Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886

by Various

It is clear that a State constituted on this basis is altogether bound to satisfy, by the public profession of religion, the very many and great duties which bring it into relation with God. Nature and reason which commands every man individually to serve God holily and religiously, because we belong to Him and coming from Him must return to Him, binds by the same law the civil community. For men living together in society are no less under the power of God than are individuals; and society owes as much gratitude as individuals do to God, Who is its author, its preserver, and the beneficent source of the innumerable blessings which it has received. And therefore as it is not lawful for anybody to neglect his duties towards God, and as it is the first duty to embrace in mind and in conduct religion—not such as each may choose, but such as God commands—in the same manner States cannot, without a crime, act as though God did not exist, or cast off the care of religion as alien to them or useless or out of several kinds of religion adopt indifferently which they please; but they are absolutely bound, in the worship of the Deity to adopt that use and manner in which God Himself has shown that He wills to be adored. Therefore among rulers the name of God must be holy, and it must be reckoned among the first of their duties to favor religion, protect it, and cover it with the authority of the laws, and not to institute or decree anything which is incompatible with its security. They owe this also to the citizens over whom they rule. For all of us men are born and brought up for a certain supreme and final good in heaven, beyond this frail and short life, and to this end all efforts are to be referred. And because upon it depends the full and perfect happiness of men, therefore, to attain this end which has been mentioned, is of as much interest as is conceivable to every individual man. It is necessary then that a civil society, born for the common advantage, in the guardianship of the prosperity of the commonwealth, should so advance the interests of the citizens that in holding up and acquiring that highest and inconvertible good which they spontaneously seek, it should not only never import anything disadvantageous, but should give all the opportunities in its power. The chief of these is that attention should be paid to a holy and inviolate preservation of religion, by the duties of which man is united to God.

Now which the true religion is may be easily discovered by any one who will view the matter with a careful and unbiassed judgment; for there are proofs of great number and splendor, as for example, the truth of prophecy, the abundance of miracles, the extremely rapid spread of the faith, even in the midst of its enemies and in spite of the greatest hindrances, the testimony of the martyrs, and the like, from which it is evident that that is the only true religion which Jesus Christ instituted Himself and then entrusted to His Church to defend and to spread.

For the only begotten Son of God set up a society on earth which is called the Church, and to it He transferred that most glorious and divine office, which He had received from His Father, to be perpetuated forever. "As the Father hath sent Me, even so I send you." (John xx. 21.) "Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." (Matt. xxviii. 20.) Therefore as Jesus Christ came into the world, "that men might have life and have it more abundantly" (John x. 10), so also the Church has for its aim and end the eternal salvation of souls; and for this cause it is so constituted as to embrace the whole human race without any limit or circumscription either of time or place. "Preach ye the Gospel to every creature." (Mark xvi. 15.) Over this immense multitude of men God Himself has set rulers with power to govern them; and He has willed that one should be head of them all, and the chief and unerring teacher of truth, and to him He has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. "To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. xvi. 19.) "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." (John xxi. 16, 17.) "I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail." (Luke xxii. 32.) This society, though it be composed of men just as civil society is, yet because of the end that it has in view, and the means by which it tends to it, is supernatural and spiritual; and, therefore, is distinguished from civil society and differs from it; and—a fact of the highest moment—is a society perfect in its kind and in its rights, possessing in and by itself, by the will and beneficence of its Founder, all the appliances that are necessary for its preservation and action. Just as the end, at which the Church aims, is by far the noblest of ends, so its power is the most exalted of all powers, and cannot be held to be either inferior to the civil power or in any way subject to it. In truth Jesus Christ gave His Apostles unfettered commissions over all sacred things, with the power of establishing laws properly so-called, and the double right of judging and punishing which follows from it: "All power has been given to Me in heaven and on earth; going, therefore, teach all nations;... teaching them to keep whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19, 20.) And in another place He says: "If he will not hear, tell it to the Church" (Matt. xviii. 17); and again: "Ready to punish all disobedience" (2 Cor. x. 6); and once more: "I shall act with more severity, according to the powers which our Lord has given me unto edification and not unto destruction." (2 Cor. xiii. 10.)

