The Church and the state A . Ul i ( c( • ~ The C^oc^lu • ' -ADO 77^6 LV4VAV1VA»»» The Church and the State WILFRID PARSONS, S.J. Editor-in-chief of AMERICA PRICE 10 CENTS THE AMERICA PRESS New York (AWAWAWATAtafl oAmerica Press Publications IN TOWNS AND LITTLE TOWNS—Rev. Leonard Feeney, S.J.—$1.50. PIONEER LAYMEN OF NORTH AMERICA—Rev. T. J. Campbell, S.J.—2 vols.—$4.00. ARMCHAIR PHILOSOPHY—Rev. D. A. Lord, S.J.—$1.00. MY BOOKCASE—Rev. John C. Reville, S.J.—50c. THE GREAT, TOKYO EARTHQUAKE—Rev. J. Dahlmann, S.J.—50c. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE—25c. ST. FRANCIS XAVIER—Rev. John C. Reville, S.J.—20c. ISAAC JOGUES, S.J.—Rev. Thomas J. Campbell, S.J.—65c. ST. ALOYSIUS—Rev. C. C. Martindale, S.J. CHRIST THE KING—Rev. Joseph Husslein, S.J. THE EUCHARIST—Rev. Joseph Husslein, S.J. THE BLESSED VIRGIN—Rev. Joseph Husslein, S.J. THE SACRED HEART—Rev. Joseph Husslein, S.J. THE HEART OF THE LITTLE FLOWER—Rev. Joseph Husslein, S.J. YOUR OWN ST. JOSEPH—Rev. Joseph Husslein, S.J. THE CHRIST CHILD—Rev. 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The Church and the State I THE CHURCH, SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL II THE CHURCH AND HER ENEMIES III THE CHURCH AND THE STATE IV INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH ON THE STATE V HOW THE INDIRECT INFLUENCE IS EXERCISED By the Rev. Wilfrid Parsons, S.J. Editor-in-Chief of America OUR SUNDAY VISITOR LIBRARY HUNTINGTON, INDIANA THE AMERICA PRESS New York, N. Y. Nihil Obstat: Imprimatur: Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D., Censor Librorum. + Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archiepiscopus Neo-Eb. June 30, 1927, Copyright, 1927, THE CHURCH AND THE STATE I The Church, Society and the Individual A GREAT change has come over the state of anti-Catholic controversy. The Church used to be attacked for its doctrines. Purgatory, Indul- gences, the Mass, the invocation of the Saints, the de- votion to the Blessed Virgin—these used to be the field on which the Catholic defender was called on to repel the enemy. It is not so any longer. The line of fire has shifted, and we must face around to meet it. The lay- man whose life is lived among non-Catholics has known this for some time. Instead of being accused of holding doctrines which were absurd, idolatrous and blasphemous, he is now accused of being unpatriotic, an enemy of the State. Just as he was once held up as traitor to the truth, he is now pilloried as traitor to his fellowmen. It is to help him to cope with this new attack that this pamphlet is written. The root-cause of this onslaught, the basis of Catholic doctrine badly misunderstood, the true sense in which any Church may rightly take its place in public life—these are the matters which I will treat. My first topic will be the “Church, society and the individual.” Now the Church, as an independent social 3 4 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE entity composed of men and women of every type and age, has two very special relations which must be kept in mind whenever you think of it. It has a relation to society in general and it has a relation to the individuals who com- pose it and with whom they come into contact. That is why I put the Church,, society and the individual all to- gether under the present title. These two relations yield up two very important truths, which will be found at the root of everything I will have to say. Two Doctrines That Cause Opposition If you look at the individuals who compose it you will find that the Church tells them that to belong to her is necessary for eternal salvation, because she teaches them that she is the only true Church and founded by Christ as such. If you look at the society of mankind or at any group of men in any State, you will find the Church de- fending the doctrine that she is what we call a “perfect society’' and as such has certain rights which the State may not touch. I know that these things are looked on as highly controversial, but the truth must be faced at any cost. . Now these two doctrines are at the bottom of all the opposition met by the Catholic Church. Nearly all of this opposition is due to the fact that we do not explain them rightly to those who are not Catholics, we do not show them just what they mean and what they do not mean. Moreover, it happens that when non-Catholics do not get them exactly, with all the necessary shades of meaning of an extremely delicate matter, they naturally attack them as unnatural, un-American, irrational. Then we Catholics in turn put these non-Catholics down as bigoted and in- tolerant, whereas the truth is that if our doctrines were THE CHURCH, SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 5 as they see them we would be against them ourselves and reject them just as others do. Consequently, I want to explain them just as they are, so that Catholics can go and explain them to their non-Catholic friends, and thus maybe do a little bit toward lessening that part of all the bigotry which is due to misapprehending just what we really do hold. The Sole True Church The very foundation stone of the doctrinal position of the Catholic Church is her claim to be the sole true Church founded by Christ. I know very well we are put down as uncharitable, intolerant, even preposterous, when we say that. But at least this can be said about it, it is nothing new. The Church has always said that since the beginning. There are certain facts which should be considered before it is rejected altogether. Facts Plain on the Surface There are certain facts which are admitted by every- body, because they are plain on the surface. First of all, the Catholic Church is the oldest Christian Church. How old, I need not say here, but everybody admits it is the oldest. Then, it is the most comprehensive Church in positive doctrine. Some churches hold this positive doctrine and some hold that, but only the Catholic Church holds them all. In fact, in the main, the only thing about doc- trines which distinguishes the Catholic Church from the Protestant churches is that they deny some doctrine or other that we hold. Practically every positive doctrine they hold we hold, too ; it is only in what they deny that we disagree. The Catholic Church is therefore the most comprehensive in doctrine. Another thing which must be admitted by all 6 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE is that our Church is the only one which is really universal, that is, all over the