THE CHURCH AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY
The Second Vatican Council quite rightly puts a stress on the implications of the Christian faith for this world – commitment to social justice, concern for the poor, even an interest on the planet that we live in – these are indeed concomitance of a lively Christian faith. Deeply believing Christians are indeed concerned about social justice, the poor and the planet. But Christians never forget the properly super natural preoccupation of the faith (Philippians 3:20). The Christian faith also recognizes the autonomy of the temporal society. However, autonomy does not imply separation, antagonism, isolation or hostility. The temporal society has an entity of its own, with its own purposes, in dialogue with that entity, the contribution offered by Christianity, which represent the values of the Gospel, does not dim, or deny, but on the contrary exalts the autonomy of the temporal society. This write up is an attempt to draw the contours of the interplay between the Church and Politics. It is my contention that the separation of Church and State does not require the separation of religion from our public life all together, and this is true as far as it goes. It is not only the political order that is “public”. The spiritual and moral order is “public” as well, in the sense that it affects all of us, it deals with the whole spectrum of life and action on which the common good depends, and through the natural law it must actually be sovereign in human affairs.
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