In view of the uproar caused by Pope Francis’ decision to alter the text of the Catechism on the death penalty, it may be helpful to pause and consider the magisterial weight or degree of teaching authority exercised by the pope in promulgating this text and the corresponding response due to this teaching on the part of the faithful. The three levels of magisterial authority are outlined in the concluding formula of the Profession of Faith as follows:

With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.

I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.

Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.[1]

The first two paragraphs refer to the infallible teaching of the Church, which is proposed either as contained in divine revelation and so “to be believed as divinely revealed” (first paragraph) or as at least connected to divine revelation and so “definitively to be held” (second paragraph). The third paragraph refers to the authentic (that is, authoritative) but not infallible teaching of the pope or bishops.

The pope teaches infallibly only when he fulfills the requirements set forth by the First Vatican Council.[2] These requirements are essentially three, pertaining to the subject, object, and act of the teaching.[3] (1) On the part of the subject, the pope must be speaking as supreme head of the universal Church and not merely as a private person or a local bishop; (2) on the part of the object, the pope must be speaking about a matter of faith or morals; (3) and on the part of the act itself, the pope must define the doctrine by a definitive act.[4]

Magisterial Weight of the New Text of the Catechism

In the present case, there is no great difficulty in recognizing that Pope Francis was acting in an official capacity as supreme head of the Church when he approved the new text of the Catechism n. 2267 and ordered it to be inserted into all editions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is intended as a teaching document for the whole Church. And there seems to be no doubt that the text in question has to do with matters of faith and morals, for the death penalty pertains in itself to morals and the teaching is proposed explicitly “in the light of the Gospel”[5] and in the context of an exposition of the Fifth Commandment. But with respect to the third requirement, there does not seem to be any evidence of the definitive mode of proclamation that is required for infallibility. The burden of proof would in any case be on anyone who wanted to assert that it does constitute an infallible definition.[6]

But just because it is not infallible does not mean that it is not authoritative. The conditions for authoritative (or authentic) papal teaching are less stringent than for infallible papal teaching. For authentic papal teaching it is enough for the pope, acting in an official capacity as pope, to propose a teaching regarding faith or morals even if not by a definitive act. The rescript, therefore, by which the new text of the Catechism on the death penalty was published on August 2, 2018, is an act of the authentic papal magisterium, which calls for a religious submission of will and intellect on the part of all the faithful.[7]

Religious Submission of Will and Intellect

The nature of this religious submission of will and intellect corresponds to the nature of the authentic but non-definitive magisterium: because the teaching is authoritative, it calls for a genuine internal assent; but because the teaching is not definitive, the nature of the assent will be provisional. In other words, it will have more the character of opinion rather than knowledge, since the doctrine is to be accepted as true, though with the awareness that it could possibly be false.[8]

However, although this religious submission is normally due to the teaching of the authentic magisterium, it may legitimately be withheld in certain cases.[9] To do so merely on the basis of one’s own private judgment would certainly be rash and dangerous, but assent must be withheld when the teaching in question openly conflicts with the public dogma or definitive doctrine of the Church. For in the case of conflicting obligations, precedence must always be given to the stricter obligation; and the obligation to give definitive assent to the irreformable doctrines of the infallible Church is a stricter obligation than the religious submission due to the non-infallible teaching of the authentic magisterium. (And it is not possible to assent simultaneously to contradictory propositions.)

The duty of religious submission to the authentic teaching of the Holy Father, therefore, is very much like the duty of children to obey their parents. Just as children have a duty to obey their parents in all things unless their parents command them to violate the law of God, so too Catholics have a duty to assent to all things taught by the authentic papal magisterium unless the pope should teach something contrary to a truth revealed by God himself or infallibly taught by the Church as pertaining to divine revelation. And just as children must obey the higher law of God even when it means disobedience to their parents, so Catholics must believe and hold the dogmas and definitive doctrines of the Church even if this means withholding assent from a given instance of authentic papal teaching.

Magisterial Weight of the Traditional Catholic Teaching

Now the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church is that the death penalty is in principle legitimate,[10] which means that it is not intrinsically immoral. And this traditional teaching is absolutely unchangeable, for it is a dogma of divine and catholic faith.[11]

A dogma is a doctrine contained in divine revelation (Scripture or Tradition) which has been proposed as such by the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal magisterium.[12] Now the legitimacy in principle of the death penalty is clearly taught in Scripture. For example: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image” (Gen 9:6).[13] Nor may any Catholic legitimately dispute this interpretation of Scripture, for the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are unanimous in interpreting Scripture (especially Gen 9:6 and Rom 13:4) as affirming the legitimacy in principle of the death penalty as a matter of justice.[14] And it is never permitted for any Catholic to interpret Scripture contrary to the unanimous consensus of the Fathers, as the Councils of Trent and Vatican I have declared.[15] Moreover, such a unanimous consensus is sufficient proof that the doctrine has been infallibly taught by the magisterium of the Church dispersed throughout the world.[16] Therefore, the legitimacy in principle of the death penalty as a matter of justice is a dogma of divine and catholic faith. And to doubt or deny a dogma of divine and catholic faith is heresy.[17]

What Does this mean for the New Text of the Catechism?

The new text of the Catechism n. 2267 reads as follows:

Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.[18]

In the letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to the bishops regarding this new revision, Cardinal Ladaria asserts that this teaching constitutes “an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium,”[19] which can only means that it does not deny the legitimacy in principle of the death penalty. He also acknowledges that, “the political and social situation of the past [may have] made the death penalty an acceptable means for the protection of the common good,”[20] which seems to suggest that this text is not intended to be understood as meaning that the death penalty is intrinsically immoral. For anything that is intrinsically immoral can never be justified under any circumstances, past, present, or future. Moreover, the development of more effective prisons in modern society is cited as one of the reasons for the new teaching, which would seem to allow for the fact that the death penalty could have been justified prior to the development of better prisons, in which case, presumably, it can still be justified in less developed societies, and could be justified again if the prison systems in more developed societies deteriorate. And anything that could ever be justified cannot be intrinsically immoral.

On the other hand, to say that the death penalty is inadmissible precisely “because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” is hard to understand in any other way than as an assertion of its intrinsic immorality. For surely it is always and everywhere immoral to attack the inviolability and dignity of the person. Likewise, the earlier remark of Pope Francis cited in the letter to the bishops: “The death penalty, regardless of the means of execution, ‘entails cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.’”[21] For again, it is surely always and everywhere immoral to treat people in a manner that is cruel, inhumane, and degrading.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion, therefore, that this text suffers from serious ambiguity (inasmuch as it seems to be open to multiple interpretations) or even incoherence (inasmuch as it seems to assert contradictory propositions). In any case, however, Catholics are obliged to continue believing that the death penalty is in principle legitimate, since this is a dogma of divine and catholic faith; and because of the religious submission of will and intellect due to the authentic magisterium of the Holy Father, Catholics should also refrain from interpreting the new text of the Catechism in a manner that would contradict the traditional dogma as long as any other interpretation remains possible.