world. Many churches have missions in many parts of the world, but only the Catholic Church is organized in every part of the world. That is, of course, only to say that the Catholic Church is the Catholic Church, for catholic means universal. It is also the only Church, all of whose members hold the same doctrines. The last fact which must be admitted by all is this: The Catholic Church is the only Church which boldly claims to be the exclusive Church of Christ, and has always claimed to be so. Other Facts There are other facts which will not be admitted by all, but which we would have to prove, before we get a hearing for them. I will merely list some of them for the present. For instance, we claim that the Catholic Church is the only Church which fulfils all the specifica- tions laid down by Christ in the Gospels for His Church, a visible, organized, hierarchical society existing all over the world and united in the same Faith and the same gov- ernment under the one head. The very efforts now being made by so many Protestants to reunite the scattered parts of Christendom are a proof, according to us, that these are the specifications of Christ for His Church. Again, the Church claims that she alone contains all the means which Christ left behind Him for the salvation of men’s souls. These are, besides Baptism, Confirmation and Mat- rimony, particularly the Sacrament of Penance for the cleansing of sin in Confession, and the Sacrament of the Eucharist for the life of the soul in Holy Communion. Another fact, which is not denied by many, is that the Catholic Church is at present perhaps the only organized THE CHURCH, SOOETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 7 body whole-heartedly defending the Bible as the unchang- ing Word of God. All this is, as you understand, the position the Church takes up in regard to the individuals who compose it or who approach it in any way. This is also the origin of that much misunderstood phrase, “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” Of course, this does not mean that tvery- body who is not a Catholic is surely destined to eternal damnation or that every Catholic is sure to be saved. What it does mean is that if anybody is saved it is because he or she really did belong to the Catholic Church, in spirit at least. These last four words are important. The Church a “Perfect Society” In regard to society in general, the Church takes up a further attitude, for which she has been much criticized. It is that the Church is a distinct, sovereign entity, just as any State is a distinct sovereign entity, or what we call a “perfect society,” each one existing not by any grant or privilege from any other society whatsoever. What the Church, however, does not hold on this point is just as im- portant as what she does hold, and it is this that is not always understood. The Church, like the State, is a per- fect society, but neither of them is an absolute societ}\ Neither of them has entire control over any man, because they each act in distinctly separate spheres—one in the temporal sphere and one in the spiritual sphere. For the Church to surrender her claim over the spiritual allegiance of her members would be just as great an act of treacher}' as for the State to hand over the civil allegiance of her citizens to the Church. Just as the individual is composed of two elements—one material, the body, and one spiritual, the soul—so society which exists only for the benefit of 8 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE the individual, must have two functions—one temporal, the civil government, and one spiritual, the Church. Each is separate in its functions, by its very nature, and that is what I mean by saying that each is a perfect society, yet neither is absolute. One covers the temporal sphere, one the spiritual ; neither one covers both, each one comple- ments the other. But each must respect the other’s sphere. I make bold to say that if this doctrine of the Church were well understoood much of the apparently reasonable opposition against the Church would vanish. We do not at all hold that the Church should exercise any direct in- fluence whatever over civil or political affairs, in spite of the fact that some say we do. Even where in a Catholic country the people by their constitution should agree to have what is called ‘'union of Church and State,” even there it would mean merely that they would work together, each protecting and respecting the rights of the other, the two mutually cooperating for the common good, but each in its own sphere. This would be the realization of the Divine plan formulated by Christ when He laid down a policy for His followers: “Render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are of God.” Separation of Church and State merely means that the two agree not to cooperate together mutually. Such a situation is highly necessary in a country like ours, where there are Jews, Catholics and many varieties of Prot- estants. This situation the Church naturally whole- heartedly accepts and indignantly rejects as untrue any accusation to the contrary. What the Church cannot admit is that the State is supreme, even over conscience, or that individuals or societies merely exist by sufferance of the State, or derive their rights from it. The Church and Her Enemies I N the preceding article I pointed out two fundamental reasons why conflict and quarrel arise concerning the Catholic Church. I said that they were lack of com- plete comprehension of our stand on doctrinal matters on the part of many who are not Catholics, and consequent irritation and sometimes unjustified accusations of bigotry on the part of Catholics against those who cry out at what they would rightly deem to be unnatural and un- American principles. This, I said, was true particularly of two doctrines of the Catholic Church which cause the most irritation, precisely because they are not rightly understood. They are the claim of the Church to be the only true Church of Christ, and the other claim to be a perfect society, deriving its rights just like any individual, not from the State, but from God. These two doctrines are often presented in such a light by those who only partly understand them, that any right-minded man would fight them to the very end, when thus falsely explained. Consequently, we find ready to our hand the subject of this second article “The Church and Her Enemies.’’ You will understand me, of course, when I say “enemies.” I am going to name no names, attack no person. When I say “enemies” I mean something more to be feared than persons, I mean doctrines and movements which are inimi- cal to the Church, particularly on the basis of the two doctrines mentioned before. It is these two movements which in any given country overthrow the Church or at least cause its eclipse for long periods of time. I will 9 10 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE name them. They are indifferentism, leading to natural- ism; and a false liberalism, leading in time to what we call, for want of a better name, Bolshevism. Evil of Indifferentism I can best describe the evil of indifferentism by re- peating the oft-heard phrase, ‘Tt makes no difference what you believe if you merely do what is right.’’ Let us see just what that means in reality. It means* that there was no Divine Revelation given by Christ telling us what we are to believe and what we are not to believe, for if there was, it does make a difference. That phrase means that Christ left behind Him no deposit of His teachings as a test of being His followers, so that each man may know in every succeeding age what really are God’s commands for him ; for if He did leave one, it does make a difference what we believe. It means, too, that for this deposit of His teachings He left behind Him for our use no authori- tative interpreter as to their meaning, especially as to their meaning in regard to the ever-advancing mass of human knowledge ; for if there is such an authoritative in- terpreter, it has rights over our minds as God’s mouth- piece, and it does make a difference whether we believe it or not. Lastly, that saying means that Christ never in- tended that there be a united body of believers, owing obedience to His name and to those whom He left behind as the spiritual rulers of His society. If then it were true that Christ gave no Revelation, if He left no body of truths for His followers to accept, if He left behind no interpreter of those beliefs, then it would be true also that it makes no difference what one believes. The Catholic Church is founded on the fact that Christ gave a Revela- tion, which all men are bound to accept when it is placed THE CHURCH AND HER ENEMIES 11 before them as His word. Indifferentism is then the Church’s greatest enemy. To prove this, let me show you what it inevitably leads to. I have said that the ultimate result of such a doctrine is naturalism, which I will now explain. Naturalism is the denial of supernaturalism; and by supernaturalism I do not mean, of course, what many people mean by it now- adays, namely, the existence of wonders, occultism, spirit- ism, etc. These things are preternatural, not supernatural. The supernatural means that God has destined us to no mere natural happiness as our last end, but to a happiness which transcends our natures, and consists in the enjoy- ment of Him face to face, as St. Paul says, by a sort of actual communication of His own nature, superior to ours, in this life by possession of sanctifying or justifying grace, and in the next by the Beatific Vision. The Fall of Man, Original Sin, the Sin of Adam, all mean that man by sin forfeited his right to obtain this supernatural happiness in the next world, unless a Redeemer came to win it back for him. The Redemption or Atonement means that such a Redeemer did come, to make atonement for man and redeem him from sin, a Redeemer who was both God and man : God because only God could truly by His acts meet the measure of the infinity of the evil which had been com- mitted; man because only a man could atone for what a man had committed. What a Naturalist Denies These three things, the supernatural destiny of man, his fall from that destiny, and his winning it back again are the three things which the naturalist, once he has denied the existence of them as God’s Revelation, is the first to deny. But in denying them he denies the whole of Chris- 12 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE tianity, for they are the essence of Christianity. He denies them for the simple reason that he sees no reason for holding them. He certainly does not see the real and only reason for holding them, namely, that God has revealed that they are true, and that what God has revealed man is bound to accept. He does not see this, because he began by rejecting the existence of an authorized interpreter of God’s Revelation, to put his trust wholly in a book, a Bible, which, being dead, cannot interpret itself. Then, realizing that it could not interpret, he went on to reject the Bible, too, as God’s word, and with it the whole structure of God’s Revelation of the supernatural destiny of man and the means given for each man to realize it for himself. In a word, to cover up his loss of religious certainty, he in- vented the phrase, ‘Tt makes no difference what you be- lieve, if you merely do what is right.” This indifferentism is not merely the greatest enemy of the Catholic Church, but of Christianity itself. The other slurs cast on us, dogmatism, servility to authority, loss of personal inde- pendence, are also nothing but catchwords invented to cover up that loss of religious certainty which is the relig- ious disease of the modern world. The substitutes for certainty, namely, interior illumination, religious emotion, “experience,” are but frail reeds to lean upon in such a momentous matter as the personal happiness of the in- dividual in by far the largest part of his existence, that part which comes after death. False Liberalism Does Harm So much for the opposition which exists to the Cath- olic Church in its relation to the individual. In its rela- tions with society as a whole, it is not so much indiffer- entism as a sort of false liberalism which does the harm. There is a liberalism, of course, to which I give my whole- THE CHURCH AND HER ENEMIES 13 hearted acceptance. It is the liberalism which is expressed in our great State papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Washington’s Farewell Address, Lin- coln’s Gettysburg Address, etc. As a Catholic I find it very easy to give this acceptance, because I know histori- cally that they were derived from the great stream of Eu- ropean tradition which was formed in the bosom of the Catholic Church. The liberalism to which I object and which I see as the great menace not only of the Church but of our country as well, is an alien thing. It is a comparatively new thing —it comes from Germany in Kant and Hegel, and from