Bishops holding political office

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Fets said:
I mean, that has to be some pretty new Canon Law then. Just saying. Certainly a discipline or a doctrine but not a dogma. Definitely subject to change.
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Only disciplines can be changed.
 
CRM_Brother said:
Technically, the Bishop of Urgell is Co-Prince and reigning monarch of the country of Andorra and has a representative (a priest) as his personal representative in the government. It is one of the smallest countries in the world in both size and population and is more of a figurehead than a political position as the other co-prince is the President of France. The political leader of Andorra is considered to be Head of Government, elected by their legislative parliament, the General Council.
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True, but that’s different because both the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France do not live in Andorra. They are both figureheads with no real power.

Can. 285 §3 Clerics are forbidden to assume public office whenever it means sharing in the exercise of civil power.
 
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Deacons can receive permission to hold office from their bishop.

The higher the office, the less likely the bishop will permit it.

Deacon Christopher
 
Either you did not read my post thoroughly, or you are trying to put words in my mouth. I never said anything even close to “the Church was wrong the whole time”.

There is a phrase: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. I am not saying that either, but anyone who has read history can point to numerous times where church leaders were corrupted by power. And it is not for no reason that some historieans have posited that at least some of the strength of the Protestant Revolution can be attributed to northern princes taking up the cause as a reaction to the power, politically, which the Church swung at the time. Subjective opinion and not objective fact? I hardly think so.

And your use of the word “relinquished” as to the Papal States is not the history I have read; it was not for no reason the Pope declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican. The unification of Italy liquidated the Papal States and in 1870 Pius IX issued blanket excommunications of the Italian nationalists (so much for “recognizing Italy” - that came 59 years later )and came to see himself as a “prisoner of the Vatican”. It was 59 years later, with the establishment of the present day Vatican City that any pope left the precincts of the Vatican. “Relinquishment” of the Papal States? That had nothing to do with the matter. It was a revolt.

And well prior to that the Church had been losing property throughout Europe - and if you want some history of that, read about the French Revolution - although that by no means sums up the political actions and reactions to the Church. Leading up to Vatican 1 had been the conflation of politics and theology, with multitudes conflating the two.

You might want to read a bit more history. In no way to I suggest that the Church should have no voice in the public square; but there is a vast gap between moral authority and exercising political power.
 
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Joe_5859 said:
I have the text electronically via Verbum.
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Huh. Maybe I should have gone that route instead of buying the hard-copy…

Anyway, I guess I’ll just say that there was a distinction there, in CIC/17’s c. 139, between exercising civil jurisdiction and being elected senator and/or some office where civil laws are passed. The former is akin to being a judge in a civil court or a governor/president, while the latter is akin to Congress or a legislature. The former required permission of the Holy See, the latter the permission of local ordinary/ordinaries. The Holy See, by the way, did expect that local ordinaries would be strict/severe in granting such permission. There was a synod of bishops … in 1971 (I think), that put out a document that some could say appeared to want to open up more possibilities for clerics to enter public office. It was (in my view) one of those all-too-common, 1960s-1970s “you shouldn’t do this but maybe it’s not all bad and maybe you can figure it out for yourself” sort of statements. It was perhaps this document that made some clerics/ordinaries think it was a-ok to run for office. John Paul II, clearly, thought otherwise.

I think the two corresponding laws in the old and new Codes are practically the same.

Dan
 
Thank you for that further explanation and background info. 👍 I admit, parsing out what the canons are saying in this case is a bit over my head. 😊
 
Yes, this has been established on the thread. There are two Prince-Bishops left…remnants of a bygone era when many bishops were also secular princes: the Bishop of Urgell as Co-Prince of Andorra and the Bishop of Rome as Monarch of the Vatican City State.
Both Catholic and Orthodox bishops have served as secular rulers in the past.
 
It is not; he serves God…in both capacities.
 
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otjm said:
Either you did not read my post thoroughly, or you are trying to put words in my mouth. I never said anything even close to “the Church was wrong the whole time”.
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I do apologize, because I find many peole put words in my mouth on CAF.

This is what you said: “It took the Church centuries to learn that being involved in politics, directly or indirectly (as a member of the Court) was not what the Church was set up to accomplish.”

