The claim to the title "Christian"

I am prompted to reflect on the claim to the use of the title "Christian" by some recent events. On two occasions recently, the Christian symbol of the Cross has been displayed at political demonstrations in London, thereby appropriating to the intentions of those demonstrations the title "Christian". In the United States, the Turning Point movement, essentially political in character, has used the Christian faith of its founder to appropriate a Christian character to the movement. There is also the claim to identify Britain as a Christian country, expressed eloquently by Danny Kruger speaking in the House of Commons:

When I speak of the Church of England today, I am not speaking about the internal politics of the Anglican sect; I speak of the common creed of our country, the official religion of the English and the British nation, and the institution—older than the monarchy, and much older than Parliament—which made this country.

I have three observations:

1. Beware of a use of the term "Christian" in way that leaves an exact meaning unexpressed. In this usage it might refer to anything from structured Christian bodies, such as the Episcopalian Church in the United States or the Church of England in Britain, to completely independent congregations via networks of Evangelical (mega-) churches. In this usage, exactly who or what is the "Christian" that is referenced? If we are not careful, the use of the term has such wide range of possible references that it becomes empty of substantial meaning.

2. Beware of a politics that is, first of all and in principle, a politics but which then wishes to add to itself the descriptor "Christian". This remains first and foremost a politics and, even if its advocates might profess a Christian faith (but see point 1 above), that does not allow the political stance in itself to be called "Christian". As might be said on the London Underground, we need to "mind the gap" and not permit the "Christian" claim of such a politics to establish for it an unwarranted credibility.

3. There are politicians who profess a Christian faith and, on the basis of that faith, advocate for certain positions in their public life. This, however, is a somewhat inverse of the position described at point 2 above. See the words of Pope Benedict below.

But rather than trying to create a politics that wishes to claim a title of "Christian", Pope Benedict XVI and, more recently, Pope Leo XIV have advocated for a "healthy secularity" in the world of culture and politics.

Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in Westminster Hall during his visit to the United Kingdom in 2010:

The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This “corrective” role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves. And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

 Pope Leo XIV speaking to a working group on inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue:

European institutions need people who know how to live a healthy secularism, that is, a style of thinking and acting that affirms the value of religion while preserving the distinction — not separation or confusion — from the political sphere.  In particular, it is worth noting the examples of Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer and Alcide De Gasperi.

An aside on the Church of England

 Danny Kruger MP recently spoke in a House of Commons adjournment debate on the future of the Church of England. The record of his speech, two interventions from Andrew Rosindell MP and the response of Jim McMahon MP (Minister for Local Government and English Devolution) can be found in the Hansard Record: Future of the Church of England.

It is of interest to read the content of this debate alongside Pope Benedict XVI's speech in Westminster Hall during his visit to the United Kingdom in 2010, and to read Danny Kruger's own account of the position of the Church of England in the light of the more nuanced presentation of Jim McMahon in his reply to the debate.

In considering the place of the Church of England parish in the life of a local community, Danny Kruger suggests that everyone living within the territory of their local parish is a member of that parish even if they do not enter the church or believe its doctrine:

Even if you never set foot in your church from one year to the next, and even if you do not believe in its teachings, it is your church and you are its member.

The observations of Andrew Rosindell and Jim McMahon in considering the place of the parish in community life are more nuanced. 

It is not just about the church community, the members of the church; it has a wider responsibility to all people of all religions and no religion, not just Church of England members. The Church of England should cherish the importance of the parish as a part of all our communities in the constituencies we represent. 

Where Danny Kruger argues that:

Without the Christian God, in whose teaching these things [freedom, tolerance, individual dignity and human rights] have their source, these are inventions—mere non-existent aspirations.

Pope Benedict suggests that: 

The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles.

The Church of England undoubtedly has a particular place in both the national and local life of the nation, rooted not only in its being the established Church of the nation, but also because its make up gives it a particular genius for a presence in civic life. This can be seen in play at commemorations such as Remembrance Sunday, and the way in which they are marked both nationally and locally. Though it was not always so - think of the persecution of Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation - it has also developed that paradoxical protecting of other religious beliefs under the framework of the established religion.

 I cannot help but feel, however, that Danny Kruger's account of the place of the Church of England in the life of the nation combines what at one time would have been described as Erastianism with a presumption for ethical stances that really need a more reasoned defence. It has a tinge of ideology (in a technical sense) about it that will detract from its ability to influence.

Jubilee of Governments

 The days 21st - 22nd June 2025 are being marked as a Jubilee of Governments, though no particular events are indicated at the Jubilee 2025 website as taking part during these days. The target audience for these days is likely to be diplomats and political leaders.

England is the home of St Thomas More, who was declared by Pope St John Paul II in the year 2000 to be the Patron Saint of Statesmen and Politicians. His Apostolic Letter gives a wide ranging account of St Thomas' life and, in the context of the challenges that are today faced in public life, suggests that St Thomas

... distinguished himself by his constant fidelity to legitimate authority and institutions precisely in his intention to serve not power but the supreme ideal of justice. His life teaches us that government is above all an exercise of virtue. Unwavering in this rigorous moral stance, this English statesman placed his own public activity at the service of the person, especially if that person was weak or poor; he dealt with social controversies with a superb sense of fairness; he was vigorously committed to favouring and defending the family; he supported the all-round education of the young. His profound detachment from honours and wealth, his serene and joyful humility, his balanced knowledge of human nature and of the vanity of success, his certainty of judgement rooted in faith: these all gave him that confident inner strength that sustained him in adversity and in the face of death. His sanctity shone forth in his martyrdom, but it had been prepared by an entire life of work devoted to God and neighbour. ... 

[The] harmony between the natural and the supernatural is perhaps the element which more than any other defines the personality of this great English statesman: he lived his intense public life with a simple humility marked by good humour, even at the moment of his execution.

When Pope Benedict XVI visited Britain in 2010, he gave an address to politicians and other participants in public life in the very place where St Thomas More was tried, Westminster Hall. Making reference to the example of St Thomas, Pope Benedict explored the relationship between religious faith and the duties of public office.

And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the real challenge for democracy. ...

The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. ... This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

 In 1969 Pope St Paul VI published an Apostolic Letter Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum on the mission of Pontifical Representatives. Acting in many instances as the equivalent of ambassadors of the Holy See to the civil governments of the places where they are accredited, they also act as a an instrument of communion between the local churches of those places and the Apostolic See.