France in Rousseau and Voltaire, but it has nothing to do with our American traditions. Most unfortunately, this pseudo-liberalism is getting a strong foothold in this coun- try through university professors educated in France and Germany in the new and un-American tradition of the French Revolution. Its first dogma can be expressed in a few words. It is that there exist no rights prior to and apart from society, and that any rights which may be called such are not true, inherent, inalienable rights but mere grants and gifts of society, as represented by the State. Our own American Revolution was fought in op- position to that theory. Recall the very words of the Declaration. The struggle in Mexico today between the Church and Calles is between those two philosophies : with the Church insisting on the existence of inalienable rights which no State may take away because no State granted them, and Calles insisting on the theory that the State is the source of all rights. When that fact once becomes clear ; you will see a quick change in American public opin- ion. The undeniable fact is that the Church in Mexico is actually fighting the fight of American principles and we are too blind to see it. Ill The Church and the State FEW weeks ago a Unitarian paper, the Christian Register, published the results of a referendum among Protestant editors on the question of ad- mitting Catholics to public office, particularly the Presi- dency of the United States. I answered this referendum in an article in America (Feb. 5, 1927) entitled, “Are Protestants Americans?'' in which I took the stand that these editors were untrue to their own American prin- ciples, and that, moreover, in regard to the Catholic Church, they had been misled as to the real meaning of the doctrines of Catholics on the relations of Church and State. This is the same point I am making in these ar- ticles, that the Catholic doctrines, when fully known, are fully reasonable, and are opposed principally because they are usually mistaken for something else which, as good Christians and good Americans, we would reject ourselves. My present subject is precisely this, “The Church and the State," and I propose to attempt to answer such questions as “What is union of Church and State ?" “What is separation of Church and State?" “Do Catholics want union of Church and State?" “Should the Church inter- fere in political matters?" and the like. These are high- ly controversial topics, but nothing is to be gained by being mysterious about them, still less by allowing the whole thing to go by default. They form one of the acute religious questions of the day. In this discussion one side of the question is usually put this way: “The Catholic Church stands for union of Church and State. But this doctrine is utterly opposed to our American principles, and therefore the Church is an un-American institution." My objection to putting the 14 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE 15 matter this way is that the first sentence is not entirely exact. It is too blunt and too sweeping, and therefore is one of those half-truths which are worse than falsehoods and do far more harm. To make this clear let me ask a few questions. Union of Church and State What do you mean by ‘‘union of Church and State'’ ? The phrase has many meanings. Some cry union of Church and State when the Church opens its mouth or exercises its influence on any political or semi-political question. In that sense we have union of Church and State right here in the United States. Well known in- stances are the Anti-Saloon League on Prohibition; the Federal Council of Churches on the Lausanne Treaty and the Disarmament question; and several denominations on the Mexican question. The objection against the Church cannot refer to this indirect influence upon the State, for no one can fairly deny to others a right which he exercises himself. It is recognized by everybody that one of the functions of the Church is to guide the conscience and the conduct of its members in public affairs, and every Prot- estant Church acts on this assumption. Another way in which the words are understood is that churchmen put actual pressure on officials to obtain their ends, or even enter political campaigns, either to defend religious interests or even to put across some purely social or political legislation. This is not union of Church and State either, though it is sometimes called so. To speak of the Catholic Church, it forbids its clergy to take direct part in politics as such, excepting only to instruct its people on ethical questions or those where religious rights are 16 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE clearly menaced. But this is merely an instance of the former indirect influence which all admit. Union of Church and State, properly understood, is something entirely diflferent than either of these two in- stances. It means that the people of the Nation, by their constitution, declare some one church to be the official church of the State, grant it certain privileges, and defend it against unjust aggression, without allowing the church to interfere in purely political matters, and not interfering itself in purely religious matters. An instance of this is had in England at the present day, except for the fact that the State interferes rather more in religious matters there than would be tolerated by any Catholic thinker. Another kind of union of Church and State is had where the Church is the government of the State, and the rulers of the Church the rulers of the State also. All Catholic thinkers reject such a union, and always have, outside of the former temporal domain of the Popes in a part of Italy, where the Pope was recognized as a King as well as a Bishop. The Church has never demanded a theocracy. . What now is “separation of Church and State T' Here again we find a considerable divergence of ideas. Accord- ing to some it means that no churchman must ever express his opinion about any civil or political matter, or exercise any indirect influence over those matters. Very few, even among Protestants, stand for this kind of separation. Another meaning given to the term is that the Church has no rights except those which the State is willing to grant it, and is in everything directly subject to the State. The only ones holding to this form of “separation’' at the pres- ent day are the Bolshevists in Russia and Calles in Mexico. It is not really separation, but really subjection of the Church