Catholicism & the Secular State

Last weekend at Mass, the priest in his homily was at his usual high level of scholarly discourse, waxing eloquent in his soft-spoken unpretentious way. It was the Festival of Christ the King, and this time his focus was on a couple of Catholic distinctives: Catholicism's view of church & state, and its main structural organizing principle.

Here's a summary of his key points:

Most religious movements adhere to some kind of revelation about God or spirituality, generally coming through a prophet or holy man. Christianity, however, claims that Jesus Christ was not only a prophet, but was the revelation himself, the embodiment of God. So that is a distinctive that separates Christianity from other world religions.

Secondly, most Christian (read: Protestant) churches were organized around a key doctrine or set of doctrines. These doctrinal statements tend to then give shape to the structure of the church, and affect its organization. The Catholic Church, however, is at its core already a structure. It has doctrines, yes, but those don't determine the structure. The structure (to Catholics) is a given, handed to them directly by Jesus and the Apostles, which to some degree gives rise to doctrine. This is perhaps why dissidents find it so hard to actually split from the Catholic Church, whereas in the Protestant tradition dissidents just go off and form a new synod or denomination. To them, correct doctrine is primary, whereas to the Catholic, doctrinal differences at some level yield to the unity of church structure. What a very different perspective!

Now, as to how the Catholic church relates to the state, the worldwide church does not dictate policy to any state anywhere in the world. It does not seek a theocracy. What it does do, however, is propose principles for policymaking drawn from the teachings of Jesus. The laity, which operates and ministers in various roles in the secular world, is responsible for identifying appropriate applications of those principles, some of which involve public policy.

So while the Catholic church does not see its role as dictating public policy, at the same time it does not see itself as without influence. It seeks to guide policymaking through an articulation of principle, and the freely-chosen secular engagement of The Faithful. Because, when there is no moral authority higher than the state, the state operates unchecked. The state is nothing more than the highest expression of human nature. But if human nature is essentially, as Christianity teaches, self-centered & oft given to coercion, then... so is the state.

The church has a role to speak against any policy which is essentially fallen in nature, as well as to point to Jesus as the clearest revelation of God's desires for humankind.