It is indeed true that the aims of the Church and of the State are of a different order and that both are perfect societies, endowed, therefore with their own means and independent in their respective spheres of action, but it is equally true that both act for the benefit of a common subject - man, who is called by God to eternal salvation and placed on earth to enable him with the help of grace, to attain it through a life of work which will give him well-being in peaceful co-existence with his fellow beings.

Hence it follows that some of the activities of the Church and of the State are in certain sense complementary, and that the good of the individual and of the community of peoples postulates an open dialogue between the Church on the one hand and the States on the other, in order to establish, foster and strengthen relations of reciprocal understanding, mutual co-ordination and co-operation to prevent or settle possible differences for the purpose of attaining the realisation of the great human hopes of peace among nations, of internal tranquility and the progress of individual nations.

The Apostolic Letter also mentions the representatives of the Holy See to international organisations, perhaps most notable among them being the representatives to the various organs of the United Nations.  

We can see the role undertaken by these Pontifical Representatives as a living expression of the wish for dialogue between the worlds of religious belief and secular rationality of which Pope Benedict XVI spoke during his visit to Britain.

Things Fell Apart

In recent months I was able to listen to some of the episodes in the second series of Jon Ronson's Radio 4 broadcasts/podcasts Things Fell Apart. I haven't listened to all of them, and I haven't listened to the first series. All the episodes from both series can be found on BBC Sounds: Things Fell Apart. The episodes I have listened to suggest that they are all worth hearing. The stories are unexpected and told in a way that holds attention throughout - sometimes it is only in the last moments that the full import of the story's starting point becomes clear.

There are some clear lessons:

posting something to a blog or to Twitter/X that is not true can, down the line, have unpredictable and serious consequences

posting something that is in itself true, but forms only part of a story, can have the same consequences as above

re-tweeting or re-posting without due care and attention is a potentially hazardous game, as it can propagate something that is not true - see above

beware of taking an idea in one context, with its intended meaning in that context, and transferring it into a new context which gives the idea a completely different and potentially damaging meaning

it is easy, both in the ether and in the real world, to hang on to a discredited story and keep repeating it, again with the risk of unpredictable and serious consequences

if you are someone in a position of public influence, you need to be careful not to pick up a part story and use it to your own purposes/ideological intent

we should be careful not to think of ourselves as heroes (see last episode of Series 2).

Things Fell Apart does not address Catholic subjects, at least not in the episodes I have heard (though Episode 7 should be compulsory listening for those who have bought in to Great Resetting), but its lessons have clear application to Catholics who post to the ether.

My blog does indeed have an example of an unpredictable consequence following a post. The post involved is entitled If You Knew SUSY, posted way back in 2010. Looking at blog statistics at the time, there appeared to be a regular appearance of visits from Maryland in the USA which I couldn't understand. In 2013 a comment to the post explained what was happening. The author of the original article about which I had posted appears to have seen my post and was, I think, referring to it in discussions with his students/colleagues at the University of Maryland. See here: Superstring Theoretical Physicist on Codes of Reality.

Pope Francis in Lisbon: Meeting with Authorities, Civil Society and Diplomatic Corps

 Pope Francis met with the political leaders and representatives of civil society in Lisbon, as part of his visit to Portugal for World Youth Day 2023. In much of his address, he drew on Lisbon's connection to the sea, using the idea of the ocean as a connecting theme. This gives Pope Francis' address a certain beauty, particularly when it asks on which course Europe and the West are sailing. Do read the whole here: Meeting with Authorities, Civil Society and Diplomatic Corps.

I choose a paragraph to cite below, which gives a flavour of the address as whole, and which expresses Pope Francis' position on abortion, family life and euthanasia:

The ocean, this immense expanse of water, recalls the origins of life. In today’s developed world, paradoxically, the defence of human life, menaced by a creeping utilitarianism that uses life and discards it – a culture that discards life, has now become a priority. I think of so many unborn children, and older persons who are abandoned, of the great challenge of welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating those who come from afar and knock on our doors, and the isolation felt by so many families that find it hard to bring children into the world and raise them. Here too, we might ask: “Where are you sailing, Europe and the West, with the discarding of the elderly, walls of barbed wire, massive numbers of deaths at sea and empty cradles? Where are you sailing? Where are you sailing if, before life’s ills, you offer hasty but mistaken remedies: like easy access to death, a convenient answer that seems ‘sweet’ but is in fact more bitter than the waters of the sea?” I am thinking here of many advanced laws concerning euthanasia.

Later in his address, Pope Francis makes a plea for a reversal in the decline of the birth rate in Europe and the West: 

Young people are the future. Yet they encounter much that is disheartening: lack of jobs, the dizzying pace of contemporary life, hikes in the cost of living, the difficulty of finding housing and, even more disturbing, the fear of forming families and bringing children into the world. In Europe and, more generally, in the West, we are witnessing a decline in the demographic curve: progress seems to be measured by developments in technology and personal comfort, whereas the future calls for reversing the fall in the birth rate and the weakening of the will to live. A healthy politics can accomplish much in this regard; it can be a generator of hope. It is not about holding on to power, but about giving people the ability to hope. Today more than ever, it is about correcting the imbalances of a market economy that produces wealth but fails to distribute it, depriving people of resources and security. Political life is challenged once more to see itself as a generator of life and concern for others. It is called to show foresight by investing in the future, in families and in children, and by promoting intergenerational covenants that do not cancel the past but forge bonds between young and old.  

The Passion for Evangelisation: St Paul VI in the Philippines

 Pope Francis has resumed his General Audience addresses in which he presents witnesses to the Passion for Evangelisation. His most recent address, on 28th June, gave an account of the life and work of St Mary MacKillop. I was particularly interested to note how Mary MacKillop's work founding schools was presented by Pope Francis as a method of evangelisation:

Wisely reading the signs of the times, she understood that for her, the best way to do so was through the education of the young, with the awareness that Catholic education is a form of evangelization. It is a great form of evangelization. In this way, if we can say that “each saint is a mission, planned by the Father to reflect and embody, at a specific moment in history, a certain aspect of the Gospel” (Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, 19), then Mary MacKillop was especially so through the founding of schools.

