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A (HURCH-STATE CONTROVERSY
VICT,OR R. YANITELLI
THOUGHT
to note that two objections come from such widely disparate sources as the
American Ecclesiastical Rev,iew (Father George W. Shea, "Catholic Doctrine
and 'Religion of State,'" CXXIII [1950], 161-174), and Civilta Cattolka
(Father A. Messineo, S.J., "Democrazia e liberta religiosa," CII, Vol. 11
[1951], 126-137).
Father Messineo conceives Father Murray's argument as moving in the
following steps. The modern democratic system, which seems to be founded
on the order of nature, seems to demand by virtue of its own internal
stJ ucture that libertas civilis be also extended to religious liberty, Le.,
libertas ecclesiastica, in the sense that all religions are considered equal in
such a regime and all enjoy a free play of propaganda, since any exception
to the rule, or any preference for one religion over another, would necessarily
destroy the system. If such a libertas ecclesiastica can obtain in democratic
regimes, then the state-church, or the confessional state, is not a necessary
and permanent exigence of Catholic principles. It becomes a purely contingent, constitutional concept rather than a dogmatic absolute. It acquires
a dependence on history that excludes it from the immutable essence of
Catholic doctrine.
Having established his concept of the argument, Father Messineo attacks
the implications contained in it. As he sees it, any harmony to be had
between the Church and state would, in the light of the recently proposed
thesis, have to proceed not from thc nature of Church and state as perfect
and independent societies each in its own proper domain of the spiritual
and temporal orders, but rather through the middle term of the individual
person who is at once both civis and ch~istianus. Such an approach seems
to hirn to go contrary to the teachings of Pope Leo XIII, who posited the
problem in the framework of reference existing between the Sa!cerdotium and
the Imperium, or, in other words, on the unity which Maritain depicted as
prevailing in the sacral age of medieval Christendom.
Father Messineo states further that "the principle of political-religious
organization would then be deduced from the primacy of the spiritual element
in human nature which is intimately connected with the fundamental right
of the human person to have an existing concordia between the two powers
to which it is subject under different aspects." This diarchy residing in
the person, he claims, would destroy the indirect power of the Church to
interfere in state matters pertaining to justice or morality because the
Church could not make contact with thel state except through the medium
of the individual.
He objects to the idea of the necessity of the "lay" or "secular" state
(not the "laicized" or "secularized" state), and to the reduction of the statements of Leo XIII to a mere polemic against Continental Liberalism. He
implies that the "lay" state could not be in harmony with the designs of
God's Providence and he states clearly that the pronouncements of Leo XIII
were made not only with polemic intention but also with doctrinaI content.
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THOUGHT
CHURCH-STATE CONTROVERSY
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Catholic principles "as it appeared on the dissolution of medieval Christendom, took form in the era of political absolutism, flourished in the era of
'confessional absolutism' . . . under the royal governments in the 'Catholic
nations' of post-Reformation Europe, and sought reinstatement in the monarchie restorations of the nineteenth century." Therefore, he concludes that
the state-ehurch does not represent a permanent and unalterable exigence
of Catholie principles because it too was no more than an adaptation to a
particular historical context.
Carefully distinguishing the modern democratic. state from the special
types which followed in the wake of the French Revolution and of Continental Liberalism, the argument proceeds to the modern democratic state
whieh represents a new legitimate political and social development for which
the Church must make a new adaptation of her immutable principles. "Consequently, the theological task of the moment is not simply to carry on the
polemic against Continental Liberalism. It is also to explore, under the
guidanee of the Church, the possibilities of a vital adaptation of ChurchState doctrine to the eonstitutional structure, the political institutions, and
the ethos of freedom characteristic of the democratic state. To this task the
theologian is urged by Pius XII's affirmation of the validity of the demoeratic development and the new concept of 'the people' it has brought into
being."
This statement of Father Murray's follows a remarkably trenchant paragraph on Christian Democraey:
Democracy today presents itself with a11 the force of an idea whose time has come.
And there are two reasons why it is the present task of Catholics to work toward the
purification of the liberal tradition (which is their own real tradition) and of the
democratic form of state in which it finds expression, by restoring both the idea and the
institutions of democracy to their proper Christian foundations. First, this form of
state is presently nlan's best, and possibly 1ast, hope of human freedom. Secondly, this
form of state presently offers to the Church as a spiritual power as good a hope of
freedom as she has ever had; it oflers to the Church as the Christian people a means,
through its free political institutions, of achieving harmony between law and social
organization and the demands of their Christian conscience; finally, by reason of its
aspirations towards an order of personal and associational freedom, political equality,
civic friendship, social justice, and cultural advancement, it offers to the Church the kind
of co-operation which she presently needs, and it merits in turn her co-operation in
thc realization of its own aspirations.
448
THOUGHT
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450
THOUGHT
Speaking of the modern state fulfilling its obligation, Father Fenton says:
"The method is not important. The principle is important. The application
of the principle may be termed an 'adaptation,' but only with the understanding that this term in no way implies achanging of Catholic teaching
itself." A sense of deep puzzlenlent arises after one has read Father Murray's
discussion of principles "permanently controlling, . . . of themselves transtemporal, . . . necessarily exigent in all temporal situations," and then notes
Father Fenton's insistence that principles may be applied or "adapted" providing that there is not implied a change in Catholic teaching.
Father Murray mentions in his reply to Father Shea that "in the popular
mind the Church, which is the horne of freedom and the last bulwark of the
rights of man, has become identified, not with freedom but with governmental coercion." This statement of fact serves as the initial springboard
from which Father Fenton launches into a discussion of how the "ranters
who are now campaigning against the Church in this country" can twist and
distort this teaching and other dogmas for their own ends and he
concludes that the twisting or the misstating "is no reason why the truths
themselves should be abandoned or soft-pedaled." Students of rhetoric will
recognize here a perfect example of ignoratio elenchi, a missing of the point,
especially in a case where there is no question of "abandoning" or "softpedaling" the truth, but rather of searching for it.
Next, Father Fenton picks up the phrase Hinc illae lacrimae and derives
from it "some hitherto unknown American who has spilled tears in reading
works of this sort" (i.e., books de iure publico which do not distinguish
between the Continental and the American idea of democracy). However,
he says not a word as to whether the books do or do not make the distinction.
A relatively large amount of space is devoted to "the most important feature of Fr. Murray's article . . . his plea that the state, properly speaking,
cannot perform an act of religion. He (Fr. Murray) speaks of the state as 'a
set of institutions,' and as 'a symboL'" Then comes the statement that
Father Murray is using "tbe terminology of anti-scholastic theorists of
law." It is to be noted again' that Father Fenton rejects Father Murray's
definition of the state without any consideration of the argument by which
Father Murray proposed it. Yet, by some incredible leap, his last paragraph
calls for a "statement of the various. definitions of the state now current in
non-scholastic literature, so that our scholars. may understand the meaning
of the sometimes strange-sounding statements about civil society (and about
the Church itself)." He does not say which or whose "terminology of antischolastic theorists of law" Father Murray uses. Nor does he state which
terms precisely are anti-scholastic.
Finally, Father Fenton speaks of "Fr. Murray's anxiety to overthrow the
teaching of the manuals on this question," of "his (Fr. Murray's) opposition
to this literature," of "the proponents of the new theory" who "have not
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