Nov 09 2008
Choosing Between Church and Country
With the recent trends in certain countries (including the United States where I live), a question and comments have arisen many times on a certain Catholic Forums board whether one is Catholic or a citizen on a particular country first.
The following passage may help on this:
Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to entangle him in his talk. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Hero’di-ans, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the money for the tax.” And they brought him a coin. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Mt. 22: 15-21 RSV)
Yes, we are suppose to support legitimate governments, however, one must remember that God must come first. Where there is a conflict, we must choose God and His Church over one’s country. In fact, this goes much further. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
1902 Authority does not derive its moral legitimacy from itself. It must not behave in a despotic manner, but must act for the common good as a “moral force based on freedom and a sense of responsibility”.[1]
A human law has the character of law to the extent that it accords with right reason, and thus derives from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls short of right reason it is said to be an unjust law, and thus has not so much the nature of law as of a kind of violence.[2]
1903 Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it. If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order, such arrangements would not be binding in conscience. In such a case, “authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse.”[3]
1904 “It is preferable that each power be balanced by other powers and by other spheres of responsibility which keep it within proper bounds. This is the principle of the ‘rule of law,’ in which the law is sovereign and not the arbitrary will of men.”[4]
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[1] GS 74 # 2.
[2] St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II, 93, 3, ad 2
[3] John XXIII PT 51.
[4] CA 44.
When governents, or even particular man-made “positive laws”, are unjust and in conflict with God’d Natural Law, we are obligated to oppose such “positive laws” and governments.
That is why I state that I am Catholic first and an American second. If there is a conflict between the two, country will lose.
