Immortale Dei - The Catholic Encyclopaedia View

The Catholic Encyclopaedia View

That duty, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, rests on nature itself and the sanctions of religion. As nature and religion prescribe to children dutiful conduct towards the parents who brought them into the world, so nature and religion impose on citizens certain obligations towards their country and its rulers. These obligations may be reduced to those of patriotism and obedience. Patriotism requires that the citizen should have a reasonable esteem and love for his country. He should take an interest in his country's history, he should know how to value her institutions, and he should be prepared to sacrifice himself for her welfare. In his country's need it is not only a noble thing, but it is a sacred duty to lay down one's life for the safety of the commonwealth. Love for his country will lead the citizen to show honour and respect to its rulers. They represent the State, and are entrusted by God with power to rule it for the common good. The citizen's chief duty is to obey the just laws of his country. To be able to distinguish what laws of the civil authority are just and obligatory, it will be advisable to lay down the principles of Catholic theology respecting the nature, subject-matter, and limits of the obedience which citizens owe to the State. To understand these we must know something of the mutual relations between Church and State. From the time of Our Lord to the present, no accusation has been more persistently made against Catholics than that they cannot be good Catholics and good citizens at the same time. They owe, it is said, a divided allegiance. On the one hand they are bound to obey an infallible pope, who is the sole judge of what comes within his sphere of authority, and who may be a foreigner; and on the other they must satisfy the claims of the State to the loyalty and obedience of its subjects. It is asserted that the duties of the citizen are sure to be sacrificed by devout Catholic to the interests of his Church. This conflict of jurisdictions did not arise in pre-Christian times. Each nation had its own religion, its own gods, its own worship. The national religion was a primary element in the constitution of the State. The chief ruler of the State was also supreme pontiff. As a citizen owed obedience to his country's laws, so he owed reverence and worship to his country's gods. The State domineered with absolute sway over both the spiritual and the temporal; it claimed the whole devotion of both body and soul. Jesus Christ established a spiritual kingdom on earth, which we call His Church. He gave His Church authority over all matters concern with the worship of the one, true God, and the saIvation of souls; it was His intention that the Gospel should be preached to every creature, that all men should enter His kingdom, that His Church should be Catholic, i.e. universal. This fact is of supreme importance not only in religion, but also in history and politics. As von Ranke said:

The rise of Christianity involved the liberation of religion from all political elements. From this followed the growth of a distinct ecclesiastical class with a peculiar constitution. In this separation of the Church from the State consists perhaps the greatest, the most pervading and influential peculiarity of all Christian times ... The mutual relations of the spiritual and the secular powers, their position with regard to each other, form from this time forward one of the most important considerations in all history. (The Popes, I, 10) The teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the duty of civil allegiance will be clear if we lay down her doctrine about the origin and limits of the temporal and spiritual power, and the relation in which they stand to each other. The Church's teaching on these points is part of her doctrinal system, derived from Scripture and tradition. The archbishops and bishops of the United States made use of the following weighty words in the joint pastoral letter which they addressed to the clergy and laity of their charge in the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, held in the year 1866: The enemies of the church fail not to represent her claims as incompatible with the independence of the Civil Power, and her action as impeding the exertions of the State to promote the well-being of society. So far from these charges being founded in fact, the authority and influence of the Church will be found to be the most efficacious support of the temporal authority by which society is governed. The church indeed does not proclaim the absolute and entire independence of the Civil Power, because it teaches with the Apostle that 'all power is of God'; that the temporal magistrate is his minister, and the power of the sword he wields is a delegated exercise of authority committed to him from on high. For the children of the Church obedience to the Civil Power is not a submission to force which may not be resisted; nor merely the compliance with a confounded with a condition for peace and security; but a religious duty founded on obedience to God, by whose authority the Civil Magistrate exercises his power. In order to learn in detail what the Catholic doctrine is concerning the duty of civil allegiance we can not do better than consult the popes themselves. Leo XIII touches upon this doctrine in several of his Encyclical letters, he treats of it at length in that which with the words "Immortale Dei", issued 1 November 1885.