So then it is not the State but the Church that ought to be men's guide to heaven; and it is to her that God has assigned the office of watching and legislating for all that concerns religion, of teaching all nations; of extending, as far as may be, the borders of Christianity; and, in a word, of administering its affairs without let or hindrance, according to her own judgment. Now this authority, which pertains absolutely to the Church herself, and is part of her manifest rights, and which has long been opposed by a philosophy subservient to princes, she has never ceased to claim for herself and to exercise publicly: the Apostles themselves being the first of all to maintain it, when, being forbidden by the readers of the Synagogue to preach the Gospel, they boldly answered, "We must obey God rather than men." (Acts v. 29.) This same authority the holy Fathers of the Church have been careful to maintain by weighty reasonings as occasions have arisen; and the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased to defend it with inflexible constancy. Nay, more, princes and civil governors themselves have approved it in theory and in fact; for in the making of compacts, in the transaction of business, in sending and receiving embassies, and in the interchange of other offices, it has been their custom to act with the Church as with a supreme and legitimate power. And we may be sure that it is not without the singular providence of God that this power of the Church was defended by the Civil Power as the best defence of its own liberty.

God, then, has divided the charge of the human race between two powers, viz., the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human things. Each is the greatest in its own kind: each has certain limits within which it is restricted, and those limits defined by the nature and proximate cause of each; so that there is, as we may say, a world marked off as a field for the proper action of each. But forasmuch as each has dominion over the same subjects, since it might come to pass that one and the same thing, though in different ways, still one and the same, might pertain to the right and the tribunal of both, therefore God, Who foreseeth all things, and Who has established both powers, must needs have arranged the course of each in right relation to one another, and in due order. "For the powers that are ordained by God." (Rom. xiii. 1.) And if this were not so, causes of rivalries and dangerous disputes would be constantly arising; and man would often have to stop in anxiety and doubt, like a traveller with two roads before him, not knowing what he ought to do, with two powers commanding contrary things, whose authority however, he cannot refuse without neglect of duty. But it would be most repugnant, so to think, of the wisdom and goodness of God, Who, even in physical things, though they are of a far lower order, has yet so attempered and combined together the forces and causes of nature in an orderly manner and with a sort of wonderful harmony, that none of them is a hindrance to the rest, and all of them most fitly and aptly combine for the great end of the universe. So, then, there must needs be a certain orderly connection between these two powers, which may not unfairly be compared to the union with which soul and body are united in man. What the nature of that union is, and what its extent, cannot otherwise be determined than, as we have said, by having regard to the nature of each power, and by taking account of the relative excellence and nobility of their ends; for one of them has for its proximate and chief aim the care of the goods of this world, the other the attainment of the goods of heaven that are eternal. Whatsoever, therefore, in human affairs is in any manner sacred; whatsoever pertains to the salvation of souls or the worship of God, whether it be so in its own nature, or on the other hand, is held to be so for the sake of the end to which it is referred, all this is in the power and subject to the free disposition of the Church: but all other things which are embraced in the civil and political order, are rightly subject to the civil authority, since Jesus Christ has commanded that what is Cæsar's is to be paid to Cæsar, and what is God's to God. Sometimes, however, circumstances arise when another method of concord is available for peace and liberty; we mean when princes and the Roman Pontiff come to an understanding concerning any particular matter. In such circumstances the Church gives singular proof of her maternal good-will, and is accustomed to exhibit the highest possible degree of generosity and indulgence.

Such, then, as we have indicated in brief, is the Christian order of civil society; no rash or merely fanciful fiction, but deduced from principles of the highest truth and moment, which are confirmed by the natural reason itself.

