Posted on 05/06/2005 1:07:06 PM PDT by Caleb1411
Spain used to be one of the most culturally conservative, devoutly Roman Catholic countries in Europe. Now Spain is about to pass a law legalizing homosexual marriage and adoption.
When equally Catholic Belgium legalized gay marriage and adoptions, the Vatican, under Pope John Paul II, opposed the action with words. But Pope Benedict XVI, in the first policy test of his papacy, is going much further.
A Vatican official told Spaniards that if the measure passes, they must defy it. Officials should refuse to marry same-sex couples or even process the paperwork if they try to adopt a child. Bureaucrats and others who find themselves complicit in gay marriage or adoption should refuse to obey the law, even if it means losing their jobs.
"A law as deeply inequitable as this one is not an obligation," said Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo of Colombia, the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family. "One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is a law." To tell citizens that they should not obey the laws of their country is a very unusual and aggressive action. Said a history professor at a Spanish university, "I had never heard of such a direct call to civil disobedience."
American evangelicals, for all of their political activism, have not gone so far as to tell file clerks in Massachusetts to misplace the marriage records of gay couples, or a worker in an adoption agency to lose the application of homosexuals. And it is not clear that they should. It is a tough call on where to draw the line between Romans 13 ("be subject to the governing authorities") and Acts 5 ("we must obey God rather than men"). It may be easier under Roman Catholicism, with its ancient—and unbiblical—teaching that the church has temporal authority over the state.
Still, if the new pope is going to be this assertive on cultural issues, evangelicals should pay attention. Evangelicals and Catholics have huge—and important—theological differences, but when it comes to pro-life issues, sexual morality, and resistance to militant secularism, they find themselves on the same side of the culture wars.
Some critics say that a hard line from the pope will only increase the secularization of Europe. Eighty percent of Spaniards are Catholic, but only a third of them go to church and follow its teachings. Won't threatening the file clerks just drive them away? If the file clerks disobey and process the marriage licenses and adoption forms despite what the pope tells them to do, will the church excommunicate them? Whether the hard line makes the nominal Catholics quit or if the church expels them, either way the result will be fewer Catholics.
But this brings up the other part of the pope's strategy, one that is even more radical. Before he became pope, Cardinal Ratzinger argued that the church needs to get smaller so that it can become purer.
Some observers are interpreting this in institutional forms. "If it's true Pope Benedict XVI prefers a leaner, smaller, purer church as he has spoken of before," said Notre Dame professor R. Scott Appleby, "we could see a withering of certain Catholic institutions because they're not considered fully Catholic. This might include Catholic colleges, hospitals, and other Catholic institutions."
But surely it is precisely the nominal Catholics—those who claim membership but hardly ever go to church and ignore its teachings—that the new pope would be glad to be rid of.
The problem of secularism is not just with the outside culture thinking it can do without God. The deeper problem is that the church itself has become secularized. A smaller but purer church may well have more impact than the diffuse cultural Christianity that has lost its saltiness and its savor.
This is a challenge that evangelicals need to consider. With our megachurch, church-growth mindset, we often assume that bigger is better, and a church with lots of members is a strong church. Is this always true? In our efforts to reach the secular culture, is the secular culture instead sometimes reaching us?
The ideal would be to have both size and purity. But might there come a time when American evangelicalism too will need to be winnowed? —•
This Pope may be a sheep dog / wolfhound.. If he still has teeth.. RCC wolves will run for the hills.. Same number of sheep as always, less wolves.. Whats not to like..
Pope ping!
We Catholics have done very nicely here without Roman Catholic presidents during most of US history and would have done a lot better politically and otherwise without the amoral likes of JFK posing for Holy Pictures as though he were Catholic out of political opportunism.
We have also reached a point as a nation where these arguments for genuflecting before government tyranny on the allegation that the Epistle to the Romans demands it are a bit over the top. Lavender "marriage??????" Baby slaughter????? Fisting ed????
B-16 or gummint trash? B-16 every time on matters within the jurisdiction of the Church (which is most matters).
6. As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose everbounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -- it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavor should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the wellbeing of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.
7. Now, it cannot be difficult to find out which is the true religion, if only it be sought with an earnest and unbiased mind; for proofs are abundant and striking. We have, for example, the fulfillment of prophecies, miracles in great numbers, the rapid spread of the faith in the midst of enemies and in face of overwhelming obstacles, the witness of the martyrs, and the like. From all these it is evident that the only true religion is the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and to propagate.
8. For the only-begotten Son of God established on earth a society which is called the Church, and to it He handed over the exalted and divine office which He had received from His Father, to be continued through the ages to come. "As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you."[5] "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."[6] Consequently, as Jesus Christ came into the world that men "might have life and have it more abundantly,"[7] so also has the Church for its aim and end the eternal salvation of souls, and hence it is so constituted as to open wide its arms to all mankind, unhampered by any limit of either time or place. "Preach ye the Gospel to every creature."[8]
9. Over this mighty multitude God has Himself set rulers with power to govern, and He has willed that one should be the head of all, and the chief and unerring teacher of truth, to whom He has given "the keys of the kingdom of heaven."[9] "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep."[10] "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not."[11]
10. This society is made up of men, just as civil society is, and yet is supernatural and spiritual, on account of the end for which it was founded, and of the means by which it aims at attaining that end. Hence, it is distinguished and differs from civil society, and, what is of highest moment, it is a society chartered as of right divine, perfect in its nature and in its title, to possess in itself and by itself, through the will and loving kindness of its Founder, all needful provision for its maintenance and action. And just as the end at which the Church aims is by far the noblest of ends, so is its authority the most exalted of all authority, nor can it be looked upon as inferior to the civil power, or in any manner dependent upon it.