[1] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Professio fidei (1998).

[2] Vatican I, Pastor aeternus, cap. 4: “When the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.”

[3] See The Gift of Infallibility: The Official Relatio on Infallibility of Bishop Vincent Gasser at Vatican Council I, trans. James T. O’Connor (Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1986), 45–46.

[4] Cf. Vatican II, Lumen gentium, 25: “And this is the infallibility which the Roman Pontiff, the head of the college of bishops, enjoys in virtue of his office, when, as the supreme shepherd and teacher of all the faithful, who confirms his brethren in their faith (Lk 22:32), by a definitive act he proclaims a doctrine of faith or morals.”

[5] New redaction of n. 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty (2 Aug. 2018).

[6] CIC 749, §3: “No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.”

[7] Vatican II, Lumen gentium, 25: “This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will.”

[8] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, de Veritate, q. 14, a. 1.

[9] This is discussed by the CDF in Donum veritatis (1990), 24–31.

[10] See, for example, the Catechism of the Council of Trent: “Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: ‘In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord’ (Ps 101:8).”

[11] Vatican I, Dei Filius, cap. 4: “That meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding. May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole Church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding.” Cf. Dei Filius, cap. 4, can. 3 “If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.”

[12] Cf. Vatican, Dei Filius, cap. 3: “Wherefore, by divine and catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in the word of God as found in Scripture or tradition, and which are proposed by the Church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her ordinary and universal magisterium.”

[13] See also Rom 13:1-4; Acts 5:1-11; Acts 25:11; John 19:10-11; and the many crimes for which God required the death penalty to be applied in the law of Moses.

[14] For a thorough review of the evidence of this consensus, see Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette, By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment (Ignatius Press, 2017); see also Avery Card. Dulles, “Catholicism and Capital Punishment,” First Things (April 2001).

[15] Vatican I, Dei Filius, cap. 2: “In matters of faith and morals, belonging as they do to the establishing of Christian doctrine, that meaning of Holy Scripture must be held to be the true one, which Holy Mother Church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of Holy Scripture. In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret Holy Scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consensus of the Fathers.” Cf. Council of Trent, Second Decree on Scripture.

[16] Cf. Pope Pius IX, Tuas libenter; Vatican I, Dei Filius, cap. 3.

[17] CIC 751.

[18] New redaction of n. 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty (2 Aug. 2018).

[19] CDF, Letter to the Bishops regarding the new revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty (1 Aug. 2018), 1.

[20] Ibid., 2.

[21] Ibid., 6. Citing Pope Francis, Letter to the President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty (20 March 2015): L’Osservatore Romano (20-21 March 2015), 7.

Header Image: Allegory of Justice, Altes Rathaus, Vienna.

Can Christians take part in war? The Christian life is participation in the life of Christ. Christ gives us this participation through the free gift of grace. He is both the sanctifier, the divine workman, who works grace within us, and the plan, the exemplar cause and model, according to which He conforms us in His work of sanctification. He conforms us to His Eternal Sonship, by giving us the beginning, the inchoatio, of eternal life through the infused virtues. And He also conforms us to the works and virtues of His earthly life. He conforms us especially to His patience and mildness under suffering. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and opened not His mouth. He Himself lived the precepts that He gives in the Sermon on the Mount; He turned the other cheek and suffered injustice without defending Himself. And we are called to do the same:

It was to this that you were called, because Christ also suffered, for your sake, leaving you his example so that you might follow in his footsteps. He did no wrong, nor was any treachery found in his utterance; He was reviled and did not revile in answer; He suffered and spoke no threats but gave Himself up to him who judges justly… (1 Peter 2:21)

Can Christians, who should do all that they do out of the grace of Christ, take up arms in war? Should they not rather refuse to take any part, and suffer the injustices of their enemies patiently?

Despite the apparent plausibility of Christian pacifism, the tradition of the Church holds that there can be just wars, and that Christians who take part in them act justly. St. Thomas in synthesizing St. Augustine’s teachings on war gives three criteria for the justice of war. War has to be (1) declared by a public authority, (2) for a just cause, and (3) with the right intention.  (Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae Q 40, A1.)

The first of these is by far the most important, and is the key to understanding how the teaching on just war is compatible with the Gospel. Political authority is derived from God, who created human beings as political beings, capable of attaining common goods that are naturally superior to any private good. During the time between His first and second comings, Christ did not abolish the order of temporal authorities established by the natural law. He Himself recognizes the authority of temporal rulers: “Give Caesar what is Caesar’s.”(Matthew, 22:21). And this authority carries with it the power of the sword: “It is not for nothing that that minister wears a sword, since he is God’s minister, vindictive in anger against the evildoer.” (Romans 13:4) The power of the sword exceeds any merely human authority, since God alone has authority over life and death. But the one in charge of the common good of a complete society does not have merely human authority; such a one has been granted the power of the sword by God Himself. St Augustine and St Thomas see the power of rulers to wage war against external enemies of the common good as an analogical extension of the power of the sword that they have against internal enemies of the common good. A complete society would not have everything it needed to attain its end if it could not use the sword against external as well as internal enemies. The primary intrinsic common good of society is is peace. But peace depends on justice, and justice at times requires punishment. Therefore, to say that the power of rulers to wage war is an extension of the power of the sword, is to say that they can wage war only in the service of peace.

This brings us to the second point: just cause. War has to be waged against injustice. In the internal pacification of a society, the rulers can only use the power of the sword against those who have committed injustice. The infliction of the physical evil of suffering and death is morally good, because it is just— the just recompense for the unjust deeds of the criminal. Similarly, in attacking external enemies the rulers only act justly if they attack their enemies to rectify injustice. The rulers who decide to inflict violent suffering and death on the external enemies of the common good, and the soldiers who carry out their decision, act well, when they act justly, to rectify injustices committed by the enemy. As Cajetan writes in the Summula: “a just battle is an act of vindictive justice.”^[1] In Romans 12:19, St. Paul writes: “Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give way to God’s anger, since it is written: Mine is the vengeance, mine the retribution, says the Lord.” But this dictum has to be read in the light of what he says earlier in the same letter (13:4) namely that legitimate authority executes “vengeance” (i.e. vindictive justice) and retribution on God’s behalf. And the same Epistle of Peter that tells us to suffer in patience like Christ, also tells us that temporal authority has been established by God to punish evil-doers: “Be obedient to all human authority for the sake of the Lord; to a king, as one who is above you; to governors, because they are sent by him to punish the evildoers and to praise the doers of good.” (1 Peter 2:13-14.)