Now such a constitution of the State contains nothing that can be thought either unworthy of the majesty of princes or unbecoming; and so far is it from lessening its imperial rights, that it rather adds stability and grandeur to them. For, if it be more deeply considered, such a constitution has a great perfection which all others lack, and from it various excellent fruits would accrue, if each party would only keep its own place, and discharge with integrity that office and work to which it was appointed. For in truth in this constitution of the State, which we have above described, divine and human affairs are properly divided; the rights of citizens are completely defended by divine, natural, and human law; and the limitations of the several offices are at once wisely laid down, and the keeping of them most opportunely secured. All men know that in their doubtful and laborious journey to the ever-lasting city they have at hand guides to teach them how to set forth, helpers to show them how to reach their journey's end, whom they may safely follow; and at the same time they know that they have others whose business it is to take care of their security and their fortunes, to obtain for them, or to secure to them, all those other goods which are essential to the life of a community. Domestic society obtains that firmness and solidity which it requires in the sanctity of marriage, one and indissoluble; the rights and duties of husband and wife are ordered with wise justice and equity; the due honor is secured to the woman; the authority of the man is conformed to the example of the authority of God; the authority of the father is tempered as becomes the dignity of the wife and offspring, and the best possible provision is made for the guardianship, the true good, and the education of the children.

In the domain of political and civil affairs the laws aim at the common good, and are not guided by the deceptive wishes and judgments of the multitude, but by truth and justice. The authority of the rulers puts on a certain garb of sanctity greater than what pertains to man, and it is restrained from declining from justice, and passing over just limits in the exercise of power. The obedience of citizens has honor and dignity as companions, because it is not the servitude of men to men, but obedience to the will of God exercising His sovereignty by means of men. And this being recognised and admitted, it is understood that it is a matter of justice that the dignity of rulers should be respected, that the public authority should be constantly and faithfully obeyed, that no act of sedition should be committed, and that the civil order of the State should be kept intact. In the same way mutual charity and kindness and liberality are seen to be virtues. The man who is at once a citizen and a Christian is no longer the victim of contending parties and incompatible obligations; and, finally, those very abundant good things with which the Christian religion of its own accord fills up even the mortal life of men, are acquired for the community and civil society, so that it appears to be said with the fullest truth: "The state of the commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped, and between the one and the other there is a close relation and connection." (Sacr. Imp. ad Cyrillum Alexandr, et Episcopus metrop. ef Labbeum Collect Conc., T. iii.) Admirably, as he is accustomed, did Augustine in many places dilate on the power of those good things, but especially when he addresses the Catholic Church in these words: "Thou treatest boys as boys, youths with strength, old men calmly, according as is not only the age of the body, but also of the mind of each. Women thou subjectest to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not for the satisfaction of lust, but for the propagation of offspring, and participation in the affairs of the family. Thou settest husbands over their spouses, not that they may trifle with the weaker sex, but in accordance with the laws of true affection. Thou subjectest sons to their parents in a kind of free servitude, and settest parents over their sons in a benignant rule.... Thou joinest together, not merely in society, but in a kind of fraternity, citizens with citizens, peoples with peoples, and in fact the whole race of men by a remembrance of their parentage. Thou teachest kings to look for the interests of their peoples. Thou admonishest peoples to submit themselves to their kings. With all care thou teachest to whom honor is due, to whom affection, to whom reverence, to whom fear, to whom consolation, to whom admonition, to whom exhortation, to whom discipline, to whom reproach, to whom punishment, showing how all of these are not suitable to all, but yet to all affection is due, and wrong to none." (De Moribus Eccl. Cath., cap. xxx., n. 63.) And in another place, speaking in blame of certain political pseudo-philosophers, he observes: "They who say that the doctrine of Christ is hurtful to the State, should produce an army of soldiers such as the doctrine of Christ has commanded them to be, such governors of provinces, such husbands, such wives, such parents, such sons, such masters, such slaves, such kings, such judges, and such payers and collectors of taxes due, such as the Christian doctrine would have them. And then let them dare to say that such a state of things is hurtful to the State. Nay, rather they could not hesitate to confess that it is a great salvation to the State if there is due obedience to this doctrine." (Epist. cxxxviii., al. 5, ad Marcellinum, cap. ii., 15.)