to the State. THE CHURCH AND THE STATE 17 A Free Church in a Free State Separation of Church and State, as ordinarily under- stood in this country, means our American system of “a free Church in a free State,'’ in which each respects the rights of the other and neither interferes in the sphere of the functions of the other, and neither, on the other hand, officially cooperates to forward the interests of the other. Does the Catholic Church want to bring about union of Church and State in the United States? An honest answer to this question is “No." But since the matter is clouded with so many misapprehensions, I must explain the answer. The Church, in its teachings, following the teachings of her philosophers, contemplates two entirely distinct sets of circumstances. One of these is where all or the vast majority of the inhabitants of the country are Catholics, and the other is where this is not the case, as here in the United States. In considering the former sit- uation, where the State is in fact Catholic, there is in fact union of Church and State; the citizens of the State are members of the Church. May this Catholic State have a government which is Catholic? Or a Constitution which recognizes the fact of the State being Catholic? Or a system of laws whereby each agrees mutually to cooper- ate to the common good of the Nation? Why not? It is the Catholic doctrine that the consent of the governed is the rule which determines the form of government. It happens also to be the American doctrine, derived from the old European tradition formed by Catholic thinkers. Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, republic—it is all one — the people of the State are the ones who alone may deter- mine that. Why may they not, in a Catholic land, in ac- cord with our American ideas, declare for any of these four forms along with mutual cooperation or union with 18 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE the Church? Should they? In theory they should, of course. Such a Catholic people, even considered as a State, would be bound to secure the spiritual well-being of itself by suitable laws, and thus to bring about that mutual cooperation which we commonly call ‘‘union.’’ But even here the governments of both the State and the Church would be strictly bound to respect the spheres of each other, one temporal and the other political. This, then, is the theoretical system which naturally arises from the consideration of this first set of possible circumstances. It is this system which is set forth in the Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, in the teachings of the medieval Popes and theologians, and which has been mis- understood by some modern writers as the Church’s actual program for this country, where a totally different set of circumstances exist, from which a totally different theory would follow, as will be shown. Is such a theoretical system anywhere possible or prac- ticable at the present time? Or at any future predictable time? It is hard to say. Certainly not anywhere at the present time. All the foregoing is, as I have made clear, only for the realm of speculation. It is what would be true if such and such circumstances existed. The Popes and Catholic writers have always been careful to see that the abstract truth of that theoretical doctrine be safe- guarded. But it is one thing to preach a theoretical and abstract doctrine, and another to adopt that doctrine as a concrete program for immediate or future acceptance. One thing is certain, there would never be any question of urging its adoption unless and until the people of the nation became almost wholly Catholic. But if that hap- pened anywhere the matter would settle itself, or rather the people would settle it by their own free will and con- sent. According to our own American principles of the THE CHURCH AND THE STATE 19 consent of the governed, such a system of “union” would be perfectly allowable and probably highly desirable. Meanwhile, we exist in the second set of circum- stances spoken of above, where the people of the nation are not all Catholic. Here the doctrine of the Church is just what you see in practice: full acceptance of the sit- uation. Why, even in Mexico, where nearly all are Cath- olic, the Church is demanding merely the American sys- tem as a practical system. In fact, this whole question of union of Church and State is merely a bugaboo; one of those fake ghosts which, upon your actually touching it, turns out to be merely a bed sheet draped over a grinning human head. Therefore, all that has been quoted by controversialists from Pope Leo XIII on the subject of union of the Church and State is merely the expression of a theoretical doctrine applicable solely to the case where all the people are Catholic and of their own free will bring about this union. The other utterances, which are said to mean that the State is subject to the Church, will be shown in the next chapter to refer merely to an influence of the Church upon the State which is purely indirect and admitted by all, Protestants and Catholics. IV Influence of the Church on the State D r. S. PARKES CADMAN was quoted by a Chic- ago paper as having uttered the following words: “The day is past when any realm of our economic, industrial, social, political or international life will be regarded as outside the sphere of responsibility of churches.'' Whereupon this Chicago journal made the following comment: The policy thus stated has been steadily taking shape and gaining strength for the last quarter of a century. We believe it to be a dangerous policy. In effect it means encroachment of the Church upon the power and authority of the State. This en- croachment will continue during the coming years. And as it continues there will arise an opposition to it, until the Church-in- State issue may become the foremost cause of controversy in American politics. There has arisen an opposition to this policy and it has already become an object of controversy, as witness the recent speech of Congressman Free of California on the Federal Council of Churches, and a recent article by Washington Pezet in the Forum. It is true that before these incidents, and since them also, much of this opposi- tion has been directed against the Catholic Church. It is significant that the same opposition is now being raised against Protestants also, and upon the same grounds, namely, that the policy described encroaches upon the American doctrine of separation of Church