Here’s Pope Benedict XVI from Deus Caritas Est 28a (bold mine):I think it is very important to understand the teachings of our Church.
First and foremost is that the “Syllabus” itself was not magisterial.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) referred to the Vatican II Constitution Gaudium et Spes as a** “counter-syllabus”.**
I believe it is very important to accept the teachings of the Church. To do that one must UNDERSTAND what the teachings of the Church and not simply quote documents that are not in fact a teaching.
I have always thought that a rational and objective government would do very well having a majority of Christians (particularly Catholic) as its citizens. The government could remain secular and not recognize any national religion…but support the ideals and principals of Catholicism.Here’s Pope Benedict XVI from Deus Caritas Est 28a (bold mine):
For her part, the Church, as the social expression of Christian faith, has a proper independence and is structured on the basis of her faith as a community which the State must recognize. The two spheres are distinct, yet always interrelated.
You can’t take the Syllabus as a stand alone document–it’s whole purpose is to point to other documents. As I mentioned in an earlier post, regarding #55, Acerbissimum is a consistorial address by the Pope concerning the situation at the time in New Grenada—it is not universal in scope. There you had a completely Catholic population where the government became anti-clerical, persecuted the Church, and encouraged other sects to come in and displace Catholics to break up the influence of the Church there. In a situation where you have a country unified in the Catholic faith, forcing the dissolution of that unity and the abandonment of those unified principles is contrary to the common good.Bl. Pope Pius IX
See the syllabus of errors #55.
Pope Pius XII summarized these principles in the following address:
- 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.
%20-%20ocr.pdf See pg.220Vi è, in Italia, ehi si agita, perchè teme che il cristianesimo tolga a Cesare quel che è di Cesare.
Come se dare a Cesare quello che gli appartiene, non fosse un comando di Gesù ; come se la legittima sana laicità dello Stato non fosse uno dei principi della dottrina cattolica; come se non fosse tradizione della Chiesa il continuo sforzo per tenere distinti, ma pure, sempre secondo i retti principi, uniti i due Poteri ; come se, invece, la mescolanza tra sacro e profano non si fosse il più fortemente verificata nella storia, quando una porzione di fedeli si è staccata dalla Chiesa. Le città saranno parte viva della Chiesa, se in esse la vita dei singoli, la vita delle famiglie, la vita delle grandi e piccole collettività, sarà alimentata dalla dottrina di Gesù Cristo, che è amore di Dio ed è, in Dio, amore del prossimo, tutto.
[my rough translation]
There is in Italy agitation because of fears that Christianity will take away from Caesar what is Caesar’s.
As if to give to Caesar what belongs to him, was not a command of Jesus; as if the sound, legitimate secular state was not one of the principles of Catholic doctrine; as if it was not the tradition of the Church’s ongoing effort to keep separate, but also, according to the right principles, together the two Powers; as if, instead, the result of the mixture of the sacred and the profane was not strongly verified in history, when a portion of the faithful broke away from the Church. The city will be a living part of the Church, if the lives of individuals, family life, the life of large and small communities will be powered by the doctrine of Jesus Christ, which is total love of God and, in God, love of neighbor.
This is generally considered as the best practical result in pluralistic societies. Once a society is sufficiently evangelized enough to consent to a juridically Catholic state, then such a juridical arrangement may be desirable. But this is ultimately secondary to the state governing by true principles (better to have the state govern with true principles, but not juridically establish the Church, than to have it govern according to false principles, but juridically establish the Church).The Church, indeed, deems it unlawful to place the various forms of divine worship on the same footing as the true religion, but does not, on that account, condemn those rulers who, for the sake of securing some great good or of hindering some great evil, allow patiently custom or usage to be a kind of sanction for each kind of religion having its place in the State.
The Church has every right to inform its followers about issues of the day and their duty to participate in the political process. It does not tell us who to vote for but asks us to view all issues in line with right reason and their moral impact.First, there is not separation of Church and State. There is Freedom of Religion. They are different.
Second: I firmly believe that the Church has no business influencing political campaigns or politicians. You cannot make faith law, and I don’t really care what any of the Holy Fathers or Cardinals or anyone else says about that. Politics and Religion don’t mix.
Religion is a choice and people should have the right to live according to their faith. That is what our Freedom OF Religion is about. That means we can be Muslim, Mormon, Catholic or Buddhist if we wish and the Government cannot discriminate against us because of it or tell us how to practice our faith.
I sincerely think the Church would be stronger and more effective if she focused on being the Church of Christ then worrying about appeasing politicians or influencing political matters. If the people of God lived as He commanded we would not need so many laws in the first place, and the government would not have so much power over us. We need to change our focus a bit.
And folks need to get it right when it comes to the notion of “Separation of Church and State.” That has never been in the constitution of this country. Freedom of Religion has been and is. And it is not Freedom From Religion either.