God and Caesar: Selected Essays on Religion, Politics, & Society

2. The Church and Politics

2. The Church and Politics Much ink has been spilled on the relationship of religion and politics. Unfortunately there will be no breakthroughs here, only my attempt to identify some markers in this often vexed discussion and to discuss a few particular problems. Our Lord’s teachings have profound consequences for public life, but Jesus never (or hardly ever) delivered a political sermon. Demonstrably, Christ was not a social activist; but demonstrably, the Gospel is deeply subversive of all politics, proclaiming new attitudes to power, wealth, opportunity, and government. Christ was concerned first and foremost with God’s love and mercy for us, with the imperative of personal conversion of heart to faith and goodness, and long-term consequences of our actions for ourselves and others.This long-term view included life beyond the grave and the reward and punishment that lie there for us. The first post or marker is Christ’s injunction “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”1 Caesar and God parallel the Gospel contrast between the Heavenly Kingdom and the powers of the world. Christ is not calling us to abandon either one, but is clear that we can properly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s only if we render to God what is God’s, and vice versa. Good citizenship requires people to be virtuous , and it is a great help to this if they are also God-fearing. Palestine was a political hotbed in Our Lord’s time, the Northern Ireland of the Roman Empire, but Christ endorsed no political faction and outlined no political program. He escaped when some wanted to make him a political leader,2 and he certainly did not endorse political violence, although one of his apostles was SiThis chapter was originally an address to the Institute of Public Affairs, Melbourne, Australia, 17 November 1999. 1. Lk. 20:20–26. 2. Jn. 6:4–15. 25 26 catholicism & democracy mon the Zealot.3 He said little directly about the proper exercise of authority and power, but by word and deed he emphasized the importance of service.4 His models were not the power brokers of this world, successful or unsuccessful, but little children.5 Christ’s kingdom goes far beyond this world.6 The second marker is found in the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church and in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes (1965). In this document the council fathers emphasize that it is the duty of the lay members of the Church to face into the world and into society. From the Catholic perspective public life is primarily the responsibility of lay people rather than clergy or members of religious orders. It is lay people—not exclusively, but generally—who should take up the work of advocacy and day-to-day politics.7 This is especially true in developed societies where levels of education for lay people are very high, unlike , for example, developing countries such as Papua New Guinea, where in 2004 Archbishop Barnes of Port Moresby made a major public intervention against government corruption that was instrumental in bringing about a change of government. Lay people are powerfully assisted in this work by the social teaching of the Church and the political ethics that it has developed over centuries. Most people are little aware of the influence of Catholic teaching in social and political thinking, but without this the United Nations Charter, the United States’ Constitution and many others, and the common law tradition would be very different from their present forms.8 3. Lk. 6:15. 4. See, for example, Jn. 13:3–15. 5. Mt. 18:1–5. 6. Cf. Jn. 18:33–38. 7. SecondVatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes (1965), §43. 8. On the influence of Catholic political and social teaching: on the United Nations Charter, see Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York: Random House, 2001); on the U.S. Constitution, see especially John Courtney Murray, S.J., We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (Kansas City, MO: Sheed andWard, 1960), and also E. S. Corwin, “The ‘Higher Law’ Background of American Constitutional Law” and A third marker is required by the nature of contemporary Western society, where many believe that...