The third point, right intention, requires that those who wage war do not take authority and just cause as excuses to satisfy their lust for blood-shedding or plunder. The waging of war must not only be objectively just, but also subjectively an act of the virtue of justice. And for Christians it must also be an act of supernatural love, of charity. All acts done by Christians, including acts of natural justice, must be done out of supernatural love of God and neighbor. Since in waging just wars one renders others their due (just punishment) it is fully compatible with a true and ardent love of benevolence— an intending of the good for the other. Thus Christians can indeed take part in war, and in doing so act out of the grace of Christ, who conforms us to Himself as the exemplar of love.

^[1] “Praelium iustum est actus vindicativae iustitiae.” Summula Caitani (Venice, 1596), s.v. “Bellum,” p. 27.

J.M.J.

Despite its having taken place in 1858, the so-called “Mortara Affair” has recently caused much debate to erupt in Catholic circles. This recent debate was occasioned by Fr. Romanus Cessario’s book review in First Things, “Non Possumus,” which examines a newly released translation of Fr. Edgardo Mortara’s memoirs. Mortara was the child of a Jewish family living in the Papal States in the city of Bologna. As an infant he fell ill, and the doctors were convinced that he was about to die. The Mortara’s maid, Anna “Nina” Morisi, a Catholic woman, baptized Edgardo, without his parents’ knowledge. Some years later, when Edgardo was six years old, officials were made aware of Edgardo’s baptism. Accordingly, they went to the Mortaras to assure that their son Edgardo was educated in accordance with his baptism. The Mortaras refused to allow him to be educated at a local boarding school, so instead, Edgardo was taken and essentially raised under the care of Pius IX himself. In his review, Fr. Cessario defends Pius IX in his handling of the Mortara Affair.

This debate has been so intense that it has even garnered the attention of those outside the Church, including prominent outlets like The Atlantic and Vox. Many others have weighed in on the discussion, and almost all of the responses have been critical of Fr. Cessario and Bl. Pius IX: the charges include anti-Semitism, ignorance of the proper effects of baptism, and failure to understand the relationship between grace and nature. What is most unfortunate about these critiques (or, in many cases, attacks) is that most miss the point entirely. Virtually every response to Fr. Romanus Cessario’s book review brings in the claims of insensitivity and understands the event in terms of anti-Semitism. Even the estimable Archbishop Chaput has caved to this flawed understanding of the affair. There is an important and interesting discussion to be had concerning the Mortara Affair, but not when facile and unfounded charges of anti-Semitism dominate the discourse. The historical record makes clear that Pius IX can hardly be seen as some menace to the Jewish population under his care as head of state. He actually relaxed a number of laws restricting Jews in the Papal States. But more importantly, as expressed in The Atlantic, this debate is not about the Church’s relationship with the Jewish people. As we shall show, the boy was not seized because Pius IX had a desire to persecute the Jews, but rather, because the boy had become a Catholic, in virtue of his baptism. In order to understand why this is the case, we must delve deeply into theological questions about grace, nature, and the sacraments. But this first error regarding the case, this accusation of anti-Semitism, is so pervasive and dangerous, it sadly forces this author to write anonymously.

The second most prevalent error arises from the deficient categories applied by classical liberalism of “conservative” and “liberal.” There are claims of a culture war inside of the Catholic Church, and “traditionalists” like Cessario are seen as the “hardcore conservatives,” pushing back against the liberals. This interpretive lens is likewise insufficient, and misses the important and interesting questions that pertain to this affair. The Atlantic makes an admirable attempt to understand the matter in these terms, and very helpfully does not cast the current debate in terms of anti-Semitism. Ultimately, however, this discussion has nothing to do with liberalism vs. conservativism, and everything to do with the reality of the sacrament of baptism.

Indeed, it is only when the question centers on grace and nature that the debate becomes an interesting and fruitful one. This question is the substantial focus of this article. Many Catholic critics of Cessario’s Non Possumus insist that both Cessario and Bl. Pope Pius IX misunderstood the relationship between grace and nature. Exemplary among these criticisms is Nathaniel Peters’ diatribe (it is hard to describe it as anything else) wherein he proclaims authoritatively:

The principles that Aquinas identifies are correct. While he is addressing the baptizing of Jewish babies, his arguments apply with equal vigor against the seizure of secretly baptized Jewish babies. Those who object to the Mortara case are not pitting “putative civil liberties” against the requirements of the faith, or failing to realize that the baptized must put Christ before their family. Nor are they simply moved by human feelings. Rather, they are rightly objecting to the violation of the natural order instituted by God that takes place when a young child is severed from his parents for the sake of his catechization. It is not a denial of the realities of baptism to say that the sacramental order should not violate the natural law.[1]

We shall leave aside the fact that Peters seems to think he is disputing with some wet-behind-the-ears graduate student, and assumes that Fr. Romanus Cessario (who has been awarded the rare, Dominican Sacrae Theologiae Magister, (S.T.M.), the highest theological degree there is) had not considered the relationship between the sacramental order and the natural law. Perhaps, had he had more respect for Fr. Cessario’s training and erudition, he might have proceeded with a little more caution and not stumbled into such clear error.

Peters’ error lies in a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between grace and nature. Peters relies on Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of the question in his Summa Theologiae. In both places where Thomas treats of the matter (II-IIae q. 10 a. 12 and III q. 68, a.10) he is answering the question of whether the children of non-believers (and in particular, Jews), ought to be baptized against their parents’ will. In both instances, Thomas (rightly) gives an emphatically negative response. He states that doing so would violate the natural rights of the parents.[2]

What Peters fails to note in his argument is what Thomas says in the sed contra of II-IIae q. 10, a. 12:

Injustice should be done to no man. Now it would be an injustice to Jews if their children were to be baptized against their will, since they would lose the rights of parental authority over their children as soon as these were Christians. Therefore these should not be baptized against their parents’ will.

The reason we do not baptize is because the baptism would in fact effect a loss of rights of parental authority (ius patriae potestatis) of the Jewish parents. This text, therefore, actually upholds the position of Bl. Pius IX and Fr. Cessario, but this bears some explaining.

Yes, it is true that grace perfects nature; but it is also true that nature does not measure or limit grace. Accordingly, we can see at least two ways in which a thing can be perfected by grace. In one way, a thing is perfected inasmuch as it has a complete form, and the form is perfected according to its nature in all of its powers and operations. In this way, we see grace perfect the soul through infused virtues, gifts, fruits, etc. In another way, something can be perfected as an imperfect nature, or substance. In such cases, the perfection or completion of the thing actually causes that thing to pass away –either simply, or in a certain respect. For example, motion (in the Aristotelian sense), since it is an imperfect kind of being, is perfected in rest, which causes the motion to cease to be –that is, to pass away. Thus a seed is perfected by becoming a flower, since the seed is ordered to the flower. In doing so, however, the seed as such ceases to be and it passes away. (Jn 12:24.) It is in this way that baptism perfects the life of the soul. That is to say, when a man is baptized, the former, imperfect life passes away. Indeed, in the words of St. Paul, “Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in his death?” (Rom 6:3.) Likewise, we rise in baptism with a new life and, as it were, a new creation. As St. Paul also says, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” (Rom. 6:5.) Therefore, we speak of a resurrected soul, that has been given a distinct, indelible character, that marks it as a distinct and new creation.[3] So real is this death and resurrection effected by baptism that in light of it, the Apostle Paul grants what is now called “the Pauline privilege” (cf. 1Cor 7:10-15): the allowance by the Church of the dissolution of marriage between two persons unbaptized at the time of marriage, when one of them has subsequently received Baptism.

