A Modern Catholic State?

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codefro

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I have been reading books like Christendom Awake by Fr. Aidan Nichols O.P.and Not As The World Gives by Stratford Caldecott. I also happen to be friends with some Catholic Monarchists/ Loyalists. On another note, while I used to buy into the “American Experiment” I now do not. It has become clear to me that any democracy or republic of the people is always relatively quickly usurped by one from of extreme gov’t or another. I do notice that the Catholic Monarchy was one of the better forms of power that was exercised than the other Imperial systems.

Anyways, I am under no impression that democracy is being ousted anytime soon. Right now we either live in a lightly socialist state, or a full blown communist one. Let’s pretend though that tomorrow a Catholic monarchy was set up in the United States. We either had a King, or were a Colony of a Catholic Monarchy. Catholicism is the official religion.

So under that circumstance:

In conversations with other people about this hypothetical circumstance, the conversation quickly turns to “What do you do with heretics?”- that is where the conversation gets uncomfortable. So that is where the conversation is right here. In old monarchy systems, we know what happened to them. Recant or die. Yet, after living in a Church post-Vatican II, I don’t see a lot of Catholics being comfortable with that scenario. You need the consensus of the state to be one religion for order. If one disrupts that order, the state has an obligation to stamp it out- however that may be. So what do you guys/ gals think? What is a better system, or what would the government need to do?

Please know 2 things: 1) not looking to upset anybody, but I would appreciate calm answers. Blowing up and getting angry over this won’t really convince anybody of anything, but calm answers would. 2) A Catholic form of gov’t does not necessarily need to be the Monarchy, but it is one form. I would argue it is the best as our own faith is a Monarchy system, the church is run as a Monarchy system- so I would argue that it is the best gov’t system as well by default. So know that just in this hypothetical case, I choose a Monarchy form of gov’t. Thanks and God bless.
 
The Church is not classically a monarchy, because it’s governance is not based on birth.

Classical monarchies inevitably lead to one family living in the lap of luxury on everybody else’s shoulders. Nothing to admire, IMNAAHO, even if one hailed from a European country that had had such a government at its height.

A revised Papal State would be something better, IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA.
 
codefro said:
How so?
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If those who governed were appointed by the Pope, rather than simply born to power, at least that would ensure rule by Church principles rather than the whims of a family.

ICXC NIKA.
 
GEddie said:
If those who governed were appointed by the Pope, rather than simply born to power, at least that would ensure rule by Church principles rather than the whims of a family.

ICXC NIKA.
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No disagreements here. Yet, that is ideally how the Monarchy was supposed to be run as well. The Pope decided who was to reign.
 
Idle folly to even speculate about this. If something as intimately connected with Church administration as the Curia can go off the rails - as was widely seen behind Pope Francis’ election - how more so a wide-reaching national civil administration. I don’t need a papal appointee to straighten-out the Registry of Motor Vehicles. The lessons of Church entanglement in civil affairs over the last 2,000 years remind us that “My Kingdom is not of this world.”
 
Considering some of the Popes the Church has suffered through in the past, I am not so sure there is a lot to recommend having the Pope choose the secular leader.

And as to any monarchy, pretty much the same position: depending on who wrote the history of any one of them, they may have been good, bad, indifferent, or incompetent.

Keep in mind also, that the Church is neither left nor right; but rather is Gospel oriented, and as the OP made allusions to socialism and communism, one might keep in mind that there are those who feel particularly that the Church’s positions on some economic and social issues have been politely called socialism (other choice terms not being so polite).

It has been said more than once, that the Church does not impose, but rather proposes. The question then becomes, if there is a secular monarchy (as opposed to a bishop ruling), once the monarchy starts enforcing laws, which ones are enforced, and is that something which the church would enforce? and if the Church would propose, but not enforce, then where does that take us?

It could be said that the majority of laws have as their base a Christian perspective. And while we can grant that some laws do not (e.g. those which have followed Roe vs. Wade, etc.), how would this monarchy deal with issues, for example, such as free speech?
 