The Office of Readings for the 13th Sunday of the Year, which occurred last Sunday, also offered a striking witness to the passion for evangelisation. The second reading was an extract from a homily given by Pope Paul VI in Manila on 29th November 1970. We are now very used to the Pope undertaking apostolic journeys, but this was a more unusual thing at the time of Pope Paul VI. His trip to West Asia, the far East and Australia in 1970 still appears remarkable. The time that he spent in the Philippines was not without controversy.

The reading in the Office quoted the first part of Pope Paul's homily. 

I Paul, the successor of Saint Peter, charged with the pastoral mission for the whole Church, would never have come from Rome to this far-distant land, unless I had been most firmly convinced of two fundamental things: first, of Christ; and second, of your salvation.

Convinced of Christ: yes, I feel the need to proclaim him, I cannot keep silent. «Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!» (1 Cor. 9: 16). I am sent by him, by Christ himself, to do this. I am an apostle, I am a witness. The more distant the goal, the more difficult my mission the more pressing is the love that urges me to it (Cfr. 2 Cor. 5: 13). I must bear witness to his name: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matth. 16: 16). He reveals the invisible God, he is the firstborn of all creation, the foundation of everything created. He is the Teacher of mankind, and its Redeemer. He was born, he died and he rose again for us. He is the centre of history and of the world; he is the one who knows us and who loves us; he is the companion and the friend of our life. He is the man of sorrows and of hope. It is he who will come and who one day will be our judge and - we hope -the everlasting fulness of our existence, our happiness. I could never finish speaking about him: he is the light and the truth; indeed, he is «the way, the truth and the life» (Io. 14: 6). He is the bread and the spring of living water to satisfy our hunger and our thirst. He is our shepherd, our guide, our model, our comfort, our brother. Like us, and more than us, he has been little, poor, humiliated; he has been a worker; he has known misfortune and been patient. For our sake he spoke, worked miracles and founded a new kingdom where the poor are happy, where peace is the principle for living together, where the pure of heart and those who mourn are raised up and comforted, where those who hunger and thirst after justice have their fill, where sinners can be forgiven, where all are brothers.

And, as if he cannot stop, Pope Paul continues:

Jesus Christ: you have heard him spoken of; indeed the greater part of you are already his: you are Christians. So, to you Christians I repeat his name, to everyone I proclaim him: Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega; he is the king of the new world; he is the secret of history; he is the key to our destiny. He is the mediator, the bridge, between heaven and earth. He is more perfectly than anyone else the Son of Man, because he is the Son of God, eternal and infinite. He is the son of Mary, blessed among all women, his mother according to the flesh, and our mother through the sharing in the Spirit of his Mystical Body. 

Reading the homily, one can sense Pope Paul's passion for evangelisation.

But it is perhaps important to look at the second part of Pope Paul's homily, in which he addresses the context of the then social and political situation in the Philippines.

Yet, as far as the positive and happy development of your social conditions is concerned, we can give a positive answer: Christianity can be salvation also on the earthly and human level. Christ multiplied the loaves also to satisfy the physical hunger of the crowds following him. And Christ continues to work this miracle for those who truly believe in him, and who take from him the principles of a dynamic social order, that is, of an order that is continually progressing and being renewed.

And in turn, Pope Paul suggests how Christ can provide a response to the different influences at play in the society of the time (extract below, but it is worth reading the whole of this section for the full flavour of Pope Paul's words): 

To you who are students and can well grasp these fundamental ideas and these higher values, I would say this: Today while you are challenging the structures of affluent society, the society that is dominated by technology and by the anxious pursuit of productivity and consumption, you are aware of the insufficiency and the deceptiveness of the economic and social materialism that marks our present progress. You are truly able to reaffirm the superiority, richness and relevance of authentic Christian sociology, based on true knowledge of man and of his destiny.

Workers, my message to you is this: While today you have become aware of your strength, take care that in the pursuit of your total rehabilitation you do not adopt formulas that are incomplete and inaccurate. These, while offering you partial victories of an economic and hedonistic nature, under the banner of a selfish and bitter struggle, may later increase the disappointment of having been deprived of the higher values of the spirit, of having been deprived of your religious personality and of your hope in the life that will not end. Let your aspirations be inspired by the vigour and wisdom that only the Gospel of the divine Worker can give you.

Review: St Francis at the National Gallery

 Earlier this week we were able to visit the exhibition dedicated to St Francis of Assisi, at the National Gallery in London until the end of July 2023. It is well worth visiting, though I would not be as exuberant in my praise of it as some reviewers appear to be. 

Cardinal Vincent Nichols spoke at the reception at the launch of the exhibition. The review at the Guardian website includes several images that will give you a feel for the exhibition. There is also a review at Independent Catholic News. Please look at these sites to gain an idea of the content of the exhibition, before reading my comments below.

My overall view of the exhibition - my "sound byte", if you like - is that it presents St Francis life in a very sympathetic way. So, for example, the several representations of St Francis receiving the stigmata are accompanied by display notes that presume completely the veracity of the stigmata. The room which explores St Francis relation to the natural environment includes a full text of his Canticle of Brother Sun, so that you cannot but recognise the praise expressed through created things is directed towards God. If you knew nothing of St Francis' life before visiting the exhibition, you would leave it with an accurate and sympathetic first knowledge of that life.

Perhaps my favourite parts of the exhibition were Murillo's painting of St Francis embracing Christ, who reaches down to him from the Cross. From the central room of the exhibition, you looked through the arch that gave entry to the room displaying this painting and its central position in the room.  I also liked the way in which the National Gallery's own set of Sasseta's paintings were displayed around the central room of the exhibition, giving a sense of their being displayed in a church which reflects their original intention. A number of the art works displayed show miracles attributed to St Francis, and these are presented in a way that is empathetic to the reality of miraculous events. 

I was not so taken with the exhibition's display of more contemporary representations of St Francis. Antony Gormley's sculpture, which was intended to greet you as you entered the first room of the exhibition, appeared to me, during my visit, to be being generally ignored by visitors. There was nothing particularly attractive about it either in terms of its form or in terms of the materials used. It failed to express the interest in St Francis on the part of the sculptor described in the accompanying object label.