This privilege could only be allowed if the death of the baptized is a true death since, as the Apostle states, “For the married woman is bound by law to her husband so long as he is alive; but if the husband should die, she is clear from the law of the husband.” (Rom 7:2.) We see, then, that in baptism, the life of the soul is perfected by making the life pass away and rise again. Consequently, it should not be supposed that all of the privileges of the baptized will simply build upon the natural order, “for the former things are passed away.” (Rev. 21:4.) Consequently, natural relationships are relativized by baptism.

No one thinks that a parent has absolute rights. All believe that the rights of parents have limits. It is universally agreed that there are times that parents can act in a way inimical to the good of their children, and if the case is extreme enough, the state must intervene. The question, then, remains: Was this such a case? As surprising as the answer may be to the modern, classically liberal ear, soaked, as it were, in the honeyed perfume of secularism, the answer from Holy Mother Church is a resounding “Yes”.

As Leo XIII enunciated so clearly in his encyclical letter Libertas, a response to secularist assertions to rights such as “religious liberty,” there is no such right for the Catholic state.[4] While it is true, as Dignitatis Humanae teaches, that secular states which make no claim to holding the truth regarding man’s supernatural end have no authority to unnecessarily restrict the religious practice of its citizens, such does not hold for those states that are informed by faith. Thus, it was not as a leader of the Catholic religion that Pius IX had Edgardo seized, but it was as head of a Catholic state.

Still, it may not be clear that he was justified in taking the boy from his parents. Can it at all be said that his parents were a danger to Edgardo? Indeed, it can. Through his valid and judiciously wrought baptism, Edgardo entered into his inheritance. From that moment, he participated in the very life of the Trinity as true son of The Father in The Son, by The Holy Spirit. Is it not clear, especially in light of the arguments above, that this sonship is more excellent and more important than his natural sonship? Consequently, as soon as Edgardo’s parents refused to allow him to be educated in the Catholic faith (they would not permit him to enter into the local Catholic boarding school) and receive the inheritance that belonged to his sonship, they became his enemies. In a Catholic state, where the privileges and rights of the baptized Catholic are duly recognized, such a state of affairs cannot be allowed: justice must be done to the baptized and his rights vindicated. To allow his parents to continue to deprive him of the inheritance due to him would amount to being complicit in their injustice.

In light of the above, the argument which barely rises to the level of speciousness from Rod Dreher attempting to draw parallels between the abduction and forced conversion of non-Muslims by militant fundamentalist Muslims is laughable in the extreme. Dreher challenges Cessario,

What would Fr. Cessario and those who agree with him say to radical Muslims today who kidnap non-Muslim children, compel them to say the shahada (profession of faith — the Muslim equivalent of baptism), then refuse to return them to their parents because they cannot let a Muslim child be raised by infidels? The jihadist argument is that this is just, and better for the souls of the children.[5]

This manifestly asinine comparison fails to take into account that the facts in the two cases do not match at all. Indeed, the Church has always condemned forced baptisms. The case with Edgardo Mortara is utterly different. Edgardo was baptized as an infant when he was in imminent danger of death, so that he might enter into Heaven. He was not baptized in order to be abducted. Would Dreher propose that the Mortara’s maid have left Edgardo without baptism, even as all were convinced that he was to die? What an awful failure that would have been. Rather, we can say of this pious woman the same thing that Christ said according to the Gospel of Mark of the woman who anointed his head, “And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” (14:9.)

It does not follow, even after all this, that Bl. Pius IX acted with perfect prudence in the matter. Indeed, this author, though ignorant of all the particular circumstances, has some serious reservations about the prudence of the act, at least in the manner in which it was done. What is indisputably the teaching of the Catholic Church, always and everywhere, is that Bl. Pius IX acted correctly in principle, both as the Vicar of Christ on Earth, and as ruler over the Papal States.

It would be too much to expect an apology from the authors of the ill-conceived (and still more ill-argued) articles that were dashed off in a fit of indignation by the likes of Massimo Faggioli and Michael Sean Winters. Others, like Peters and Dreher, simply make poor arguments and manifest a fundamental misunderstanding of sacramental theology and baptism.

In sum we should make these conclusions clear:

1. The Mortara affair is not being construed by Cessario (or any other reasonable person) as some sort of paradigm for Catholics to secretly baptize and seize the children of non-Catholics. It was a peculiar and unfortunate turn of events, which happily turned out well for Edgardo Mortara.
2. Baptism matters. It does, in fact, further relativize familial relations. The baptized belong, first and foremost, to Christ and His Church.
3. A secular state could not operate in this way. Secular states, as taught by Dignitatis Humanae, must protect religious practice in a way that a Catholic state may not. This does not mean that a Catholic state can force conversions, or anything else of the sort. It does mean that the state must vindicate the rights of the baptized as far as possible.
4. As rightly observed by The Atlantic, this case has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
5. Classical liberal divisions of “conservative” and “liberal,” etc., lead readers to fundamentally misunderstand Cessario’s point, as well as those of us who come to his defense.
6. This is indeed “a hard saying.” (Jn 6:60.) It is understandable and natural that many would react strongly against a child being taken from his parents’ home. Christ, however, did not come to bring peace, but the sword. (Mt 10:34.) So we must follow the radical truth of the Gospel, wherever it leads.

If this defense is seen as severe, we can only reply “debemus” –that is, we must. We were obligated to provide such a defense, especially when the reputation of two great men (one of whom is a beatus), and the very Catholic faith is at stake. If anything, this current debate has manifested a woeful lack of understanding of baptism and grace by many Catholics, even those who are educated.

Notes

[1] http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/01/20884/ (accessed 2/1/2018).

[2] Though, in extremis, that is, in the immediate danger of death, Baptism ought always be given as is the case here.

[3] Cf. Summa Theologiae III, q. 56, a. 2.

[4] For an excellent elucidation of this distinction see Thomas Pink’s article, “Consicence and Coercion” in First Things, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/08/conscience-and-coercion (accessed 2/1/2018).

[5] http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-edgardo-mortara-case/ (accessed 2/1/2018)

Frater Asinus is a theologian of the Church.