and State. An Unfounded Accusation Now I have already in these papers shown two things: That the accusation that the Catholic Church wants union of Church and State in its true sense in this country at this time or at any predictable future time is unfounded, and 20 INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH ON THE STATE 21 that what is frequently called '‘union of Church and State'' is no real union at all, but rather that indirect influence of the Church upon the State which is practised by most Protestant churches and admitted by all of them as per- fectly allowable. I further stated that no one can justly say that the Catholic Church has practised or desired to practise any other form of “union of Church and State" than just this same indirect influence. Consequently, the present question is : “What is this indirect influence of the Church upon the State?" “Is such indirect influence allowable?" and “What are the just limits of this indirect influence?" What do I mean by indirect influence of the Church upon the State? I mean by it an influence upon the con- science, and therefore upon the conduct, of the citizens of the State exercised by any religious group through the preaching of the doctrines of Christianity and their prac- tical application to the questions of the day. Christianity was never meant to be a religion to be confined between the covers of books or to the secret and private lives of individuals. Christianity presents itself also as the savior of society and its guide and spiritual ruler. You will have to ignore half the Gospels or half of history to be convinced of anything else. The doctrine that religion is merely a private affair is not a part of Christianity, but the teaching of the eighteenth century atheistic liberalism. It was not the doctrine of the founders of the republic, nor of many Americans, until long after its founding. For the first fifty years of our independence all our schools were under church direction and the non-religious public school system was an added growth, as any history of education will inform you. 22 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE Effect of False Liberalism Religion, morals, right public conduct, public prosper- ity were from the days of Washington held to flow one from the other. It was the influx of the false “liberalism” of Europe which changed our ideas on this subject. The doctrine of the Catholic Church on all these matters is well summed up by Cardinal Tarquini thus: The civil society even though every member of it be Cath- olic, is not subject to the Church, but plainly independent in tem- poral things which regard its temporal end. . . . Temporal hap- piness falls only indirectly, or so far as the spiritual end requires, under the power of the Church. This is just the doctrine enunciated by Dr. Cadman, and all the stock utterances of Popes and medieval theolo- gians about Papal claims are reducible to this. Now this influence is not an influence exercised by individuals of the Church upon individuals of the State, but of ideas and principles taught by the Church to the collective members of the State. Moreover, it is not an influence which concerns itself with every temporal affair of the State, or with any temporal affair, unless that affair has a religious aspect or an ethical aspect which flows from a religious consideration. Still further, this influ- ence is exercised not by force, armed or political, but merely by the reasons adduced and the call to the con- science. Such influence is continually exercised upon the public mind either by religious groups, Protestant or Cath- olic, or by a group-theory, such as pacifism, communism, modernism, Hegelianism or Kantianism. The Catholic Church, as a religious organization, never contemplated any other relation with the State than this, and it is in this sense that it is said- to be the founder of modern civilization. INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH ON THE STATE 23 Now the question arises, “Is this indirect influence of the Church upon the State allowable?” I take it this word “allowable” has two meanings. Will it be counte- nanced by public opinion? And is it in accord with the spirit of the American laws and Constitution? If by public opinion we mean the organized consciousness of Christian bodies in this country, then by their very actions we have the answer. The very mission of the Church is, among other things, this guiding and enlightening of people’s minds on the great issues of the day: economic and social justice, international peace and fair dealing, purity of public life, the safeguarding of our Constitu- tion against radical tampering with it contrary to the spirit of our history and our traditions. Separation Recognized Neither is it against our American spirit for the Church to be the teacher of the country in matters that regard modern ethical problems in public affairs. That this is the traditional mission of the Church is evident from our history and the present practice of all Protestant bodies. For the Church speaks from the authority of wisdom, of principles and of ideas, and not from the authority of force. There is no union of Church and State here, but rather, from the very indirectness of the influence, a recognition of the fact of separation. Now I take it that no one would think of denying to the Catholic Church, if it chose to exert it, the influence which all men allow to other religious bodies. The chief word of objection heard is that the head of the Catholic Church is an alien and as such debarred from any influence in our affairs. But this is a barren objection. Apart from the fact that no one ever heard of the Pope interfering in 24 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE American affairs, even by his advice, nor is any one likely to hear of it because of the very constitution of the Church, there is a more cogent reason still. The influence we are speaking of is one of ideas, of principles; and ideas and principles are transcendental, they have no national limits. It is naive to suppose that ideas are English or Italian or French, or allied with any other nation whatever. Other- wise the foundation of the evangelical churches, the Bible, should be dismissed immediately as alien ; for it is Hebrew. Ideas and principles are not “foreign,'' they transcend national limits, and so does the influence which they ex- ercise. The ideas and principles which the Catholic Church preaches to the common