The two series of abstract images in the last room were, if I recall correctly, intended to represent events in the life of St Francis and its themes. They didn't do anything for me, so I essentially ignored them.  A small display on the wall related to a film clip running on a loop in the centre of the room. This display consisted of posters for films featuring St Francis, and a picture of the front cover of a Marvel comic version of his life story. Why full size images of the film posters could not be displayed is a mystery to me - if the Curzon cinema on nearby Shaftesbury Avenue can line the wall of the corridor leading to their rest rooms with full size posters of historic films, surely the National Gallery should be able to display full size posters. The short section of the film loop that I watched was taken from Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1966 film The Hawks and the Sparrows, running silently with the dialogue shown in English subtitles. To really make sense of this, you would need to know something of Pasolini's political background and of the entirety of this particular film - the section referencing St Francis' life is part of a rather different whole. In looking into this after my visit, I have been reminded of another attempt to appropriate St Francis' essentially Christian life to a more secular apologia: Nikos Kazantzakis' novel about the life of St Francis, God's Pauper.

All this having been said, I think the exhibition is well worth a visit for the reasons indicated in my first three paragraphs above. 

Sin and Crime

 This is the way in which Associated Press reported Pope Francis' remarks about homosexuality in his recent interview:

Pope Francis has stepped up his criticism of discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community. He called laws criminalising homosexuals unjust but reiterated Catholic Church teaching that homosexual activity is sinful.

Bantering with himself, Francis articulated the position: "It's not a crime. Yes, but it's a sin. Fine, but first let's distinguish between a sin and a crime".

A fuller discussion of his remarks in the interview were reported here by Associated Press: The AP Interview: Pope says homosexuality not a crime. 

Pope Francis has since replied, in the form of a letter, to three questions that were asked of him by Fr James Martin SJ. The exchange is reported on Fr Martin's website: Pope Francis clarifies comments on homosexuality: "One must consider the circumstances".

And I wanted to clarify that it is not a crime, in order to stress that criminalization is neither good nor just.

When I said it is a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin. Of course, one must also consider the circumstances, which may decrease or eliminate fault. As you can see, I was repeating something in general. I should have said “It is a sin, as is any sexual act outside of marriage.” This is to speak of “the matter” of sin, but we know well that Catholic morality not only takes into consideration the matter, but also evaluates freedom and intention; and this, for every kind of sin.

And I would tell whoever wants to criminalize homosexuality that they are wrong.

In a televised interview, where we spoke with natural and conversational language, it is understandable that there would not be such precise definitions.

I think that it has been very easy to misunderstand Pope Francis' previous exchanges of correspondence with Fr Martin, and in one respect this latest letter removes some of the cause for that misunderstanding. Pope Francis' letters have offered support for a ministry of closeness, without any suggestion that this should represent a change in Catholic teaching. America reports one such letter in August 2021. It is worth reading what it says carefully:

I want to thank you for your pastoral zeal and your ability to be close to people, with that closeness that Jesus had and that reflects the closeness of God. Our Heavenly Father approaches with love every one of his children, each and everyone. His heart is to open to each and everyone. He is Father. God's "style" has three aspects: closeness, compassion and tenderness. This is how he draws closer to each one of us.

Thinking about your pastoral work, I see that you are continuously looking to imitate this style of God...

When Rocco Buttiglione was proposed as a candidate to be a commissioner in the European Union in 2004, the question of the sinfulness of homosexual acts in relation to political action arose in a slightly different way. Rocco Buttiglione explained his stance during the hearing in advance of the appointment being made as follows (see my post here):

They introduced the category of sin into the political discourse, and I said "No, in politics we may not speak of sin. We should speak of non-discrimination, and I am solidly opposed to discrimination against homosexuals, or any type of discrimination." I did not say that homosexuality is a sin, as many newspapers reported. I said, "I may think." It is possible that I think this, but I did not tell them whether I think it or not. What I think about this has no impact whatsoever on politics, because in politics the problem is the principle concerning discrimination and I accept that principle.  

That was not enough. They wanted me to say that I see nothing objectionable about homosexuality. This I cannot do because it is not what I think. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church it is written that, from a moral point of view, homosexuality is not a sin but rather an objectively disordered condition. Homosexuality can become a sin if one adds the subjective element, which is to say, full knowledge that this is wrong and also freedom of the will which accepts this wrong position. I was not allowed to say that and for this reason I was deemed not worthy to be a European commissioner.  

In different contexts, Pope Francis and Rocco Buttiglione are sending the same message.

Thoughts on the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Amongst the many tributes paid to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in recent days, it was the report of the observation of the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, that I thought most fully captured what he was about. Media outlets shortened it to refer to him as "a giant of faith and reason", but the full text can be found on the website of the Italian Government.

Benedict XVI was a giant of faith and of reason. A man who loved the Lord and devoted his life to the service of the universal Church. He spoke, and will continue to speak, to the hearts and minds of people with the spiritual, cultural and intellectual depth of his Magisterium. A Christian, a shepherd, a theologian: one of history’s greats, whom history will not forget. 
I have conveyed the Government’s and my personal sympathy to the Holy Father Pope Francis for his and the entire Church community’s grief.

 This was also reinforced by Tim Stanley's contribution to the "Thought for the Day" on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning. He pointed towards Pope Benedict's address in Westminster Hall during his visit to Britain in 2010 as a key to understanding him. I would additionally point towards the lecture that Pope Benedict would have delivered at the La Sapienza university, had that visit gone ahead in January 2008.

The first of these highlights what should be the just relationship between government or state and the ethical proposals that might be the proper province of religions.

The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This “corrective” role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves. And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.....

...there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square. I would invite all of you, therefore, within your respective spheres of influence, to seek ways of promoting and encouraging dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life.

 Pope Benedict's lecture prepared for La Sapienza explores the relationship between the mission of the Pope and the mission of a university, addressing the community of a university that in its origins was a Papal foundation but is now an institution of the Italian state. In discussing first the role of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, who first exercises a care for the community of the Church, Pope Benedict wrote:

Yet this community which the Bishop looks after – be it large or small – lives in the world; its circumstances, its history, its example and its message inevitably influence the entire human community. The larger it is, the greater the effect, for better or worse, on the rest of humanity. Today we see very clearly how the state of religions and the situation of the Church – her crises and her renewal – affect humanity in its entirety. Thus the Pope, in his capacity as Shepherd of his community, is also increasingly becoming a voice for the ethical reasoning of humanity.