I agree with much in your “Needy Immigrant” post as far as your analysis of the rise of the nation state and the ideal of Christendom, but I take issue with the tenor and general framework of your piece because I think it fundamentally misapprehends the reason why most Americans (and probably most Europeans) oppose immigration, even when using “what benefits us” sort of language. I fear it will be used as further support for the position that the refusal to accept immigration on any grounds is tantamount to rejecting Christ.

At the end of the day (to speak from my own observations in the US), many Trump supporters in the US resort to the language of “what benefits us” for the following main reasons:

1. It would be social suicide to say that we oppose immigration on the grounds that it weakens the cultural and ethnic solidarity of the historic American nation, so we resort to the only morally acceptable expressions – those that have to do with economics and that are predicated on an assumption of the inviolability of private property, etc…

2. In many cases, the “what benefits us” language really means “we oppose low-skill, low-wage immigration neoliberal labor economics which puts me out of a job and a sense of purpose in my life even if the GDP expanded and wealth was created as a result.” My father is a carpenter, and admirably (though precariously) supported his wife and children, but constantly had to struggle against the wage deflation caused by the presence of large numbers of illegal Mexican immigrant men living six to a room and the concomitant disruptions of the local tradesman community.

I think you would acknowledge the above two concerns as legitimate, no? Well, unfortunately, as Americans we cannot speak of item one openly, and item two is controversial as well given the all-pervasive neoliberalism of our regime. The fact is, in a liberal order that does not protect the rights of working fathers of families, opposition to immigration is one of the few ways ordinary men can fight against such injustice. My own ability to support my wife and children is threatened by consistent and massive migration from East and South Asia – by immigrants who in no way share my culture, my understanding of my moral obligation to be open to many children and my desire to leave Sunday as a day of rest and worship. No, they are entirely content to forgo children until their late thirties or their forties, work late hours on Sunday, and take a much lower wage than I because, well, it’s better than their life in South Korea (which, by the way, is not a terrible place to be). Such disruptions are those that face Americans and they should not be dismissed as simply the selfishness of consumer, liberal culture. Sadly, and in discordance with such a narrative, as more and more immigrants arrive, the only common ground found in society is increasingly simply shared preferences in consumer tastes, as any ethno-cultural core of American identity continues to be hollowed out and those who arrive cannot or will not share in such identity.

And what of the current Muslim migrant crisis in Europe? Would such migrants fit into the framework of Christendom without conversion? Is it responsible for any bishop or proper Christian authority to continue to call for the acceptance of mass immigration of young Muslim men without first demanding adherence to the law of Christ and strict punishment of the horrors of events such as the Cologne sexual assaults or the Rotherham rape gangs? Pick your temporal hero of Christendom, and ask what he would have done with such men and whether he would not think it prudent to halt all Muslim immigration to Europe at present. My experience of Mexican men lewdly cat-calling my sisters pales in comparison to what I’ve read and seen of the European situation.

I like and agree with much of your work, and I don’t think you’re wrong that ‘it is not acceptable for a wealthy country to frame immigration policy exclusively in terms of “what benefits us.”’ It’s just that I don’t think either Americans or Europeans are arguing for restrictions based on exclusively on keeping and expanding their personal wealth at the expense of virtuous and truly needy migrants. The globalist neoliberal order has forbidden the thick language of solidarity necessary for the expression of the real and legitimate concerns that we have.

In Christ,

Pelayo Turner

Orange County, CA

Dear Mr. Turner,

Lendman’s note seems to leap from the illegitimacy of laws to the illegitimacy of a government—the United States, in this case—as a whole. At some point, one presumes from reading the article, the number of illegitimate laws reaches a tipping point, at which the general duty to obey the law (and officers of the government) vanishes. Lendman does not define this point, but gestures vaguely that it is somewhere: “How many pre-political societal principles must be violated before the government is rendered wholly illegitimate?” Furthermore, beyond non-compliance with this or that illegitimate human law, Lendman implies that citizens ought to take more radical, direct political action. At the ‘tipping point of illegitimacy’ a duty of political resistance seems to appear. Lendman intones, “there should be no peace under an illegitimate government.”

These are powerful sentiments that should not be left in a vague philosophical formulation (however sympathetic one may be to them). But my aim is not to shadowbox Lendman’s implications that, admittedly, are never made explicit. Instead, I attempt to clarify the concept of legitimacy, advance the discussion Lendmann begins, and attempt to displace the paradigm of overarching sovereignty or legitimacy. (This has a precedent on The Josias.)

In the Christian tradition, Lendman correctly notes, political legitimacy is derived from God. One recalls Jesus’ gnomic remark that Pilate’s authority only has authority because it was “given [to him] by one above” (John 19:11). This probably refers not to earthly higher powers, but God, in light of the epistles’ explicit claim that God invests Roman officials with power (see Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, Titus 3). But this is vexing. Why would God command Christians to obey these idolatrous pagans that would, in short order, throw the people of God to the lions?

Approaching this question will require disentangling—but not disconnecting—political legitimacy and moral legitimacy, since it seems possible, at least, that God confers political legitimacy (the right to be obeyed) on wicked legislators. It will be necessary to define legitimacy more clearly, and survey the various accounts of its origins. Once a clear account of legitimacy is established, the possibilities for legitimate political resistance will become clearer in turn.

The argument will take the form of seven short theses defining the concept of legitimacy, followed by seven more short theses on legitimacy and resistance in the Christian philosophical tradition.

The Concept of Legitimacy

1. An authority which is legitimate enjoys the right to be obeyed. Legitimacy, or the “right to rule,” is also the right to be obeyed by others. If authority X is legitimate with respect to individual Y, X has the right to the obedience of Y. It is this definition of legitimacy that concerns contemporary political philosophers. Political legitimacy is the right of a polity’s governing authority to be obeyed by the members of that polity.

• a. Political legitimacy does not share the common-language sense of what “legitimate authority” means. It is common to view the legitimacy of a political regime as a function of popular opinion. David Graeber proposes that politics involves a magical “halo of fraud”: “If I could convince everyone I was the King of France, I would in fact become the King of France” (Graeber 2012)[1]. Indeed, sociologists and political scientists may define legitimacy in terms of widespread popular assent. But this should not concern philosophy or true legitimacy.
• b. Political legitimacy is distinct from moral legitimacy (which might also be called auctoritas or moral authority). An individual, even a political official, might command another individual to act in a morally appropriate way, but still not enjoy the right to be obeyed. So we will leave moral legitimacy to the side, also, at least for now.

2. Political legitimacy and political obligation are correlative. If political authority X is legitimate with respect to political subject Y, then as a corollary Y owes a political obligation to X. A duty to obey the law, for instance, is a specific example of political obligation.

3. Both ordinary people and philosophers widely believe that some governments have political legitimacy and some citizens or subjects have political obligations.

