CATHOLIC TEACHING AS TO CHURCH AND STATE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 68, 15 August 1874, Page 6

CATHOLIC TEACHING AS TO CHURCH AND STATE.

In February 1870, whilst the Vatican Council was sitting, • The Aug sbourg Gazette ' published the Latin text, surreptitiously obtained, of one and twenty Canons decreed by this Council de Ecclesia, iv which modern errors on the constitution of the Church, and her relations with civil society, were anathematized. This publication was a signal to the Press, hostile to the Council, to raise a howl of indignation and alarm. These Canons were regarded us an attempt to uproot modern constitutions and bring back society to the state of the Middle Ages. It was a fine opportunity, too, for offended Governments to protest. Austria, to her disgace, led the way ; but the Imperial Government in France was not far behind. A despatch dated the 20th February, was sent by M. Daru to the French Ambassador in Home, and forwarded by His Excellency, in March, to Cardinal Antonelli. On the 19th of this month, His Eminence made known to the French Government the reply of the Holy bee. On the receipt of this, .Napoleon's Government addressed a respectful remonstrance to the Pope and Council, in the form of a memorandum, which was officially communicated, towards the end of April, to the Holy vSee. To this memorandum the. other Powers more or less explicitly adhered ; and we find in it, therefore, the modern political doctrine on the relations between Church and State. The contents of thie important document may be summed up in three poiuts. Ist. The absolute independence of the State as against the Church. 2nd. Liberty of conscience and worship. 3rd. Liberty of the Press. We shall confine ourselves to-day to the consideration of the first point. The memorandum says :— " Always and everywhere the absolute independence of the Temporal Power and of the Sovereign Authority has been energetically claimed by peoples, by kings, often by the national clergy." Further on, " The independence of civil society ... is, in our day, a fact as well as a right beyond the possibility of 'attack," and lastly, " Modern principles have taken their place definitely in modern European Law, and shall hold that place for ever, because they are indispensable to the dignity as well as the liberty of men and of governments." Such is the doctrine of modern liberals, who become infuriated at the bare mention of the word — subordination— as applied to the State. With these the State is supreme, to be obeyed always, even when in conflict with conscience and the Church, subordinate neither to reason nor revelation. But, on the other hand, what is the teaching of the Church as explained by Cardinal AKTuKELLi in his able reply to this raving of modern liberalism. In his despatch of the 20th February, 1870, His Eminence says, "The Church never claimed and aoe* not claim to exercise a direct and absolute. power over the political rights of the State." And a little lurcher on, " Political affairs, according to the order established by God, and according to the teaching of the Church