Pope Benedict then goes on to suggest that there is a human wisdom passed down that gives a credibility to the religious thought of earlier generations:

Here, however, the objection immediately arises: surely the Pope does not really base his pronouncements on ethical reasoning, but draws his judgements from faith and hence cannot claim to speak on behalf of those who do not share this faith. We will have to return to this point later, because here the absolutely fundamental question must be asked: What is reason? How can one demonstrate that an assertion – especially a moral norm – is “reasonable”? At this point I would like to describe briefly how John Rawls, while denying that comprehensive religious doctrines have the character of “public” reason, nonetheless at least sees their “non-public” reason as one which cannot simply be dismissed by those who maintain a rigidly secularized rationality. Rawls perceives a criterion of this reasonableness among other things in the fact that such doctrines derive from a responsible and well thought-out tradition in which, over lengthy periods, satisfactory arguments have been developed in support of the doctrines concerned. The important thing in this assertion, it seems to me, is the acknowledgment that down through the centuries, experience and demonstration – the historical source of human wisdom – are also a sign of its reasonableness and enduring significance. Faced with an a-historical form of reason that seeks to establish itself exclusively in terms of a-historical rationality, humanity’s wisdom – the wisdom of the great religious traditions – should be valued as a heritage that cannot be cast with impunity into the dustbin of the history of ideas.

After observing that man, in exercising his reason, seeks what is good as well as what is true, Pope Benedict goes on to address the question that he would later address in Westminster Hall:

At this point, however, the question immediately arises: How is it possible to identify criteria of justice that make shared freedom possible and help man to be good? Here a leap into the present is necessary. The point in question is: how can a juridical body of norms be established that serves as an ordering of freedom, of human dignity and human rights? This is the issue with which we are grappling today in the democratic processes that form opinion, the issue which also causes us to be anxious about the future of humanity. In my opinion, Jürgen Habermas articulates a vast consensus of contemporary thought when he says that the legitimacy of a constitutional charter, as a basis for what is legal, derives from two sources: from the equal participation of all citizens in the political process and from the reasonable manner in which political disputes are resolved. With regard to this “reasonable manner”, he notes that it cannot simply be a fight for arithmetical majorities, but must have the character of a “process of argumentation sensitive to the truth” (wahrheitssensibles Argumentationsverfahren). The point is well made, but it is far from easy to put it into practice politically. The representatives of that public “process of argumentation” are – as we know – principally political parties, inasmuch as these are responsible for the formation of political will. De facto, they will always aim to achieve majorities and hence will almost inevitably attend to interests that they promise to satisfy, even though these interests are often particular and do not truly serve the whole. Sensibility to the truth is repeatedly subordinated to sensibility to interests. I find it significant that Habermas speaks of sensibility to the truth as a necessary element in the process of political argument, thereby reintroducing the concept of truth into philosophical and political debate.

Whilst many in public life seem to appreciate Pope Emeritus Benedict for his gentleness and warmth of character, it will be interesting to see how many really appreciate the dimensions of his intellectual thought on how the public sphere should have a just regard for religious belief. It would be quite unfair, for example, to dismiss his thought in this field on the grounds that it is being cited by two people who wider society would recognise as being politically right of centre

Freedom of Religion or Belief - and abortion

 At the beginning of July the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the UK Government hosted an international ministerial meeting on "Freedom of Religion or Belief". My attention was first drawn to this meeting by Mgr Michael Nazir Ali's article in the September/October issue of FAITH Magazine: Is Freedom of Religion or Belief now politically mainstream? My attention was drawn again by the BBC's reporting of the reaction of an abortion provider to the appointment of Therese Coffey as Secretary of State for Health and, indeed, to Liz Truss's appointment as prime minister: Therese Coffey's views on abortion concerning, charity says. 

Mgr Nazir Ali's article makes reference to "fringe" events that took place on the sidelines of the main conference, addressing violations of freedom of religion and belief in different situations around the world. Aid to the Church in Need ran one of these "fringe" events, discussing the persecution of Christians in Syria and Iraq: Christian persecution never ended in the Middle East. This page indicates the activities of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief at the time of the ministerial meeting.

However, though Mgr Nazir Ali does not mention it, there also appears to be an assimilation of an idea of "conscientious choice for abortion" into the notion of freedom of belief, as evidenced by what the executive director of Humanists UK said during the opening ceremony of the main conference:

“If FoRB is to be for everyone everywhere, we must all resist the temptation to impose our beliefs on others. This is how so many violations of FoRB originate. That is true of the Christian in China whose atheist government prevents her from congregating freely as her conscience leads her and of the non-religious woman in the West when Christians in her Government block her conscientious choice of an abortion or any other practice. Illiberal totalitarianism, whether atheist, Christian, Islamic: many forces limit freedom of religion or belief today. All of us are in the minority somewhere and all of us have brothers and sisters subject somewhere to the vilest of persecution.”

 The main conference resulted in number of statements that participating nations were invited to sign up to. The statement that has brought particular attention to Liz Truss, who at the time of the conference was the UK Foreign Secretary, is the one about freedom of religion or belief and gender equality. The "final" version that now appears on the FCDO website is here: Freedom of Religion or Belief and Gender Equality. However, the first bullet point of the original version (my italics added) indicated a commitment to:

uphold and protect gender equality, non-discrimination and freedom of religion or belief. Discriminatory personal status laws, laws that allow harmful practices, or restrict women’s and girls’ full and equal enjoyment of all human rights, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, bodily autonomy, and other laws that justify, condone, or reinforce violence, discrimination, or inequalities on the grounds of religion, belief or gender should be repealed.

That bullet point now reads:

uphold and protect gender equality, non-discrimination and freedom of religion or belief. Challenge discriminatory laws that justify, condone, or reinforce violence, discrimination, or inequalities on the grounds of religion, belief or gender and that restrict women and girls’ full and equal enjoyment of human right.

 The change appears to have been made after the conclusion of the conference, and Liz Truss has defended it in parliament on the grounds that it allows a greater degree of unity among conference participants.

But once again, what is to be seen here is an advocacy in favour of abortion based in a consideration that does not reference the ethical rights or wrongs of abortion but a contrived assimilation of a rather distinct consideration. In the case of America's Roe vs. Wade judgement it was a consideration of privacy as expressed in the US constitution; in the case of the extension of legalised abortion to Northern Ireland it was a consideration of whether or not travel to access abortion was degrading treatment; and now it is a contrived inclusion of gender as a consideration in freedom of religion or belief. 

Whilst Christians should certainly advocate for the freedom of others with regards to their differing religion or belief, in a way that is absolute and universal, there is a need to resist the absorption into that universality advocacy for falsely contrived rights that do not exist as rights properly so called.