There was once a time when the philosophy of the Gospel governed States; then it was that that power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had penetrated into the laws, institutions and manners of peoples—indeed into all the ranks and relations of the State; when the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, firmly established in that degree of dignity which was befitting, flourished everywhere, in the favor of rulers and under the due protection of magistrates; when the priesthood and the government were united by concord and a friendly interchange of offices. And the State composed in that fashion produced, in the opinion of all, more excellent fruits, the memory of which still flourishes, and will flourish, attested by innumerable monuments which can neither be destroyed nor obscured by any art of the adversary. If Christian Europe subdued barbarous peoples, and transferred them from a savage to a civilized state, from superstition to the truth; if she victoriously repelled the invasions of the Mohammedans; if civilization retained the chief power, and accustomed herself to afford others a leader and mistress in everything that adorns humanity; if she has granted to the peoples true and manifold liberty; if she has most wisely established many institutions for the solace of wretchedness, beyond controversy is it very greatly due to religion under whose auspices such great undertakings were commenced, and with whose aid they were perfected. Truly the same excellent state of things would have continued, if the agreement of the two powers had continued, and greater things might rightfully have been expected, if there had been obedience to the authority, the sway, the counsels of the Church, characterized by greater faithfulness and perseverance, for that is to be regarded as a perpetual law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II.: "When the kingdom and the priesthood are agreed between themselves, the world is well ruled, the Church flourishes and bears fruit. But when they are at variance, not only does what is little not increase, but even what is great falls into miserable decay." (Ep. ccxxxviiii.)

But that dreadful and deplorable zeal for revolution which was aroused in the sixteenth century, after the Christian religion had been thrown into confusion, by a certain natural course proceeded to philosophy, and from philosophy pervaded all ranks of the community. As it were, from this spring came those more recent propositions of unbridled liberty which obviously were first thought out and then openly proclaimed in the terrible disturbances in the present century; and thence came the principles and foundations of the new law, which was unknown before, and is out of harmony, not only with Christian, but, in more than one respect, with natural law. Of those principles the chief is that one which proclaims that all men, as by birth and nature they are alike, so in very deed in their actions of life are they equal and each is so master of himself that in no way does he come under the authority of another; that it is for him freely to think on whatever subject he likes, to act as he pleases; that no one else has a right of ruling over others. In a society founded upon these principles, government is only the will of the people, which as it is under the power of itself alone, so is alone its own proper sovereign. Moreover, it chooses to whom it may entrust itself, but in such a way that it transfers, not so much the right, as the function of the government which is to be exercised in its name. God is passed over in silence, as if either there were no God, or as if He cared nothing for human society, or as if men, whether as individuals or in society, owed nothing to God, or as if there could be any government of which the whole cause and power and authority did not reside in God Himself. In which way, as is seen, a State is nothing else but a multitude, as the mistress and governor of itself. And since the people is said to contain in itself the fountain of all rights and of all power, it will follow that the State deems itself bound by no kind of duty towards God; that no religion should be publicly professed; nor ought there to be any inquiry which of many is alone true; nor ought one to be preferred to the rest; nor ought one to be specially favored, but to each alike equal rights ought to be assigned, with the sole end that the social order incurs no injury from them. It is a part of this theory that all questions concerning religion are to be referred to private judgment; that to every one it is allowed to follow which he prefers, or none at all, if he approves of none. Hence these consequences naturally arise; the judgment of each conscience is without regard to law; opinions as free as possible are expressed concerning worshipping or not worshipping God; and there is unbounded license of thinking and publishing.