mind of the country are the com- mon ones of Christianity. They are not mere arbitrary notions, but known and calculable, drawn from the com- mon store of mankind. But this influence has limits, and well-defined ones, too. It is limited by the nature of the affair under discussion, and also by the manner in which it may be exerted. Thus, apart from certain imaginable flagrant cases, the Church does not pronounce such or such a war unjust; but it does lay down the principles according to which a war is just. In the same way, it does not, apart again from cases clear to all the world, pronounce such or such a law unjust, and therefore no law; but it does lay down the conditions for a just law, so that all men may judge for themselves. The Church deals with principles, not with concrete cases ; like- wise, it deals with religious and ethical principles, not with purely economic and political ones. Nor may it. And note well, even where it is within the allowed sphere of its influence, it does not exert it by force or by any political authority. It merely has the authority of enlightened tradition, of common sense, of reason. Its INiFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH ON THE STATE 25 arms are the arguments it uses, its ascendency over the consciences of men, and in its effects it remains where it started, in the sphere of the spirit. How the Indirect Influence Is Exercised I HAVE been discussing what I called the indirect in- fluence of the Church on the State. This indirect in- fluence I called an influence on the conscience, and, therefore, the conduct of the citizens of a country exer- cised by some religious organization through the preach- ing of the doctrines of religion and its practical applica- tion to the questions of the day. I took up this discussion because this indirect influence is often wrongly confused with union of Church and State, and also because it is something very widely exercised by both Protestants and Catholics and yet its limits are not very well understood. Here I want to show just how that influence has been exercised in the past and how it is still being exer- cised today. There is a very real sense in which it can be said that the Church is the mother of civilization itself, and in particular of Western civilization. In the East, in Turkey, India and China, people understand this very well and take it for granted ; in fact, in those countries religion and civilization are one and the same thing, or rather two sides of the same thing. But for the last 300 years, during which the State in the West has been progressively secularized, we have been forgetting to what we owe our origins. Nowadays also men are prone to look more and more at the person and character of the ]:>reacher who has a message for the world and less and less at the system and corporate thought which he merely represents. Sometimes they would reject the system and its thought and our whole past along with it. That is the harm which a book like “Elmer Gantry’^ can do. People forget that without tradition there can be no progress, 26 HOW INDIRECT INFLUENCE IS EXERCISED 27 for you can only go ahead by starting at the place to which your past efiForts have brought you. Influence of the Church It is true that the Church does not exercise the same influence it used to, due to the facts I have mentioned, but it is also true that it exercises a stronger and wider influence than most people suspect. Let me take three in- stances in the past before I take up the present. These are the restoration of civilization in Europe after the barba- rian invasion, the Crusades, and the Rise of Nationalism. In each of these crises it was the Church which applied the ideas and often the men who drove the world into new fields. The old Roman Empire of the Csesars held to- gether up to about the fifth century. But the Romans, invading the North, taught the people there the arts of modern war, just as we have taught the Chinese, and gave them a taste of the delights and riches which existed further south. That gave them a start, and when they began to move everything fell before them. Laws perished, law courts, police, education, production of wealth, archi- tecture and the buildings it had produced, everything we call civilization disappeared, and for 200 years chaos ruled in Europe. We call those the Dark Ages. But little by little the Church began to take hold, opened schools, then colleges, and universities, hammered out a system of laws for the new conditions, taking all that was best in the new and the old, and by 200 years more a newer and higher civilization appeared, which in many things was the highest the world had ever seen, in the thirteenth cen- tury. In all this it was the Churchmen who had to do the work, for the rest of the world was unlettered and almost savage. They taught, they ruled when it was necessary. 28 THE CHIURCH AND THE STATE and it often was ; they built churches and civil edifices, and impregnated untutored minds with ideas of justice and social welfare. This was the first case of the influence ex- ercised by the Church. A New Wave of Invasion But after this first wave of invasion had been thor- oughly tamed a new one rose on the horizon. It came from the East this time, in the form of a race which drew its civilization from back of the Black Sea in Asia and its religion from Mohammed. The Turks in their turn now cast eyes on Europe and started to invade it. In Rome they saw the danger immediately, just as soon as the Turks arrived at the Bosporus and threatened to cross over from Asia. Rather than allow the old thing to happen, when the Roman Emperors allowed the Northerners to engulf them, the Popes called on Europe to go out and meet the invader before he got fairly started. It is often said that the crusades were only a raid into Turkish territory for the purpose of winning back the Holy Sepulchre. This was the slogan which was given the people, it is true ; but the real purpose was to stem the tide of invasion before it got fairly started and to have the fight on the enemy’s territory rather than on their own. Through centuries the Turks came on, even reaching as far as Poland and Vienna in Austria, but each time Christian Europe, urged on by the Pope, hurled them back, and thereby saved Europe from a worse fate than had befallen it several centuries before. Meanwhile in Europe little by little different countries were forming and arranging their national boundaries and swearing allegiance