Conservatives, condoms and chocolate

The BBC news website is reporting that free condoms will be distributed to delegates at their forthcoming annual conference: Tory conference: LGBT group unveils politics-themed condoms. 

This quotation cited in the BBC report makes one wonder, firstly, why "a good time" is assumed to be defined only in terms of sexual activity; and, secondly, how many conference attendees will really believe that the distribution of free condoms really reflects conservative values. 

"We all know people like a good time at conferences, and we're here to help ensure that happens safely."

It is also a point for reflection that the LGBT+ Conservatives have chosen to make their impact at conference with a highly sexualised messaging. Again, does such a highly sexualised presentation reflect genuinely conservative values that might be held by LGBT+ people in the Conservative party?

Whilst the BBC report suggests a humorous intent, one wonders about the political and social maturity of that particular sense of humour.

I am reminded of the incident at Corpus Christi College in the late 1970's, recorded at Fr Tim Finigan's blog: Contraceptives and Chocolate. This occurred when a motion was proposed to install a condom machine in the undergraduate student common room.

Paul Haffner was there at the time so it must have been my first year (1977-8). He lobbied the Catholics at the College to turn out to support an amendment he was intending to propose. There were not all that many of us but a couple of hearties from the Officer Training Corps ensured that we were not entirely overwhelmed.

Paul's moment came and he announced with his very careful and laboured enunciation "I should like to propose an amendment." This was duly noted and he was invited to make his proposition. With similar dramatic effect, he said "That the motion should be amended by replacing the word 'contraceptives' with the word 'chocolate'." This brought the house down and his amendment (and the amended motion) were carried on a wave of enthusiasm.

Now, I wonder .... will Jacob Rees-Mogg organise a campaign for the distribution of free chocolate bars at the Tory party conference, in order to counter the distribution of free condoms?

On a more serious note, I recall reading C P Snow's novel The Corridors of Power in my much younger years and taking away from it the message that, if nuclear disarmament was to be achieved in the UK, it would occur when Conservative politics came to support it. The politics of the left would always be insufficient to achieve it. Likewise, I think what we have seen in the field of LGBT issues is that, when Conservative politics gave way it made possible the "ideological colonisation" of which Pope Francis regularly speaks.

All the Cathedrals (12): Lichfield

 Zero and I are once again taking up our visits to Cathedral towns (aided at the moment by the half price rail fare offer - we made it to Lichfield and back from East London yesterday for the ridiculous price of £6 each!).

The website of Lichfield City Council has an informative page on the Cathedral: Lichfield Cathedral. The Cathedral has its own website here. Wikipedia provides a detailed account of St Chad, with the section on "Cult and Relics" indicating how his life is marked in the history of Lichfield Cathedral: Chad of Mercia. In the present day Cathedral, an icon showing St Chad stands as a shrine, positioned above the point where St Chad was buried behind the high altar of the original cathedral. The relics of St Chad are now located above the high altar of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Birmingham. Again, Wikipedia includes an account of how the relics come to be in the possession of the Catholic diocese.

As you visit Lichfield Cathedral today, you see a unified Gothic cathedral that dates from the mediaeval period. The shrine to St Chad which was previously to be found in the apse behind the high altar was removed at the time of Henry VIII's reign, though the present day building does not show any destructive signs of the dissolution of the shrine. The years of the Civil War, however, led to much greater destruction due to war damage and troop occupation. Where another town might have had a castle that would have been a focus for defence and attack, it was the Cathedral and its close that played that part in Lichfield. After the end of the Civil War, and the restoration of the monarchy, Bishop Hackett and his collaborators undertook a major repair of the damage, so the present day cathedral again does not readily show the destruction that occurred.

Highlights to see: (1) The Lichfield Angel - the account here also indicates something of the two previous Cathedral buildings that exist underneath the present Cathedral, but which are not apparent to the visitor to today's Cathedral; (2) the St Chad Gospels. (3) The stained glass windows in the apse of the Lady Chapel - known as the "Herkenrode glass", but I can't find a convenient link for this. We were unable to take part in a tour of the Cathedral, but I suspect that the tour would have given us a fuller impression of the history of the Cathedral.

Lichfield is also the birth place of Samuel Johnson. The town house in which he was born is now the Samuel Johnson Birthplace, Museum and Bookshop. The museum is well worth a visit - we took particular interest in leafing through a (replica) copy of Samuel Johnson's encyclopaedia next to an original copy enclosed in a glass case. The museum enables you to get a feel both for Samuel Johnson himself and for the climate in which he lived and wrote. His life's work reads something like that of a present day newspaper columnist and author, with his eventual "fame" being akin to what we today would call "celebrity". Not surprisingly, a couple of charities have good bookshops on the same street as the Samuel Johnson museum!

Unnecessary burdens

 I found this post at Where Peter Is a thoughtful read: They Lay Heavy Burdens on the Shoulders of Others. I think it usefully indicates the consequences that can be experienced as a result of the existence of a kind of "alternative teaching authority" alongside that of the established hierarchy of the Church. It also gives a suggestion, in its use of the term "reactionary", of the possible merging of a (conservative) political stance with a Traditionalist ecclesial stance. 

What I think is most useful in the post is its account of how the activity of the proponents of this alternative teaching impacts on ordinary people who follow them, and in ways that are quite unnecessary. Very often we are looking at situations that are matters of prudential choice and not religious imperative, as, for example, with the question of home schooling.

I am a little unsure of the suggestion that the need to keep a job constitutes a "grave reason" in terms of allowing the taking of a COVID-19 vaccine:

Since the Church has spoken, they should be free to receive a vaccine, if only to keep their jobs. In my opinion, this could be considered a “grave reason,” particularly when a job is necessary to support the family.

Since the Church's teaching on the matter has been made clear, certainly Catholics should feel free to receive a vaccine in order to keep their job and support their family , without any concern that they are taking part in an immoral action. But in another context, the need to support a family would not justify taking part in something that is taught by the Church as being morally unlawful. Hence, my hesitations here.

I have more difficulty with some of what the writer says about Amoris Laetitia, most particularly this sentence:

Pope Francis taught that under some circumstances, divorced and remarried Catholics can be admitted to Communion.

