After almost a month of keeping you few readers waiting with bated breath (I'm sure), here, at last, is part two. Before I left Ave Maria, I was looking forward to vast amounts of free time to write music, read, relax, sleep, and do whatever else it is people with free time do. Now that I've been out of school for almost a year, I've found that I have far less of this coveted time than before. C'est la vie. Work, choir, and friends keep me entirely busy. This weekend, however, I have plenty of downtime for the first time in many weeks. Meryl and Chris are up at Sweetwater, Thomas is restricted to Carmel for a tennis tournament, I have a concert tonight and another tomorrow afternoon, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop raining, so I don't want to leave my house. This means that I can write blog posts, respond to theological discussions about Orthodoxy and Catholicism, write music, watch a movie on my sweet new TV (!!), enjoy a quiet weekend, and actually cook something exciting tonight rather than swiping an apple and some yogurt out of the fridge and calling it "dinner".
NOTA BENE: I don't really have an opinion on what type of government is best. They all have their flaws, and I wouldn't care to speculate. Whatever we're doing right now isn't working, according to the thoughts expressed below. Obviously, I'm open to criticism, suggestions, further thoughts, etc. I did not bother to go into Vatican II documents on modern Catholic social teaching, but drew solely from Aquinas, scripture, and my own thoughts. These are merely my own reflections on the separation of Church and state and religious beliefs/Truth in a public realm.
How much influence can a religious institution have on a social/secular institution? Or perhaps the more salient question would be to ask if the Church can dictate how people outside of her fold live their lives. In this world of tolerance, coexistence, diversity, and relativism, it's a difficult question to answer, and I'm not even sure I can answer it. Luckily, that's above my pay grade. But being the critical thinker that I am, I'm about to take a stab at it anyway.
Let us start by defining the theoretical roles of the Church and of the state. St Thomas Aquinas writes in De Regno that "Just as the founding of a city or kingdom may suitably be learned from the way in which the world was created, so too the way to govern may be learned from the divine government of the world." The role of the Church is to guide souls to heaven. Simple. Whether they are formally inside of the Catholic Church, just associated by baptism, or entirely outside of the Church, the role of the Church is to bring men to heaven. The role of state governments should, in theory, be to maintain civility, peace, and goodness for the people under her rule, and to make society a place for the betterment of her people. From there, laws can arise, civil disputes settled, customs and practices undertaken or done away with, etc. Aristotle wrote that "[s]ince every communication, whenever it is found among men, is ordained to something necessary for life, that community will be the perfect community which is ordained to the end that man may have the fullness of human life: and this is the city. For it is in the city that man finds the satisfaction of whatever needs human life may have in the circumstances in which it is lived (sicut contingit esse)." (As quoted from Aquinas in In Libros Politicorum Aristotelis Expositio; emphasis mine.)
The Church's primary concern is for the spiritual realm, to care for the soul of man, though one cannot rationally argue that the Church cares only for the soul. Catholic relief services, Catholic social teaching, giving alms, the corporal works of mercy, etc. all point toward a care for the complete human person. The Church looks first at the soul, then sees the human person in the context of his higher calling - that He was made to know, love, and serve God, being made in His image, and that he is destined for heaven, if he has the strength to consent to the will of God.
Conversely, the (modern) state's primary concern is for the human affairs of men, to govern his day-to-day life and to preserve society from violence, unrest. The state, at least in practice, cares for men from the outside in, that is, laws will inevitably touch upon the moral, the good, and the true. But herein lies the problem with government as such: because it is concerned with maintaining peace and stability - which naturally cater to the masses - upholding morality is not always the first priority, as evidenced by the legal termination of nascent human life. This is in sharp contrast to what Aristotle believes to be the ideal city/state.
Later in De Regno, Aquinas writes: "[T]hrough virtuous living man is further ordained to a higher end, which consists in the enjoyment of God, as we have said above. Consequently, since society must have the same end as the individual man, it is not the ultimate end of an assembled multitude to live virtuously, but through virtuous living to attain to the possession of God. If this end could be attained by the power of human nature, then the duty of a king would have to include the direction of men to it. We are supposing, of course, that he is called king to whom the supreme power of governing in human affairs is entrusted. Now the higher the end to which a government is ordained, the loftier that government is." (All emphasis mine.) Christ Himself admitted that "[His] Kingdom is not of this world." He unabashedly proclaimed that he "[came] not to bring peace but the sword." Christ's teaching was for all men of all times, and yet He didn't hesitate to teach and admonish the elders and command them about social issues as well ("render unto Caesar...").
Now the question is: where, if anywhere, do the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdoms intersect? The Church is the heavenly kingdom as can be had on earth, and the earthly kingdoms are the governments instituted by men throughout the world. How can Rome influence civil law? How can morality be imposed by the Church onto a civil, earthly government? As stated above, I do not claim to be qualified to answer this question, nor do I claim to have the correct answers. But it seems to me that Christ Himself did not intend for a complete separation of the two. It's true, His Kingdom is not of this world. But it IS in this world. Man is a composite creature, made of body and soul. To care for one and not for the other would be to separate man from himself, and thus from God, in Whose Image we are made. If state government had certain standards that would not be compromised, certain moral standards to uphold, if not by Divine Law, at least by Natural Law, we wouldn't have to have this discussion, because some element of morality and goodness would be inherent to civil, state government. We wouldn't have to worry about separation of Church and state, but for the time being, while it may not be right to impose morality, it is nevertheless the role of the Church to safeguard the souls of men, even if that means influencing or insisting upon a standard of morality in civil government.
Learned and insightful.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant and thought-provoking.
ReplyDelete