The correct definition of "separation of Church and State"
13. The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, things. Each in its kind is supreme, each has fixed limits within which it is contained, limits which are defined by the nature and special object of the province of each, so that there is, we may say, an orbit traced out within which the action of each is brought into play by its own native right. But, inasmuch as each of these two powers has authority over the same subjects, and as it might come to pass that one and the same thing -- related differently, but still remaining one and the same thing -- might belong to the jurisdiction and determination of both, therefore God, who foresees all things, and who is the author of these two powers, has marked out the course of each in right correlation to the other. "For the powers that are, are ordained of God."[17] Were this not so, deplorable contentions and conflicts would often arise, and, not infrequently, men, like travelers at the meeting of two roads, would hesitate in anxiety and doubt, not knowing what course to follow. Two powers would be commanding contrary things, and it would be a dereliction of duty to disobey either of the two.
But it would be most repugnant to them to think thus of the wisdom and goodness of God. Even in physical things, albeit of a lower order, the Almighty has so combined the forces and springs of nature with tempered action and wondrous harmony that no one of them clashes with any other, and all of them most fitly and aptly work together for the great purpose of the universe. There must, accordingly, exist between these two powers a certain orderly connection, which may be compared to the union of the soul and body in man. The nature and scope of that connection can be determined only, as We have laid down, by having regard to the nature of each power, and by taking account of the relative excellence and nobleness of their purpose. One of the two has for its proximate and chief object the well-being of this mortal life; the other, the everlasting joys of heaven. Whatever, therefore in things human is of a sacred character, whatever belongs either of its own nature or by reason of the end to which it is referred, to the salvation of souls, or to the worship of God, is subject to the power and judgment of the Church. Whatever is to be ranged under the civil and political order is rightly subject to the civil authority. Jesus Christ has Himself given command that what is Caesar's is to be rendered to Caesar, and that what belongs to God is to be rendered to God.
The ideal of the Christian state
21. There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies. Christian Europe has subdued barbarous nations, and changed them from a savage to a civilized condition, from superstition to true worship. It victoriously rolled back the tide of Mohammedan conquest; retained the headship of civilization; stood forth in the front rank as the leader and teacher of all, in every branch of national culture; bestowed on the world the gift of true and many-sided liberty; and most wisely founded very numerous institutions for the solace of human suffering. And if we inquire how it was able to bring about so altered a condition of things, the answer is -- beyond all question, in large measure, through religion, under whose auspices so many great undertakings were set on foot, through whose aid they were brought to completion.
Leo XIII, 1885
All this only reaffirms the eternal teaching of the Church, a teaching that informed the organization of society from the fall of Rome in the West. Articulated perfectly in 1302
We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: 'Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.' [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23- 24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: 'Feed my sheep' [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John 'there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.' We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: 'Behold, here are two swords' [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: 'Put up thy sword into thy scabbard' [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.
However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: 'There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God' [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.
Boniface VIII
Francisco Franco is the deadest.
"The likelihood that a Christian conservative will be equated with "Taliban" or "Al-Qaeda" is directly proportional to the length of the FR thread."
Still too long, and there's got to be some way to put in an active verb.
Of course that IS a secular belief. And this is all about who you think is more important; God or the state. God in his infinite mercy sometimes gives us VERY clear choices.
The same God who raises empires and Caesars to power has also raised this Pope to power. In Christian theology governments too are supposed to serve God. Since the Protestant reformation that has ceased to be true. The French Revolution was explicit in turning away from God and so has every government since then to one degree or another. God's winnowing fan is at hand, those who worship Him will do His will; those who worship Caesar will do his will. Cathago delenda est.
Either resign the secular position or resign from the Church. After all, no one can serve two masters. Ideally the state wouldn't require immorality and then there would be no conflict meritting resignation.
Luckily for the Catholic Church, I agree with you. I also have a new found confidence in our Cardinals. They want the Church to stay true to it's beliefs.
I need an edit to agree on this: "in a multi cultural, multi religious society, secular law, with lots of conscience clauses is the only way to protect the rights of all.... "
Interesting that you (appropriately) put Franco in with two RC saints---Franco was a defender of the Faith, too, no matter what SNL's Chevy Chump thinks.
Incorrect. I suggest you actually learn what the Catholic Church teaches prior to commenting on said teachings.
The ends do not justify the means.
Ne zot! I thought I was just being silly! I'll add a biography of Gen. Franco to my library list ... I confess to total ignorance of anything but the gentleman's name and SNL-deadness.
Is there a cause for the canonization of Frank Sheed? I know he's a highly-regarded apologist, but not much else about him (except that he's dead.)
That was a slip on my part.
To my knowledge, Sheed is both dead and NOT formally a saint, nor is there any cause begun.
But we'll ping him to find out his status on the sainthood-thing.
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