The Role of the Church in Society Introduction Why is there a Church? The Church exists in every society.

You can travel the world and find the Church in every one of the 160 sovereign nations that exist today. Why? Every society, which honors basic human rights, has a role for the Church and the State. In this segment we are going to talk about the role of the Church in society. In another segment we will discuss the role of the State. Have you noticed that every city and county seat has both a Church and a courthouse? In Washington, D.C., we find the nation's Capitol, together with the Catholic National Shrine, and the Episcopal National Cathedral. The Church and the State are always found together. The Church Endures While States Come and Go The past 20 centuries, the Christian centuries, provide many illustrations of Church and State relations. We will go into this more later when dealing with the state, but here it is important to note that the Church has lived with, and under, every form of civil government known to man. Nations and governments come and go. The Catholic Church endures; it is the oldest living institution known to man. We Americans celebrated our nation's bicentennial in 1976 and pride ourselves in having the longest history of a democratic country. The Catholic Church, by comparison, has a history of some 20 centuries, maintaining the same hierarchical structure, the same doctrine on faith and morals, the same sacramental system, the same Lord and Master. The Church is a living witness to Christ's promise that He would be with us until the end of time (Mt 28:20). Christ entered into our humanity and into human history when He took on our flesh, by the help of His human mother, Mary, our blessed Lady. He came among us to save us from our sins. He taught us the ways of God, a way of life that leads to eternal life in the Kingdom of God. He gave us those special helps we need to live the Christian life by giving us the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and the sacrament of Reconciliation. He established His Church to continue His mission on earth throughout the ages, generation after generation, from one culture to another. Church and State What is the difference between the Church and the State? Why can't we combine the two, or eliminate the one of the other? Recall the statement of our Lord when the Pharisees asked him if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not. He replied: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mt 22:17). Clearly there is a difference between Caesar's state and God's Church. Who gets what? What is the role of the Church and the role of the State in any society? If a healthy society requires a vibrant Church and an energetic State, what services do these two provide? What are their distinct functions? Here is a simple way to explain the different roles of the Church and State in society. The Church deals with the eternal order, our eternal salvation, which is to be found ultimately in the Kingdom of God. The State deals with the temporal order, which is concerned with the here and now, the material well-being of citizens. God made us material bodies and immortal spirits. We are incarnate spirits, and spirit-filled bodies. Both dimensions of our

being must be attented to. The spiritual well-being is by far the more important, but we cannot neglect the material needs of our bodied existence. We are really citizens of two worlds. We live on earth for 70-80 years and then die. We were created to spend eternity either with God in Heaven, or without God in Hell. The State looks after our temporal material needs. The Church must be equally concerned about getting us into Heaven, about sharing in God's eternal life. Generations of men and women have passed this way before us and are dead. The only thing that really matters to them now is whether they accomplished the purpose for which they were created. The Church continues the work of her Lord and Master. She continues His work throughout the centuries. The aspect of the Church which concerns us here is her role as a teacher and moral guide. Jesus gave His authority to teach to His Church: "All authority in heaven and on earth are mine. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Mt 28: 19-20). A Religious Mission The Second Vatican Council teaches us that "Christ gave His Church no proper mission in the political, economic or social order. The purpose He set before her is a religious one. But out of this religious mission itself came a function, a light, and an energy which can serve to structure and consolidate the human community according to the divine law" (Gaudium et spes 42). Politics and economics, then, are the prerogatives of the state. How and when does the Church get involved with the activities of the state? Church Proclaims the Moral Order The clearest articulation of this is found in Pius XI's social encyclical, Quadraqesimo anno, promulgated in 1931, when the world was in the throes of a depression. In paragraphs 41-3, Pius explains. The Church proclaims the moral order of the human universe. She is to proclaim and explain every aspect of the moral order. The moral order is somehting like the plan of an architect for a great project. God is the architect, and the human race is His great project. God has a design for His human universe. We are free agents, with intelligence and free will. We can discover the moral order and choose to abide by it, or we can ignore it and make up our own plan. Attempting to improve upon God's moral order is a dangerous undertaking. We have seen many examples of social engineering in this century alone, and know the disastrous results of Nazism, Fascism, and Marxism. The moral order is based upon the dignity of every human person. That dignity flows out of the fact that each of us is created in the image and likeness of God, with an immortal destiny. All our human rights flow out of this dignity. Only God can give us this dignity, no one else. The state does not grant us our human dignities; it can only recognize and honor them and help to protect them. Paragraph 43 of Quadragesimo anno reads as follows: For it is the moral law alone which commands us to seek in all our conduct our supreme and final end, e. g., God, and to strive directly in our specific actions for those ends which nature, or rather, the Author on Nature, has established for them, duly subordinating the particular to