I think it is more accurate to say that Pope Francis allowed a possibility in the well known footnote in Amoris Laetitia. This possibility, however, is only a part of a wider programme of how the Church should help those in irregular marriage situations to grow in the life of grace and charity (cf the very sentence in n.305 to which the footnote is applied). I think the writer also misses the point that it is the manifest (ie publicly visible) and persistent (ie a public situation that may not change in the immediate moment) that leads to a canonical ruling that remarried people cannot receive the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. 

I see three fundamental aspects to Pope Francis' teaching in Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia: 

Firstly, a recognition that a person living in an objective state of sin through an irregular marriage situation may be living to an extent a life of grace, and that they can grow in that life of grace (cf n.305). The post on Where Peter Is recognises this in a slightly different way in its account of mortal sin.

Secondly, there is a key place in the discernment of a particular situation for an examination of conscience, and the suggested path of this examination of conscience does involve "humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching" (cf. n.300). This examination of conscience is not a soft touch if the pattern suggested by Pope Francis is followed.

Thirdly, the key focus of the discernment is not that of reception or not of the sacraments but of how a person might engage with the Church's mission of charity in order to thereby grow in the life of grace. This is strongly argued in Amoris Laetitia n.306, and followed up by Pope Francis' observation in n.309 that it is providential that the Apostolic Exhortation is wirtten during the Year of Mercy, when the renewed practice of the works of charity was proposed to the Church. 

In other respects, though, I think the post at Where Peter Is has usefully given an account of the experience that can result from the unhelpful activity of some clerics and commentators.

Freedom and the Common Good

As the governments of the United Kingdom begin to put in place measures in an attempt to limit the increasing number of COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant, a narrative from the right of the political spectrum speaks of these measures as a reprehensible denial of our freedom, to be opposed at all costs.

But that is to see the question of freedom only in the negative term of "freedom from ..", rather than in its positive term of "freedom to ...". In this positive conception, the proper end of the exercise of human freedom is that which is true and good, that is, our own good and the good of our neighbour. This is expressed in n.365 of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

365. Why does everyone have a right to exercise freedom?
The right to the exercise of freedom belongs to everyone because it is inseparable from his or her dignity as a human person. Therefore this right must always be respected, especially in moral and religious matters, and it must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and a just public order.

That reference to "the limits of the common good" defines the purpose towards which the exercise of human freedom in society is directed, and recognises a qualification to any idea that freedom means freedom to do whatever one likes in the exercise of rights, regardless of the interests of our neighbour.

A similar qualification to the exercise of human rights and freedoms exists in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, where Article 29 n.2 reads as follows, the term "the general welfare in a democratic society" expressing the idea of a common good:

In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

So a narrative which seeks to oppose the establishment of measures in law intended to limit the adverse effects of COVID-19 variants in society only on the grounds of their being infringements of human freedom is a partial perspective, neglecting the recognition in major human rights instruments of the limitation to that freedom that can be applied in the interests of the common good. And as a partial perspective, pursued alone, it becomes an ideology of freedom rather than an advocacy of true freedom.

[One might want to argue that the proposed measures are not actually required by the common good... but that is to then enter into a debate about the (scientific) evidence, and that is a rather different position to adopt.]

Climate Justice

I wonder ... is a first justice owed towards our Creator, rather than towards the Earth in itself? 

Psalm 8 was part of Morning Prayer today, though I offer below the revised Grail translation.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic

is your name through all the earth!

Your majesty is set above the heavens.

From the mouths of children and of babes

you fashioned praise to foil your enemy,

to silence the foe and the rebel.

When I see the heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars which you arranged,

what is man that you should keep him in mind,

the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him little lower than the angels;

with glory and honor you crowned him,

gave him power over the works of your hands:

you put all things under his feet.

All of them, sheep and oxen,

yes, even the cattle of the fields,

birds of the air, and fish of the sea

that make their way through the waters.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic

is your name through all the earth!

The Holy See and the United Nations: Paul VI

 In October 1965, during the meeting of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI paid a visit to the United Nations. The then Secretary General of the United Nations had invited the Holy Father to speak to the General Assembly in marking the twentieth anniversary of the organisation. Paul VI himself described this visit as a moment "bearing the imprint of a unique greatness", both for himself and for the United Nations. The full English text of Pope Paul's address can be found here at the Vatican website; the United Nations website carries a radio report, in English, of his visit here, a report that conveys something of the high expectations surrounding Pope Paul's visit. The address was originally delivered in French: text at the Vatican website here and audio on the United Nations site here. 

Pope Paul's speech is memorable for its impassioned plea for peace:

Here our message reaches its culmination and we will speak first of all negatively. These are the words you are looking for us to say and the words we cannot utter without feeling aware of their seriousness and solemnity: never again one against the other, never, never again!

Was not this the very end for which the United Nations came into existence: to be against war and for peace? Listen to the clear words of a great man who is no longer with us, John Kennedy, who proclaimed four years ago: "Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind." There is no need for a long talk to proclaim the main purpose of your Institution. It is enough to recall that the blood of millions, countless unheard-of sufferings, useless massacres and frightening ruins have sanctioned the agreement that unites you with an oath that ought to change the future history of the world: never again war, never again war! It is peace, peace, that has to guide the destiny of the nations of all mankind!

 But what I would like to explore is those sections of Pope Paul's address which indicate how he, and in his person the Holy See, understood the nature of the organisation that is the United Nations. 

You offer the many States which can no longer ignore each other a form of coexistence that is extremely simple and fruitful. First of all, you recognize them and distinguish them from each other. Now you certainly do not confer existence on States, but you do qualify each nation as worthy of being seated in the orderly assembly of peoples. You confer recognition of lofty moral and juridical value upon each sovereign national community and you guarantee it an honorable international citizenship.

There are two components in this paragraph. The first is a recognition that each of the individual states is not able to ignore the others; the behaviours of any one state have an influence on the behaviours of other states. And then secondly, in this context, the UN is recognises for each national community a "moral and juridical value" in a relationship to the like value of every other state, what the speech terms "international citizenship". Each national community is recognised as being of account in the consideration of every other national community. "Your vocation is to bring not just some peoples but all peoples together as brothers", to use the words Pope Paul used later in his address. This same paragraph ends with the following sentence which, though it does not require further exposition, is nevertheless significant for its implications for what should govern the relations between states:

You [ie the UN] sanction the great principle that relationships between nations must be regulated by reason, justice, law and negotiation, and not by force, violence, war, nor indeed by fear and deceit.

