Benedict XVI: Separation of Church and State “a specific achievement of Christianity”
It’s a curious assertion by the pope, it seems to me, but it is the headline in the ZENIT report on Benedict’s address to the new ambassador to the Holy See from the Philippines. Here’s the full quote:
“The Catholic Church is eager to share the richness of the Gospel’s social message, for it enlivens hearts with a hope for the fulfilment of justice and a love that makes all men and women truly brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. She carries out this mission fully aware of the respective autonomy and competence of Church and State. Indeed, we may say that the distinction between religion and politics is a specific achievement of Christianity and one of its fundamental historical and cultural contributions.”
I know Ratzinger is a great proponent of the “hermeneutic of continuity” rather than “rupture,” but this statement seems to elide a lot of history. Like, a lot. What am I missing? Any ideas on his thinking? As I write this, I am reflecting on Ratzinger’s passion for Augustine–I think of Benedict as a church “primevalist”–so perhaps that’s the well he’s drawing from. Ressourcement, toujours ressourcement!
It seems toe that the distinction between Church and state was at least implicit in the Arsitotelian medievals. For instance, Robert Grossetete, an English theologian, held that if a king were a tyrant it might even be the duty of the people to depose him, but this would not imply “deposing” the Church. For Thomas too the authority of rulers derived from the will of the people, while the authority of the Church derived directly from God.
At any rate, I don’ t think that when Church and state are recognized as justified by different authoeities that they must necessarily be either separate or somehow united
Maybe this is a half-truth. Starting with the Gregorian reform in the 11th C. the pope worked to free the church from the state, and this was a partial success. The reformers based this separtion on the “two swords” from the gospel. One sword for the emperor and one for the pope.
It is true in this sense: the separtion of church and state only developed in the west, and could not have happened without Christianity. But, in Byzantium, they had Christianity but never developed a separation of church and state. So, something happened in the West along with Christianity to create separtion, and that something was the pope.
But, separation in the modern sense, of freeing the state from the church, seems more an enlightenment product.
The “two swords” proposition goes back even earlier than medieval period, I believe (will do actual research later), but wasn’t the “spiritual sword” always superior? In any case, the reality of history seems to run counter to the “don’t tread on me” prrinciple.
Augustine is so complicated that most do not get it right about him. His retractions are one thing but the reality seems to be that he insisted on the separation of church and state even if he used the soldiers to arrest and jail heretics. Robert Marcus, in his solid (and expensive) book “Saeculum” argues that Augustine sharply distinguished between the secular and the spiritual even before the Sack of Rome. Certainly, many church historians interpreted Augustine differently. Some popes, quoting Augustine, claimed dominion over the secular and the spiritual.
Unfortunately, it might be too late at night for me to review all this. But it is notable that Augustine wrote so much and is interpreted in so many ways that each time he is discussed one has to review everything just to get close. Hopefully, I will go over “Saeculum” again and make my point clearer.
Thanks, Bill–look forward to anything else you mine from that.
Don’t we have to take care to differentiate between separating religious and secular authority on the one hand, and the disestablishment of religion on the other hand? As I understand things, only the latter is what should be meant by the separation of church and state, yet much of what is described above is only the former. Even when there is a distinction between religious and secular authority, it has often been the case that religious authorities will still try to have specific ethical and even religious commitments written into law to be enforced by secular governments. Under such a regime, the followers of the dominant religion gain a status within the citizenry that is denied to those who do not follow the dominant religion, even if that status is sometimes more implicit than explicit.
I take it that some form of this problem is what ails some Muslim nations that portray themselves as democracies. While there may be greater or lesser degrees of toleration for other religions, it remains the case that some form of Islam is established within secular law (exactly which form of Islam, Sunni or Shi’a, can be a source of bloody conflict). Until Islam itself is disestablished from the law, I do not think that such nations would have acheived the separation of church and state, and I also doubt that they would want to. However, I also think that disestablishment is the sine qua non of democracy.
Maybe what the Pope means is that Christianity is distinctive in finally accomodating itself willingly to the disestablishment of religion, after centuries of resistance. If so, then it remains that case that only some forms of Christianity would be be content with such accomodation.
What would Pio Nono make of all this? Boniface VIII? Innocent III? I guess there is continuity and then there is continuity.
David, a good place to check would be Brian Tierney’s Investiture Conflict docs book. I don’t have time to look, but I think the Emperor’s guys first pointed out the two swords to defend their power, but then it backfired when the pope’s guys interpreted the spiritual sword bit.
If you look at the rest of the world, the distinction between politics and religion is definitely a western development, and it was mostly settled in the middle ages, despite their misreading of Augustine.
How explain the Papal States? Joe Gannon’s skepticism is on target, but…
I’m more interested in the interactions of BXVI in his “engagement” with folk like Sarkozsy and other major European figures.