the general. If this law be faithfully obeyed, the result will be that particular economic aims, whether of society as a body or of individuals, will be intimately linked with the universal final order, and as a consequence we shall be led by progressive stages to the final end of all, God Himself, our highest and lasting good. Negative Service Whenever any component of society, e.g., the economic order, a political system, education, etc., debases human dignity by violating basic human rights, the Church becomes involved. How? By upholding the full truth of the moral order and clearly calling real abuses of this by name. This is a negative, critical service of the Church. We saw examples of this when Pius XI, in 1937, wrote encyclicals highly critical of National Socialism in Germany and of atheistic Marxism in Russia. More recently we say Pope Paul VI doing this in his social encyclical On the Development of Peoples (1967), and John Paul II in his On the Social Concerns of the Church (1987). Very often, the Church is the only voice available to the poor and exploited. Positive Service Much more important is the Church's positive role in explaining and promoting the various components of a just social order. She does this through her social teaching. This is the role of Catholic social teaching. Whenever the social, political, or economic order touches the moral order, then the Church speaks out of her competency. Since the moral order affects and touches everything in society that has moral implications, the opportunities for the Church to address society are many. In this country, think of such documents as the American bishops' pastoral letter on the nuclear deterrent in 1983, The Challenge to Peace, and their pastoral letter on American capitalism in 1986, Economic Justice For All. Churchmen do not claim to have the expertise of economists, political scientists, or military strategists. Their strength lies in the moral order. As moral teachers they point to what fosters morality, and what destroys it. Like our Lord, they are a light in the darkness. The Role of the Church in Political Governance I WOULD like to start with two simple definitions. First, by Church I mean here both the individual Catholic believer and the institutional entity, which includes the Pope, the cardinals and bishops, the clergy, religious and the big group of lay faithful. Oftentimes, Church means the teaching authority or the magisterium, represented by the bishops, in our country, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). By politics or political governance I mean all activities relating to governing, guiding or building civil society. I am using for my reference The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, which has spoken about our subject under the title The Church and the Political Community (nos. 330-359). What did it say? In the Philippines today, given the general perception that politics has become an obstacle to integral development, the urgent necessity is for the lay faithful to participate more actively, with singular competence and integrity, in political affairs. It is through the laity that the Church is directly involved (PCP-II 348). This is what the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, says in his first Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est: The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society is proper to the lay

faithful. As citizens of the state, they are called to take part in public life in a personal capacity. So they cannot relinquish their participation in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good (Deus Caritas Est, 29; John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 42). Such involvement is not optional; it flows from the very core of Christian faith. Does that mean that bishops and priests have no role in political activity? The Churchs competence in passing moral judgment even in matters political has been traditionally interpreted as pertaining to the clergy. Negatively put, the clergy can teach moral doctrines covering politics but cannot actively involve themselves in partisan politics (PCP-II 340). The principle is simply that politics, like all human activities, must be exercised always in the light of faith in the Gospel. The Council states that the common good cannot be sacrificed on the flimsy pretext that the Church does not engage in politics. Concretely this means both clergy and laity must be involved in the area of politics when moral and Gospel values are at stake (344). Because, today we understand salvation in a comprehensive way, the Churchs mission includes also the temporal order. To change Philippine society, we have to change Philippine politics; in one sense, it may mean politicians must change; in another sense, we must change the politicians. It does not mean change in the form of government, but change in the ones running the government. To do this we need the concerted participation and struggle of all Filipinos of goodwill in political activity. In the language of faith and morality, it is a participation in the battle against human sinfulness, lodged deeply in Philippine politics. It is a struggle to make Gods grace and ethical principle victorious in the Philippines. As one theologian has said: the politics of guns, goons and gold must be converted into the politics of gospel, grace and God. What about the separation of Church and State enshrined in our Constitution and commonly invoked. How can we understand this? The basic purpose of this provision is that Church and State should enjoy and respect each others mutual autonomy. By this we understand that they should not interfere in each others affairs, should not seek to control each other, or allow themselves to be simply the instrument of each other. However, considering what we said earlier, this separation of Church and State cannot be used as an rgument against the participation and involvement of the Church in shaping the politics of our country. Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est states: The Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest. Building a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives that is his or her due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a political task, this cannot be the Churchs immediate responsibility. Yet, since it is a most important human responsibility, the Church is dutybound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically (no. 28).