over mass immorality so bad that it doomed Judea to destruction regardless of Josiah’s later repentenace. Many of the bishops who failed to act against heretical theology, liturgical abuses, or who publicly denounced Humanae Vite and Catholic tradition were appointed by Pius XII (though so was Bishop Wojtyla). Paul VI was mentored for decades by Pius XII and led the Church into a full blown crisis from which it has not emerged.
Judean King: Jehoshaphat
Popes: John Paul II and Benedict XVI
Jehoshaphat was a good man who followed the Lord. “Yet, the [pagan] high places were not taken away.” Not only that, but Jehoshaphat continually allied himself with King Ahab of Israel despite abundant evidence, and warnings from the prophets, that Ahab was a bad man who would bring judgment down upon Israel. The effects were disastrous: Ahab’s line intermarried with Jehoshaphat’s, leading to mass murder within the Judean royal family.
Saint John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI were both good men who followed the Lord with their hearts. But they were not willing to take away the high places of false worship. Heretical catechesis, shockingly irreverent liturgy, public contradiction of Church doctrine by prominent Catholic figures all continued largely unchecked during their reigns.
And they could not bring themselves to break their alliance with the extreme reform party that triumphed in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. Historian Roberto de Mattei indicates that John Paul II let those men appoint most bishops throughout his 27 year reign. This includes appointing Theodore McCarick to the position of cardinal, despite clear warnings from trustworthy figures about his history of sexual abuse.
The results are reminiscent of the turmoil in Judea, both within the Church hierarchy and within the wider world.
Judean King: Ahaz
Pope: Francis
King Ahaz sought to aggressively copy the worship of the politically powerful of the day, to the point of building a Syrian style altar in the temple. The current papacy seems no different, with the synod on synodality mischaracterizing proceedings to favor a liberal agenda that contradicts Church doctrine, the well known episode of the pachamama at the Amazon Synod, the almost slavish prioritization of liberal political causes like climate change and immigration, and the desperate attempts to ban the traditional Mass that looks so different from the worship of most of today’s elites.
Ahaz would not listen to Isaiah and favored political alliances with the powerful, like Assyria, over trust in the Lord and fidelity to his law. Likewise the modern Church hierarchy continuously seeks “renewal” by warping Church doctrine and liturgy to please those who hold political and financial power, mostly political and social progressives in Western nations.
Honorable Mention-
Judean King: Rehoboam
Pope: Urban VI
Urban’s heavy handed rule drove the cardinals of the day to start the Great Western Schism, which last for 40 years, much as Rehoboam’s rough treatment of the northern tribes of Israel led to the permanent secession of the 10 northern tribes from rule by the Davidic royal family.
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