Pope Paul identifies a mission of working for peace as being characteristic of the nature of the United Nations:

Gentlemen, you have accomplished and are now in the course of accomplishing a great work: you are teaching men peace. The United Nations is the great school where people get this education and we are here in the assembly hall of this school. Anyone who takes his place here becomes a pupil and a teacher in the art of building peace. And when you go outside of this room, the world looks to you as the architects and builders of peace.

As you know very well, peace is not built merely by means of politics and a balance of power and interests. It is built with the mind, with ideas, with the works of peace. You are working at this great endeavor, but you are only at the beginning of your labors.

We do now have many more years experience of the work of the United Nations than were available to Pope Paul in 1965, an experience during which the deliberations of the UN Security Council in particular have not infrequently been the scene of exactly the politics of power and individual interests (think, for example, of the lack of action with regard to Syria since the civil war broke out there) to which Pope Paul drew attention. Reading Pope Paul's words today makes us feel that those words need to be repeated again to recall the members of the United Nations to their essential vocation.

To speak of humaneness and generosity is to echo another constitutional principle of the United Nations, its positive summit: you are working here not just to eliminate conflicts between States, but to make it possible for States to work for each other. You are not content with facilitating coexistence between nations. You are taking a much bigger step forward, one worthy of our praise and our support: you are organizing fraternal collaboration between nations..... This is the finest aspect of the United Nations Organization, its very genuine human side....

What you are proclaiming here are the basic rights and duties of man, his dignity, his liberty and above all his religious liberty. We feel that you are spokesmen for what is loftiest in human wisdom - we might almost say its sacred character - for it is above all a question of human life, and human life is sacred; no one can dare attack it.

We do not need to say anything further on this dimension of the work of the United Nations as identified by Pope Paul, beyond perhaps suggesting that Pope Paul is identifying an idea of international fraternity in its work that would later become the subject of Pope Francis' encyclical Fratelli Tutti.

Whilst these passages indicate something of how Pope Paul understood the nature and mission of the United Nations, an earlier part of his address offers what might rather be seen as a prudential judgement of the UN as being "the obligatory path of modern civilization and world peace":

Permit us to say that we have a message, and a happy one, to hand over to each one of you Our message is meant to be first of all a solemn moral ratification of this lofty Institution, and it comes from our experience of history. It is as an "expert on humanity" that we bring this Organization the support and approval of our recent predecessors, that of the Catholic hierarchy, and our own, convinced as we are that this Organization represents the obligatory path of modern civilization and world peace.

Whilst it may not be perfect - and Pope Paul recognised that the United Nations was setting out on its path rather than having achieved its purpose - this is an organisation to which support should be given.

[Postscript: it is also worth noting that Pope Paul referred, in a very diplomatic way, to some specific issues in his address - disarmament, birth control, the economic and social progress of poorer nations, literacy and culture.]

Quas Primas and the Source of Civil Authority

 In Pius XI's encyclical Quas Primas, we read:

What We said at the beginning of Our Pontificate concerning the decline of public authority, and the lack of respect for the same, is equally true at the present day. "With God and Jesus Christ," we said, "excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation."...

If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects.

....When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King... Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man. 

And in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we can read:

1897 "Human society can be neither well-ordered nor prosperous unless it has some people invested with legitimate authority to preserve its institutions and to devote themselves as far as is necessary to work and care for the good of all." By "authority" one means the quality by virtue of which persons or institutions make laws and give orders to men and expect obedience from them.

1898 Every human community needs an authority to govern it. The foundation of such authority lies in human nature. It is necessary for the unity of the state. Its role is to ensure as far as possible the common good of the society.

1899 The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

I have added the underlinings in both quotations, as it seems to represent the source of a particular integrist interpretation of the teaching of Quas Primas that is not reflected in the teaching of the Catechism or the section of Gaudium et Spes (nn.73-76) on which the Catechism draws. References for the citations in the extract from the Catechism can be found by following the link to the Catechism above..

The idea that all authority has its (direct) origin in God and, from a Christian point of view, in the person of Christ to whom the Father has entrusted all things, is what gives rise to the notion that that authority can only be rightly exercised in a confessional Catholic state. This contrasts with the suggestion of the Catechism that political authority has a foundation in human nature, distinguished from an authority in the moral order which derives from God. It also contrasts with the teaching of n.76 of Gaudium et Spes that:

The Church and the political community in their own fields are autonomous and independent from each other. 

The resolution of this contrast is found in a subtle formulation of Gaudium et Spes, to which the Catechism refers, and emphasised again by my added italics:

Yet the people who come together in the political community are many and diverse, and they have every right to prefer divergent solutions. If the political community is not to be torn apart while everyone follows his own opinion, there must be an authority to direct the energies of all citizens toward the common good, not in a mechanical or despotic fashion, but by acting above all as a moral force which appeals to each one's freedom and sense of responsibility. 

It is clear, therefore, that the political community and public authority are founded on human nature and hence belong to the order designed by God, even though the choice of a political regime and the appointment of rulers are left to the free will of citizens.

Where Pius XI uses the language of direct representation of the authority of God in the exercise of authority in public office, Gaudium et Spes instead speaks of a public authority that is exercised within a created order originating from God. The former might be seen as an expression in the order of revelation, while the latter is a like expression in the order of creation.

It is worth appreciating three aspects of context for Pius XI's remarks about the nature of authority in political life. Firstly, Quas Primas has its immediate purpose in establishing, as a celebration in the universal Church, of the liturgical feast of Christ the King, and therefore the relevance of Christ's kingship to the religious life of Catholics. Secondly, the encyclical also has a section that surveys the different places where the Old and New Testaments refer to Christ as a King, or as one who will rule. And thirdly, the discussion of the relationship between the kingship of Christ and authority exercised by civil powers is offered in response to Pius XI's perception of a rejection of Christ by rulers and states of his time (perhaps with a reference to the rise of fascism in Italy and atheistic communism in Russia?).

Though Quas Primas urges that rulers and states should acknowledge in their public life the rule of Christ, this has more the sense of an impulse for evangelisation than an advocacy in favour of a confessional Catholic state. This is particularly seen to be the case if the discussion of civil authority is placed alongside such sections of Quas Primas as the survey of Scriptural texts, which present Christ's kingship in a messianic and eschatological perspective, and its discussion of the feast day in relation to the lives of Catholics themselves.

The penultimate paragraph of Quas Primas provides a useful reflection as we approach the feast of Christ the King this year:

If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.