• a. It is widely believed that political legitimacy and political obligation are necessary for government. This is sometimes called the necessity argument (see Anscombe 1978).[2] Necessity as the basis of political legitimacy fails for two reasons:
• i. The fact that Y is necessary to a cooperative scheme run by X, from which Z benefits, does not make it incumbent upon Y to support that scheme. If Xavier wants to dig a ditch that is the only way to supply water for Zack’s begonias, and Yolanda is the only effective ditch-digger in the area, that fact does not give Xavier the authority to command Yolanda to dig the ditch.
• ii. Political legitimacy and political obligation are not necessary for the orderly function of society. It may be true (see 1b), that the illusion of political legitimacy or the false consciousness of political obligation is necessary for order. But even if the illusion of political legitimacy does not obtain, the threat of punishment may be enough to ground public order.

4. The view that, in general, no governments have political legitimacy, and concomitantly that, in general, no individuals have political obligations, is called philosophical anarchism.

5. Beyond the argument for necessity (3a and 3b) there are four families of arguments for political obligation (see Simmons 2008, Chapter 3).[3] None appears to be convincing upon philosophical examination..

• a. Transaction. Transactional theories are more precise, arguing that political obligation is owed to polities in exchange for some benefits received from the polity. John Rawls’s idea of justice as fairness is a theory with a transactional core. But it is unclear, ultimately, why receiving some benefit (even a unique benefit) from X makes it incumbent upon Y to obey X. Xochitl may buy Yves a Ferrari, but this does not confer upon Xochitl the right to command Yves to mow her lawn. It is also unclear why typically political benefits would generate a right to be obeyed; criminal organizations run protection rackets (i.e., provide order) and Robin Hood redistributed wealth (i.e., provided distributive justice), but this does not mean that every local thug who does so ought to be obeyed.
• b. Associativism. Associative theories of political obligation propose that individuals have special, unchosen obligations to polities. In other words, the citizen bears political obligation to the polity in an analogous way to the obligations of filial obedience that young children are said to owe to their parents. Aristotelian “civic friendship”, with its concomitant duties, is paradigmatic of associativism. Often associativist arguments proceed by analogy, as when the Laws in the Crito propose they are “like parents” to Socrates. But it is strange to claim that the people of San Diego owe duties of special regard to the residents of New York, rather than the residents of Tijuana several miles away. Why exactly do national borders attain normative status? In general, there is a difficulty is defining the limits of associative duties of special regard. Is nationality somehow unique, or does one owe such duties of special regard to one’s own race, to one’s own gender, to one’s own ethnicity? Another difficulty comes in explaining why such duties obtain to individuals, as for Socrates in the Crito when he turns to transaction and ultimately consent to shore up his associative theory of political obligation.
• c. Consent theory is a hallmark the liberal tradition, although the tradition of ‘swearing fealty’ to authorities is more ancient than early modernity. Voluntary transactions, where Y expressly promises to obey X, seems to confer an obligation on X to fulfill this promise. However, very few citizens—soldiers and government officials notwithstanding—actually expressly promise to obey the government. Workarounds, like Locke’s famous notion of “tacit consent” or the Kantians’ hypothetical consent, lose the strength of actual consent and seem to fit more neatly with transaction theory (in Locke’s case) or natural duty (in Kant’s).
• d. Natural Duty. John Rawls’s theory of a natural duty of justice to support just institutions is the most popular theory of political obligation in the academy today. Granted that Y has an ethical duty to support just institutions in general, the problem is what particular institutions pertain to Y. Does Y have to support every just institution in the world? Rawls’s claim that certain institutions “apply to us” seems to introduce an arbitrary element. John Simmons calls this the “particularity problem”: “Only a willingness—which I certainly do not share—to regard as morally authoritative or unchallengeable the conventional or legal assignments of persons to particular states (based on individual accidents of birth and the deplorable history of states’ violent grabs for territories and peoples) would allow one to thing that justice of human rights could by themselves solve the problem of democratic legitimacy.”[4]

There is no straightforward way to deduce political legitimacy or political obligation from nature (see 5a and 5d) or historical actions of that many individuals seem to have made (see 5b and 5c).

6. Political theology is an alternative method of grounding political legitimacy and political obligation. Jesus’ claim to Pilate that “you would have no power over me if it were not given from one above” (John 19:11)—if this implicates God and involves a concept of authority rather than sheer power, a fair interpretation in light of Romans 13—suggests that theology is a sufficient and exclusive ground for legitimacy. In other words, perhaps Jesus’ remark implies there is no “purely” philosophical (i.e., non-theological) way to derive political authority without reference to God. Jesus could have told Pilate, “you would have no power over me if it were not given to you by the people,” since on Good Friday it appeared that Our Lord’s punishment enjoyed wide popular consent. But He did not.

7. In continuity with ancient thought, the Catholic tradition posits God as the ultimate source of political legitimacy, according to rationally derivable precepts of Nature—natural law. God and Nature, as opposed to History and General Will, roughly marks the division between ancient and modern sources of political legitimacy.

Legitimacy in Christian Philosophical Theology

8. Unitary papal authority or “plenitudo potestatis.” The Church has a unitary authority that stems from the Great Commission, which included (for some time) a temporal authority built out of the ruins of the Western Roman Empire. For some medieval theorists, this was rightfully a plenitude of ultimate authority—plenitudo potestatis—even in temporal matters. The doctrine of plenitudo potestatis approximates the modern concept of sovereignty (see Figgis 1960).[5]

9. A more common position in the Christian Age held that secular rulers have authority from God, independent of the pope (this is consonant with Romans 13). Against Figgis’s view of plenitudo potestatis as sovereignty, the medieval intellectual tradition worked out theological origins for secular rulers as well as papal authority. This is often called “two swords” theory. In his letter Duo Sunt (494), Pope Gelasius I distinguished the auctoritas pontificum and the regalis potestas. Auctoritas indicates moral authority (or “clout”) and in Roman law meant the power to delegate other authorities. But Gelasius suggests that God gives an independent authority, albeit over inferior matters, to secular ruler. This position, dualism, was advanced by Thomas Aquinas (Sent. II d. 44 ex ad 4), as well, later, by John of Paris and Dante in De Monarchia.

10. Political legitimacy is a negative doctrine in Western history because states stake out their political legitimacy against the power of the Church and, more specifically, the pope. The fourteenth-century circle around Ludwig of Bavaria, the Holy Roman Emperor, show this most clearly. For William of Ockham, scholars have the prerogative to put papal heresy on trial. For Marsilius of Padua, the sovereign Christian people ought to have the power to elect popes and bishops. When kingly states successfully won political legitimacy against the Church, they came into plenitudo potestatis of their own.