Are you saying that even though the Church wasn’t set up to do that, that it was not wrong? Because I would agree with you. The Church was set up to save souls. And one need only argue that the Church’s involvement in temporal government saved souls for it to have been efficacious. Maybe it became less so over time.
 
otjm said:
some historieans have posited that at least some of the strength of the Protestant Revolution can be attributed to northern princes taking up the cause as a reaction to the power, politically, which the Church swung at the time. Subjective opinion and not objective fact? I hardly think so.
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Even that statement could be used as an argument for temporal power. The Protestants had their princes as well, as did we. Most of the rulers at the time were still secular, but were either Catholic or Protestant. And only allowed Catholics or Protestants in their lands for some time. That’s how it was. If the Church was wrong to hold political power, the Protestants certainly offered nothing different. They wanted the same. That’s what the Northern Princes were.
 
LOL. First of all, I’m a student of history. I knew every single thing you spake about the Papal States ending. 59 years later? What year would that have been in? IT WAS IN THE YEAR 1929 THAT I SPOKE! I SAID IT WAS IN THE YEAR 1929! That was what I was talking about. The Pope recognized Italy in that year and he relinquished his claim to most of the Papal States with a few exceptions which they still control today, from the donation of Pepin. In what way does any of that have any bearing on what I said, or make it wrong?

The Pope relinquished the Papal States only 90 years. Indeed, after being a Prisoner in the Vatican, which I will again say that I already knew. How dare you tell me to read more history. What a ridiculous thing to say to me.

“Relinquishment”, you put it in quotes, as if I said that word. To be clear, you’re the one saying that word. I used the word “relinquished”, for clarity.

“It was a revolt”? Like what is that referring to? When Italian forces took the Papal States from the Pope? There certainly wasn’t ‘a revolt’ in 1929. That’s when the Pope relinquished his claims to the Papal States. He was also compensated for them.

The French Revolution. Never heard of that. Idk why you want to talk about 1789 and how that’s relevant to 1929. Oh, because you think I have no idea of anything happening in European history?

Well, there were also ultramontanists in French history. They argued against the Church giving up its temporal power, and they weren’t wrong. That is to say, their view was an equally valid poltiical position to hold. Just as it remains today. The Church doesn’t definitively say that its involvement in politics was wrong, and it doesn’t preclude that it can’t again act like that in the future.

That was my point. And my point stands. And you’ve done nothing except choose to rant about history and say that I don’t know anything about history.

“in no way to :rofl:I suggest that the Church should have no voice in the public square” - well, there’s a vast difference between that teaching today and how the Church acted in the past. Its the difference between the ultramontanists and gallicanism, and the other liberalizing forces which ultimately won out. Both positions are historically valid. And, I have no knowledge of any Church documents or teaching which definitively weigh in on it.

Yeah, so I should bold “I suggest”, because its you suggesting. Who cares? The Church allows both. In practice, most people in the Church have the opinion that temporal power wouldn’t be such a great thing right now. But thats just an opinion.

My point still stands. All you did was insult my knowledge of history. So, thank you.

I had to delete my quote of you, because it wouldn’t let me use all of my response.
 
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Some excellent answers so far.

It sounds like in the case of a bishop as I asked in the OP, he could probably just grant himself permission, if indeed there was any rule against it at the time.

I haven’t yet reached 1917 in the podcast, so that Code of Canon Law was not yet in effect.
 
Here’s the latest example, although this was a priest: Anton Korošec founded the Slovene People’s Party. He and his party were instrumental in getting the uneasy cooperation/rivalry of Serbs and Croats to move toward a combined south Slavic kingdom (Yugoslavia), envisioned at the time as a third component in the Empire of Austria and Hungary.

He later became education minister, vice president, and prime minister of the new kingdom - by the time he took these posts, I think the 1917 code had been promulgated.

From the Wikipedia article,
Towards the end of his life, he openly spoke out against Freemasonry, Communism as well as Judaism
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So there’s that.
 
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There have been a number of priests and bishops who have gotten involved in partisan politics. They were all suspended. Most of them were laicized. Pope Francis recently returned the faculties to one who is on his deathbed.
 
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