herself are within the province of the Temporal Power, without dependence on any other authority." Such being the case, it will be said, What ground is there for further dispute ? Yet the great difficulty still remains. In cases of conflict, such for example as we find at present in Germany, one or other — Church or State— must ultimately dominate. To which appertains the right? Here is the answer. Although the statements of the Cardinal given above are undoubtedly true, although we most frankly admit that the State is, in political affairs, without dependence on any other authority, still the Church has an indirect authority over the Civil Power. The celebrated St. John Chrysostom, commenting on these words of the Apostle Paul, " All power is from God," says it will be objected " therefore every Prince is constituted by God." "I do not say that," replied the great doctor. " I do not speak of any prince in particular, hut of the thing itselt — the power — abstracting altogether from the subject in which it resides. This is the reason why the Apostle has not said that every prince is from God, but that all power is from God." According to this, which is the true teaching, the constituted authorities in civil society, whilst they hold a power from God, owe their own positions to appointment proceeding directly from their fellow citizens. Civil authorities then do not hold their positions by the Divine Law, and cannot exercise even the "power which is from God," of which they are for the time being the depositories beyond certain circumscribed limits. In this is to be found a great difference between the power of the State and the power of the Church. In reference to the Church, God has not only given it power, but has himself designated the depository of that power, and directed that it should be exercised uuiversally, without limits as to time and place. Peter, whilst on this earth, and Peter in his successors — the Roman Pontiffs is, by the Divine Law, the depository of this power ; and he is to exercise it throughout the world, and to the end of ages. Here then is a great difference between the two societies Church and State — showing the excellence and superiority of the former over the latter, and the impossibility of confounding them, or reducing the Church to a mere department of the State, as Grermany and Switzerland are now endeavouring to do. Sovereigns and governments, the mere creatures of the popular breath, things of a day, cannot by any right prescribe limits to a divinely constituted ruler iv his own sphere, or reduce him to subordination to themselves On the contrary the Church — the guardian and interpreter on earth of the Natural and Divine Law, possesses the right to control all the acts of the State, without exception, which necessarily belong to her under the point of view of their morality. It is precisely, however, here, that the liberals and the Church are at issue. To use the words of an eminent reviewer, " they protest, in the name of the State, against this glorious \assalage." Before proceeding further! perhaps we had better clearly define what we mean by morality, or the Moral Order. The Moral Order is the sum total of the immutable laws which govern an intelligent and free being, pointing out to him what he ought to do, and what he ought to avoid, in order that all his acts may be conformable to the nature of things, and the manifest intentions of the Creator. This order has its precise and irrevocable laws in reference to the reciprocal duties and rights of governments and their subjects. Is it not evident that every free act of the depositories of power as well as of the simple citizen, is clothed with a moral character which renders it amenable to the Natural Law; and is it not a duty for ! society as well as for individuals to bear this in mind, under penalty of decay and degradation 1 No one will be found to deny this ; but many forget, or ignore the fact that since the establishment of Christianity, the Moral Law in its entirety, and in all its parts belongs exclusively to the domain of the Church, which, in reference to its principles and their application, is the supreme and final tribunal. It is to the Church and to her alone, that God has confided the deposit of Faith and Morals. In the actual order of Divine Providence, there are not two desti nies for the human race : there is but one — the supernatural destiny. Those who deny this, to use the words of Pius IX. destroy the necessary cohesion which, by the will of God' unites the Natural to the Supernatural Order. It was to the Church alone, in the person of the Apostles, Christ said the ' word — " Going, teach all nations whatsoever I have confided to you." Consequently, the Church is the depository of the Authority of God, to lead men to their destiny. But the morality of human acts essentially depends on their relation

to the last end, and therefore it belongs to the Church to judge whether they have this tendency or the contrary. To the Church then belongs the interpretation of the Divine and Natural Law, and the promulgation of their principles to the world ; and to her also belongs the making of the application of these principles, according to time and circumstances. This is the doctrine which Cardinal Antonelli lays doAvn in his reply to the Memorandum. " The Church," writes His Eminence, " has received from God the sublime mission of leading men, whether considered individually or united in society, to a supernatural end ; she has, then, from the very nature of the case, the power and the duty to judge of the morality of all their acts, both interior and exterior, in their relations with the Divine and Natural Law. But as no action, whether it be ordained by the supreme power, or emanate from the liberty of the individual, can be exempt from the character of morality; thus it happens that the judgment of the Church, whilst it falls directly oh the morality of acts, extends itself indirectly to all those things with which this morality is joined. But this is not to interfere directly in political affairs." If laws, emanating from the Civil Authority, as not unfrequently happens in our day, should be in flagrant contradiction to the Natural or the Divine Law, not only has the Holy See the right to remonstrate, but in the cases where governments remain deaf to such remonstrances, it becomes a duty for the Holy Father to declare that such iniquitous laws can not only not bind the children of the Church in conscience, but that ifc would be a crime on their part to obey them. As His Eminence says further on, "To obey such laws would not give to Cesar what belongs to C-ESAR, but would rob God of what belongs to God."

We go farther even than this, and maintain that it is not alone in consequence of the morality of acts that the Civil Power is subordinate to the Church. "We contend that from its very nature and end the Civil Power is put in dependence and subordination to the Church. As, how»ver, this article has already extended, we fear, to a length beyond which the space at our disposal at present does not permit us to go, we shall reserve the development of this argument till next week.