11. Unitary secular authority, or sovereignty (“souverainism”), stands athwart the Christian political tradition (with its characteristic ‘papist’ and ‘dualist’ tension). In contrast to the medieval tradition, where “dualism” or “pluralism” of political legitimacy was imaginable, modern notions of political legitimacy are all-or-nothing because they implicate the notion of sovereignty (Jean Bodin claimed to coin the term in his 1576 Les Six Livres de la République). Let us call this modern position of Bodin (and even more extreme in Thomas Hobbes), where state legitimacy is all-or-nothing—i.e. a state is either “sovereign” or totally “illegitimate”—souverainism. Even if modern states do not have a unitary personal sovereign, states as a whole are said to enjoy sovereignty as a basic principle of international law since the Peace of Westphalia (1648). This is simply assumed by most modern citizens and political philosophers, and souverainism functions as a kind of ideology.

12. Although modern debates over political legitimacy oscillate between souverainism and philosophical anarchism—“a state is either legitimate or it’s not”—pluralism suggests that officers of the state ought to be obeyed on some matters, but not on others. Many individuals who have political legitimacy from God: supranational, national, local, etc. Pluralism overcome the basics “negative argument” for political legitimacy (see 10) which has long been hostile to the Church.

• a. It is possible to possess political legitimacy without sovereignty, that is, to possess non-absolute rights to the obedience of others. Auctoritas, for the Romans, meant something like “clout”. Many political officials—teachers, police officers, social workers, etc.—might build up auctoritas in a community, special “recognition rights” that will cause prudent people to obey them in certain situations. Insofar as their efforts are pleasing to God, the Holy Spirit is at work among political officials, who are consequently owed obedience.
• b. The Roman legal fiction that the collective auctoritas of the people was an alienable item that could be vested in a single individual—the emperor—is the basis of modern theories of sovereignty.[6] In its bare, secular, non-theological form, this legal fiction cannot stand up to rational, philosophical examination (see 5).
• c. If recently founded modern (more or less) democratic regimes are indeed legitimate, this suggests a certain flexibility in how divine authority is conferred. To claim many individuals and regimes can earn legitimacy, as we have seen, has classical roots in Republican Rome and in Aristotle. Indeed, modern democratic regimes do appeal to God, for example, in the way that Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence or Lincoln’s Second Inaugural do. This does not mean, of course, that these regimes will not descend into tyranny. But does suggest that political legitimacy is easier to come by than medieval theorists (see 8 and 9) seemed to think.
• d. “Without justice, kingdoms are but large robber bands,” says Augustine in Book IV of City of God. Is the contrapositive of this statement true? It would seem that by exercising justice and promoting the common good, one would no longer be a robber, but a legitimate ruler. Anyone with an optimized scheme to promote the common good thereby obtains certain conditional legitimacy, or rights to obedience. This deflationary theory of political legitimacy, with its strong qualification of sovereignty, is consistent with the Christian tradition alongside the theological grounding of political legitimacy that one finds in Romans 13 and elsewhere.

13. Because political obligation is a divine command, found in Scripture and tradition, sedition is a sin (ST II-II Q. 42, A. 2). Sedition seems to foment strife, which Thomas argues is always to be avoided (ST II-II Q. 41 A. 1). This view is more critical of sedition than Thomas’s Commentary on the Sentences.

14. Resistance to tyranny does not however, constitute sedition (ST II-II Q. 42 A. 1).Seditious non-compliance with governments and resistance is possible so long as it does not engender strife. Thomas suggests under some constitutional orders, public authorities of the people can depose a tyrannical king who has not kept his “pact” with the people without engaging in sedition (DR 49).

• a. Tyrannical governments are those which have lost sight of the common good, Thomas argues, and where rulers thus pursue private advantage (DR 29). Thus, there should be peace even under a government that is morally illegitimate, the ability of the state to provide order is a precondition for the common good. If the state should wither away because of widespread non-compliance with unjust laws, this would be tantamount to indirect revolution. Were the American Republic reconstituted as a new politeia, it could indeed be imaginably more just.
• b. Among Thomists, there precedent for seeing liberal democracies as tyrannical. Charles de Koninck is worth quoting on the subject of a souverainist state that loses sight of the common good for some artificial fusion of the multitudinous private advantages of individual citizens. Such a state, “In short, the state understood in this sense, that is as a city congealed and closed in upon itself, is by nature tyrannical. It singularizes the common good; it denies its community. In the condition of liberty of this State, obedience is made the substitute for the legal justice…”[7]
• c. Political obligations to the common good, since they are ultimately obligations to God, do not cease in the absence of political legitimacy, or in the absence of commands to serve the common good. Therefore it is conceivable that one has a political obligation to create just institutions and public authorities where the de facto authorities do not act justly. Again, this need not lead to a direct confrontation with state authorities. Establishing competing political authorities may run athwart of modern conceptions of souverainism, but not the political pluralism understood by the Christian tradition.

This paper has attempted to present a deflationary argument (see 11 and 12) for the concept of legitimacy by opening up the possibility of plural political legitimacy. The Christian political tradition moves beyond the modern souverainist binary whereby governments are either legitimate or illegitimate.

No regime is sovereign—that is to say—legitimate in itself, somehow above the natural law. No assemblage of people is above the political obligation to the common good, or is legitimate except as a placeholder for the Kingdom of God. Certain officers of the United States of America have the right to be obeyed, when they promote the common good. But this is in the same way that a band of robbers would have the right to be obeyed, when they promote the common good.

This is not to say that promoting the common good automatically legitimates a regime; the duty to obey human law is always at the same time a duty to obey divine law, which establishes the common good in the first place. Prudentially, those that can be trusted promote the common good should be obeyed.

So what of Mr. Lendman’s concerns about the legitimacy of the United States government? There is no reason to insist that the United States government as a whole is politically legitimate or not. If fewer and fewer of its laws and officers are legitimate, this is no reason to despair, or issue calls to arms, as if the people of God have been abandoned to the absolute power of the modern state. Instead, God seems to offer a superabundance of political legitimacy; ordinary citizens can and should build political communities to challenge (without directly confronting) the souverainist modern state.

[1] David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (New York: Melville House, 2012), p. 342.

[2] Elizabeth Anscombe, “On the Source of the Authority of the State, in Authority, ed. Joseph Raz (New York University Press, 1990).

[3] A. John Simmons, Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

[4] Ibid., p. 113.

[5] John Figgis, From Gerson to Grotius,1414-1625 (New York: Harper, 1960), pp. 44-45.

[6] F. H. Hinsley, Sovereignty, 2^nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 38-9; p. 82.

[7] Charles de Koninck,”The Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists,” The Writings of Charles de Koninck, Vol. 2 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), p. 106.

Dubium: Is integralism essentially bound up with racism, nationalism, and totalitarianism?

Responsum: Negative.