GEddie said:
If those who governed were appointed by the Pope, rather than simply born to power, at least that would ensure rule by Church principles rather than the whims of a family.

ICXC NIKA.
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History says no. When popes developed too much temporal power, corruption was more common in the church.
 
Your Catholic Dictator State is a bad, bad idea. Christianity is not something imposed by force from above, it is a free choice that individuals make, with the grace of the Holy Spirit. If most people are Christians, democracy works fine because the people will mostly elect good leaders. The problem in the West today is that most have abandoned Christianity and they elect evil men. The solution is to re-evangelize our countries for Christ.
 
codefro said:
I do notice that the Catholic Monarchy was one of the better forms of power that was exercised than the other Imperial systems.
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A statement such as this makes me wonder if you’ve thoroughly read all of history, or just the parts that you feel back your claim. I would be interested to see your citations of Catholic Monarchies that demonstrated consistent use of their power/authority for the good of all their citizens, regardless of their status. (As powerful and as strong as Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain’s rule was, I suspect Jewish people living under their reign would disagree with how ‘wonderful’ their rule was.)

A Catholic Monarchy isn’t likely to ever take place in the United States, if for one big reason alone–Catholicism isn’t a majority religion here. The U.S. is Protestant-dominant. Even Protestants friendly to Catholicism would put up a stink about such a thing happening.

Quite frankly, I’m always cynical when people speak of how we should have a ‘state religion’ which all citizens should live by. These same people, I’ve noted, are usually the same ones who scream they don’t want Sharia law imposed in the U.S…so I sit there and think, “You want it only as long as it’s yours…but you don’t want anybody else to impose theirs on you.”

The Founding Fathers of our country refused to establish a state religion for good reason–they’d seen that in Europe, it caused problems. And no, I’m not going to get into whether or not the Founding Fathers were Christians or not. They can’t be pigeonholed, religion was personal to each of these men, and each of them had a different take on it. Some were probably very devout, others, not so much.

You might think you’d like to live under a Monarchy…but I suspect you’ve never actually done so. There’s an old saying, “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.” It might be best to reflect on that.
 
To the OP: there are other possible ways of having a Catholic State other than a monarchy. The US founding fathers said the “American Experiment” would only succeed as along as our morals and ethics are based on Judeo-Christian values. As God continues to be ignored leaves in society and govnt, the laws are being twisted into something they were not intended for.
Indigo_Cardinal said:
A statement such as this makes me wonder if you’ve thoroughly read all of history, or just the parts that you feel back your claim. I would be interested to see your citations of Catholic Monarchies that demonstrated consistent use of their power/authority for the good of all their citizens, regardless of their status. (As powerful and as strong as Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain’s rule was, I suspect Jewish people living under their reign would disagree with how ‘wonderful’ their rule was.)
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Jews were not persecuted by Ferdinand and Isabella. Canon law didn’t apply to Jews in Spain, only to Catholics. Now, Jews did sometimes have to deal with discrimination / persecution from lay commoners, but not from the throne. Actually, one of the reasons for the Spanish Inquisition was to protect heretics and other religions from mob violence.
 
One of the best books I’ve ever read on the influence of the Catholic Faith on civilization is Hilaire Belloc’s Europe and the Faith, after which comes Belloc’s The Servile State.

The fact is that we live in a Plutocracy and our votes count for nothing. Besides, in a stable distributist society, governed by just laws, there wouldn’t be the need to constantly be tweaking this law or that. People would just live their lives.
 
CommonWeal said:
The fact is that we live in a Plutocracy and our votes count for nothing. Besides, in a stable distributist society, governed by just laws, there wouldn’t be the need to constantly be tweaking this law or that. People would just live their lives.
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You could join one of the Old Order plain sects and live as an Amishman or a Mennonite.

As for the OP, nope. I would not want to live under any sort of monarchy. I’m too much of an American.
 
madtom said:
do you have a source for this by any chance?
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I heard it first from a baptist and then read it somewhere in Ben Franklin’s letters I believe.

I believe George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson may have all made similar remarks/comments.