I’d recommend, for those who are interested, Murray’s chapter “Two There Are”, in We Hold These Truths. The chapter title comes from a 5th century letter from Pope Gelasius I to Emperor Anastasius I (“Two there are, august Emperor, by which this world is ruled on title of original and sovereign right–the consecrated authority of the priesthood and the royal power.”) The Pope’s address is consistent with ideas he’s been proposing for a while now. In “The Salt of the Earth” (1997), he said that “separation is ultimately a primordial Christian legacy and also a decisive factor for freedom.”
If the state is genuinely autonomous, what becomes of Christendom as an ideal, of which, if remember aright, we heard not long ago from Cardinal George?
What of popes who have claimed the power to depose secular rulers?
What exasctly is meant by the “distinction between religion and politics”? Is the Pope saying that the political is an autonomous sphere? Machiavelli would be delighted to hear this, I suspect.
I heartily second Bill Mazzella’s recommendation of Robert Markus’ work on the subject. Markus goes over much of the same material of “Saeculum” in his more recent “Christianity and the Secular” (Notre Dame, 2006) taken from his John XXIII lectures at the University Notre Dame.
Matthew Kraus whose review of a book of essays I cite below, writes in that review: “Ever since Marrou discussed saeculum as the “condition and ends of human life in time,” scholars have transcended physical notions of the secular. According to Peter Brown, saeculum in Augustine represents ‘existence’, “the sum total of human experience,” while Markus attributes to Augustine the idea that particular realms have ambiguous being because true history is the conflict between the City of God and the city of human beings.” Certainly, according to Marcus, Augustine was not for a church state. But his use of the secular arm does raise questions.
Kraus further comments that Augustine contradicts himself by using the state to corral other Christians while Marcus does not seem troubled by it. Trying to figure out Augustine is no easy task as the contradictory essays show. One essayist proposed that Augustine shows the Anglican Church as the true church.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2001/2001-07-15.html
Incidentally, wonder if Benedict is aware that Filipino priests have a reputation of being sexual aggressors with nuns. Some convents in the Philippines will not allow a priest come for Mass because of the sexual exploitation of nuns.
I also found this curious site talking about San Tommaso Rome. http://www.buzzle.com/boards.asp?board=238&message=72175
Has any of our Roman travelers ever heard of this?
I note that while in the previous sentence the Pope does refer to “the separation of Church and State,” the sentence about the distinctive Christian contribution speaks of “the distinction of religion and politics,” not the same thing. J.C. Murray was also of this view; he liked to quote Pope Gelasius: “Two there are…” Pope Benedict cannot be unaware of the long history of conflicts between the religious authorities and the political authorities, nor to the fact that confusion could be caused from either side. In his famous speech on the interpretation of Vatican II, he used the Council’s teaching on religious freedom as exemplifying what he called “the hermeneutics of reform” (NOT “of continuity,” though he is often mistakenly thought to have used this phrase), which he defines as “continuity and discontinuity at different levels.” He speaks of the conciliar teaching on the matter as at once a fundamental Yes to an important principle of modernity and a return to the Gospel and to the example of the martyrs.
I thought that distinction, or shift, between “state” and “politics” an interesting one, but wasn’t sure what to make of it. There’s a real possibility of making all too much of any such statement of course, especially as this is an address to an incoming ambassador, not a text of high importance even for Benedict, who I believe likes to write his own material as much as possible. I hear he is loosening up a bit, and perhaps this is the kind of speech that would be farmed off to a sub-section official–but said official would also likely be careful to hew to the ppe’s own thoughts/words in any such formulation, and Benedict would certainly read the text beforehand.
It does sound like his approach to such issues, in that he is not likely to examine the church’s record in the way John Paul II might have. I do think the statement elides much or perhaps glosses a complex and hardly complimentary church history with a defensible statement of principle. One could of course cite the recent “render unto Caesar” Gospel reading and say Christianity “invented” the separation of church and state, and you’d be right. Sort of. The beauty of Catholicism in particular is that over 2,000 years one can find a justification for just about any position in the annals of papal writings or the church fathers.
Thanks for the many enlightening comments and citations.
With reference to separation of Church and State is is interesting that at one time Ratzinger and John Paul II aligned themselves with the theocons in this country. This relationships seems to have ruptured in the Iraq war when Rome took the path of peace while the famous spokesmen for the theocons made special trips to Rome to persuade Rome otherwise. It is something that Rome came out clearly against the US aggression even if John Paul II granted W an ambiguos meeting in an election year.
Was the pressure in Europe too much or did Rome just get fed up with Americana. Or maybe W’s “manifest destiny” of America was the last straw. http://www.cjd.org/paper/jp2war.html
Relevant also is the conclusion of Cafardi, Kaveny and Kmiec response to Weigel in Newsweek: “…we recommend he (Weigel) start by asking the same question of himself in terms of coerced taxpayer support for an unjust and unjustifiable war in Iraq costing over $10 billion a month and thousands of Iraqi and American lives, which Weigel aided and abetted with his vocal support, contrary to the express prayers of the Holy Father he called “a witness to hope.”