Before proceeding to the explanation, it is important to identify exactly what is meant by the term “integralism.” An earlier article, “Catholic Integralism and the Social Kingship of Christ,” set forth the core principles of integralism and its inextricable bond to the Catholic Church’s doctrine of the Kingship of Christ. A more detailed and theologically refined explication of “the integralist thesis” is available on Pater Edmund Waldstein’s blog, Sancrucensis. P. Edmund closes his discussion and defense of integralism with the following passage from Thomistic philosopher-theologian Charles De Koninck’s seminal work, On the Primacy of the Common Good:

When those in whose charge the common good lies do not order it explicitly to God, is society not corrupted at its very root? . . . Political prudence rules the common good insofar as the latter is Divine. For that reason Cajetan and John of St. Thomas held that the legal justice of the prince is more perfect than the virtue of religion. . . . The ordering to the common good is so natural that a pure intellect cannot deviate from it in the pure state of nature. In fact the fallen angels, elevated to the supernatural order, did turn aside from the common good but from that common good which is the most Divine, namely supernatural beatitude, and it is only by way of consequence that they lost their natural common good. The fallen angels ignored by a practical ignorance (ignorantia electionis) the common good of grace; we, on the other hand, have come to the point of being ignorant of every common good even speculatively. The common good, and not the person and liberty, being the very principle of all law, of all rights, of all justice and of all liberty, a speculative error concerning it leads fatally to the most execrable practical consequences.

Neither article identifies integralism with the ideologies of racism, nationalism, and totalitarianism. That is only fitting. For though it is a historical fact that the label “integralist,” like its French variant “integrist,” has been appropriated by, or misapplied to, socio-political movements which have little to do with the magisterial teachings of the Catholic Church and the deep intellectual patrimony which supports them, that does not mean that The Josias, or any other Catholic cooperative dedicated to the restoration of Christ’s social reign, ought to surrender the term.

At the same time, however, it is incumbent upon those who embrace a refreshened and authentic Catholic integralism to distance themselves from non-Christian movements, past and present, which tended to view religion through an instrumentalist lens. Whether these movements worshipped blood, soil, or both is irrelevant; that they did not place our Lord Jesus Christ at the center of their respective programs renders them poor representatives of truly Catholic integralism. More critically, by adopting positions which conflict with the Church’s magisterium and the natural law, nationalist and racialist movements, and those who continue to be influenced by them, wittingly or unwittingly place themselves against God, the true fount from which all political authority flows, Whose gift of unmerited Salvation is, now and always, the final end of mankind.

As for racism, Pope Pius XII, in his 1939 encyclical Summi Pontificatus (paragraph 38), affirms the “marvelous vision,” first set forth by St. Paul, “which makes us see the human race in the unity of one common origin in God” and, further,

[T]he unity of nature which in every man is equally composed of material body and spiritual, immortal soul; in the unity of the immediate end and mission in the world; in the unity of dwelling place, the earth, of whose resources all men can by natural right avail themselves, to sustain and develop life; in the unity of the supernatural end, God Himself, to Whom all should tend; in the unity of means to secure that end.

With respect to totalitarianism and nationalism, which reduce and distort the place of God and the true religion in political life, Pius XII’s condemnation is clear and therefore worth quoting at length (paragraphs 52-55):

[T]here is yet another error no less pernicious to the well-being of the nations and to the prosperity of that great human society which gathers together and embraces within its confines all races. It is the error contained in those ideas which do not hesitate to divorce civil authority from every kind of dependence upon the Supreme Being . . . and from every restraint of a Higher Law derived from God[.] Thus they accord the civil authority an unrestricted field of action that is at the mercy of the changeful tide of human will, or of the dictates of casual historical claims, and of the interests of a few.

Once the authority of God and the sway of His law are denied in this way, the civil authority as an inevitable result tends to attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and elevates the State or group into the last end of life, the supreme criterion of the moral and juridical order, and therefore forbids every appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the Christian conscience.

. . .

Nonetheless, one must not forget the essential insufficiency and weakness of every principle of social life which rests upon a purely human foundation, is inspired by merely earthly motives and relies for its force on the sanction of a purely external authority.

Where the dependence of human right upon the Divine is denied, where appeal is made only to some insecure idea of a merely human authority, and an autonomy is claimed which rests only upon a utilitarian morality, there human law itself justly forfeits in its more weighty application the moral force which is the essential condition for its acknowledgment and also for its demand of sacrifices.

If we look to the draft encyclical Humani Generis Unitas of Pius XI, we can see that Pius XII developed these thoughts in continuity with his predecessor. Though unpublished at the time of his death in 1939, the document prefigured Pius XII’s words by identifying the destructive effects of racism, including its tendency to falsely tie race and religion together while fueling international tensions.

While some modern-day nationalists go to great lengths to distinguish themselves from run-of-the-mill racists, there can be little denying that some of history’s most visible and destructive nationalist movements, such as National Socialism and Romania’s Iron Guard, were fueled by racialist ideology. Further, in an era where almost all Western countries are comprised of different ethnic groups, it is particularly important to remain vigilant against conflating national interests with racist intents. A Catholic integralist may perhaps rightly lament poorly crafted immigration policies which, among other things, indiscriminately allow the importation of religious and intellectual error into his country; but he should in no way lose the desire to serve as a witness to the truth and lead his newfound fellow countrymen to the true religion, which is the Catholic Faith.

In closing, it is important to remember that neither Pius XI nor Pius XII state that Catholics cannot be patriotic. Love of country is, to a measured extent, part of integralism insofar as it desires the concrete political community to be oriented to the common good. If integralism is in any sense “subversive” it is only against those false ideas which continue to wreak havoc on the social, economic, and cultural lives of modern liberal-democratic states. It is a lie to say that integralists wish simply to swap out one form of ideologically driven oppression for another. Although the integralist thesis neither accepts the modern reconstruction of “rights” based on individualism, nor tethers itself to fanciful notions of egalitarianism and libertinism, it remains dedicated to the truth that man is free, and only free, when he chooses the good. To embrace any other conception of liberty would run the risk of rejecting the objective moral order of the world altogether while continuing to support liberalism—an ideology no less destructive than the others rejected here.

Responsum: Affirmative. The state cannot, even as arm of the Church, limit the profession of false religions by the unbaptized, except insofar as they disturb public order.

For the most part, the Church has been very careful of the distinction between the baptized and the un-baptized. Even anti-Catholic authors have remarked on this. For example, Thomas Hobbes:

From hence it is, that in all Dominions where the Popes Ecclesiasticall power is entirely received, Jewes, Turkes, and Gentiles, are in the Roman Church tolerated in their Religion, as farre forth, as in the exercise and profession thereof they offend not against the civill power: whereas in a Christian, though a stranger, not to be of the Roman religion, is Capitall; because the Pope pretendeth that all Christians are his Subjects. For otherwise it were as much against the law of Nations to persecute a Christian stranger, for professing the Religion of his owne country, as an Infidell… (Leviathan, ch. 44, Of Spirituall Darknesse from Misinterpretation of Scripture; cf. Thomas Pink, “Suarez and Bellarmine on the Church as Coercive Lawgiver,” p. 188).