The idea is that our laws and constitution were written and based on Christian values and natural law; thus a lack of Christian values can distort the intended meaning of the Constitution.

For example, the “separation of church and state” wasn’t meant to keep God out of the public square, but merely to solidify that the nation is not tied to one specific denomination. Notice the wording is “separation of ‘church’ and state” not “religion and state”

Also the founding fathers would have never been able to argue that so called same sex marriage was allowed by the Constitution (with or without the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.)

Laws were written with the understanding that they were based on Christian morals and values (aka the Bible), which is almost every law firm has a copy of the Bible in their library plus the classics like St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, etc in their libraries too
 
phil19034 said:
Jews were not persecuted by Ferdinand and Isabella. Canon law didn’t apply to Jews in Spain, only to Catholics. Now, Jews did sometimes have to deal with discrimination / persecution from lay commoners, but not from the throne. Actually, one of the reasons for the Spanish Inquisition was to protect heretics and other religions from mob violence.
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So the expulsion of the Jewish people from Spain was supposed to be a sort of holiday invitation and Jews just misunderstood? The ‘leave, convert or die’ bit was a mistranslation or something?
 
Kaninchen said:
So the expulsion of the Jewish people from Spain was supposed to be a sort of holiday invitation and Jews just misunderstood? The ‘leave, convert or die’ bit was a mistranslation or something?
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No, it wasn’t some sort of holiday or anything. But it was far more complex.

Spain was a melting pot, Christians, Muslims & Jews, having the largest Jewish population in the world. In 1391, anti-Jewish riots started, which lead to conversions of Jews.

However, Spain had a caste system, so as with many groups in Spanish society back then, Jewish converts from the 1390s were labeled as “conversos.” Even children who were born Catholic, but who’s parents were conversos were considered a converso.

Now, the Spain was a Catholic nation so Canon Law was secular law if you were Catholic. So if you were a baptized Catholic, it would be illegal to be considered a heretic. Older Catholic families were sometimes (if not often) suspicious of Conversos as being heretics.

So towards the end of the 15th century, as people were taking the law into their own hands, the Spanish Inquisition was called to investigate the Conversos, who were Baptized Catholics (and most of them born Catholic by this time). Jews were not part of the Inquisition, unless they were accused of proselytizing (mainly the Conversos).

The Inquisition was meant to end the mass mobs and people taking matters into their own hands. But civil unrest was too great by the 1492, so the King and Queen decided to end the “multi-cultural” / “multi-religious” nature of the kingdom, forcing all non Christians to convert or leave the kingdom.

It was not the finest hour, but it is also greatly misunderstood and was used by enemies of Spain and the Catholic Church (namely England) as a way spread hate against Spain and the Church.

Read more here for free: catholic.com/magazine/articles/secrets-of-the-spanish-inquisition-revealed

or you can purchase this MD3 on the Inquisition: saintjoe.net/fire-and-sword-crusade-inquisition-mp3/

God Bless
 
phil19034 said:
I heard it first from a baptist and then read it somewhere in Ben Franklin’s letters I believe.

I believe George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson may have all made similar remarks/comments.

The idea is that our laws and constitution were written and based on Christian values and natural law; thus a lack of Christian values can distort the intended meaning of the Constitution.

For example, the “separation of church and state” wasn’t meant to keep God out of the public square, but merely to solidify that the nation is not tied to one specific denomination. Notice the wording is “separation of ‘church’ and state” not “religion and state”

Also the founding fathers would have never been able to argue that so called same sex marriage was allowed by the Constitution (with or without the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.)

Laws were written with the understanding that they were based on Christian morals and values (aka the Bible), which is almost every law firm has a copy of the Bible in their library plus the classics like St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, etc in their libraries too
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oh, I wasn’t questioning you. in fact, I make the same argument you do. However, there are few, if any, actual quotes of the founding fathers that prove the point so I was hoping you had an actual source. Most of their writings that I’ve seen are ambiguous in terms of their thoughts on Judeo-Christian values and tradition specifically. They clearly believed in a “Creator” and a supreme being from whom we receieve our rights, but their views on Christianity itself is not so clear.
 
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