to rulers, emperors and kings. People more and more lived in cities, usually gathering about HOW INDIRECT INFLUENCE IS EXERCISED 29 some cathedral and a university. It was in these universi- ties that laws were thought out, social problems' solved, political systems created, and the thinkers and creators of these systems were without exception the clergy. The kings, the generals, the prime ministers merely carried out the ideas which were presented to them. These ideas were merely the preaching of Christianity and its applica- tion to the problems of life as they arose. City govern- ment, State government. National government, all of it issued from the universities governed by the Church. Our own American political system owes its origin to those days. How Our Forefathers Acted This point is well worth remembering. Our fore- fathers who made this country did not sit down and think out some entirely new ideas of government. They held the truths they fought for “to be self-evident,” as they said in the Declaration of Independence, and to be denied only by a group of selfish politicians in London. These ideas of self-government, of the equality of man, of liberty, and of the purpose of government being the welfare of the citizens, even the idea of division of sovereignty between a Federal and a local government, all of these they inherited from those who went before them. Now it happened that those from whom they di- rectly inherited them were the \\"higs in England, to which political party most of those in this country belonged. These Whigs were fighting in the kings of England the idea of the divine right of kings, which was historically a Protestant, not a Catholic doctrine, and it happened that it was being fought at the same time by all the Catholic thinkers on the Continent, and the books of these thinkers. 30 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE which merely printed ideas inherited in their turn from the Church universities of the Middle Ages, fell into the hands of the English Whigs. These adopted their ideas on political government and handed them on to their friends in America, who overthrew the English govern- ment with them and set up a new government. The line of succession is complete; our own American political ideas come directly from the Catholic Church. These are only examples of how the Church exerts her indirect influence on citizenship and government. All the social problems of past and present times have been the problems of the Church also; in present times less than formerly, because nowadays both education and gov- ernment are largely secular. Yet for all that, the main ideas that rule us and that exist imbedded in our Constitu- tion are ideas still operating and yet derived from the Church. Back in Pagan Days When you look back on pagan days and see how many thousands of slaves were in Europe and Asia and Africa, you realize that it was ideas taught by the Church which freed them. When you look back on the condition of women in those times, and even in recent times, it was the teaching of the Church which raised them. The home itself as we know it is the creation of the Church, and when in modern times divorce, race suicide and false eugenics threaten to destroy it again, it is the Church which is the only thing that stands between it and ruin. Every painful step which has been taken by the laborer and the poor to raise their condition is inspired ultimately by the teachings of the Bible and the Church which ex- pounds it. The barbarous custom of dueling, a relic of HOW INDIRECT INFLUENCE IS EXERCISED 31 pagan times, was finally crushed out by influence wielded by the Church. The custom of one day of rest a week, which the cupidity of wealthy men would always do away with, is steadfastly defended by the Church. The plague of white slavery and international dealing in women is being painfully conquered by ideas supplied by the Church. It was, also, only when the social and political influence of the Church was weakened that the present worse than barbarous methods of waging war were introduced. In the same way moral plagues such as the licentious stage, the use of narcotics, the printing of bad books, usury, all the things into which we are so prone to fall back again and again, all these are the rightful province of the Church, and to the Church the world looks for leadership and guidance in the proper principles to be followed. These are some of the ways by which the indirect influence of the Church governs the consciences and therefore the conduct of men. It is political, if you will, but it is in- direct. The direct action by which all these things are brought about is left to the State and its rulers, to whom it belongs as their rightful province. All the churches exert this influence, and if it were not exerted the world would be a worse place to live in. The idea which we, and particularly Americans, have to resist is that civilization is a purely material thing. This age of machinery, the absolutely marvelous strides made in applied science, the conquest of the air, the transmission of sound on electric waves, all the other astounding in- ventions of this period, have made us too prone to think that progress consists only in taming the forces of Nature and subjecting them to our daily use. If this were true, then indeed we would have need only of science and the scientists to effect the salvation of society. But society will not be saved by science. Rather will 32 THE CHURCH AND THE STATE it be wrecked by science, if no higher force controls it. Civilization, progress, the salvation of society is an affair of the spirit, not of material force. The most insidious poison which could creep into the body social and politic would be the general acceptance by the people that the pos- session of wealth, of comfort, of quick transportation and of all other wonders offered us by science, are the sole signs of progress in civilization. All these material benefits are to be used, of course, and developed to the limit. They were given to us for that purpose. The evil is in not being able to see beyond them and beneath them. And this is precisely the social mis- sion of the Church. The Church brings salvation to the soul of the individual ; that is part of its mission. The other part is its social mission, the salvation of society, by the preaching to it for its acceptance of the ideals and principles of Christianity. 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