The Church

a) Definition of the Church

By the Church we do not mean the great loose group of men who have any sort of supernatural religion. We do not use the word as a blanket term to cover all the varying and opposed denominational religious groups of the world. Nor do we use the word as a general name for the group of all who are ordinarily considered and called “Christians.” By the term the Church we mean the true Christian Church; we mean the Church which Christ really established and to which He imparted the authority to teach all men and to guide and govern them in the way of salvation, i. e., of their eternal last end. In a word, we mean the Catholic Church. The Church, then, is defined as the society of all v/ those who, being baptized, profess the faith of Christ, and are governed by their lawful pastors under one visible head. The Church is a true society, for it is a stable union of a plurality of persons and exists for the purpose of achieving a common end by the use of common means. It is a perfect society, for it contains in itself all that its nature demands, and is complete and selfsufficient in its own proper sphere. It is a natural society in the sense that all men have a natural obligation to belong to it, although it is supernatural in the sense that it teaches truths divinely revealed and is a means of enabling men to reach their last end by the help of grace, a thing which unaided human nature could not achieve. / We say that man has the natural obligation of belonging to the true Church. For consider: Man is bound to exercise the acts of internal and external worship. In a word, man is bound to practise religion. This we have already seen in Individual Ethics (Chap. II). Now, man cannot discharge this natural obligation without the exercise of religion in his whole life, which is social as well as individual. As man is destined to life in society by natural requirement, so is he naturally directed to life in religious society, i. e., in the Church. The true Church is a necessary and divinely established means to man’s last end. Now man has the natural duty of attaining to his last end. Hence man has a natural duty of belonging to the true Church. All men, then, are bound to seek the true Church and to enter it and to live up to its requirements. Those that have the truth know that they have it with a true and absolute certainty. These have the strict duty, in natural law, of communicating that truth to others who do not have it, and they fulfill this duty by word and example calculated to win others to the knowledge of it. The number of those who actually have membership in the true Church constitutes the body of the Church. The soul of the Church extends to these and also includes those who have not membership in the true Church, but sincerely and honestly and wholeheartedly believe that they have. It is a natural and inevitable duty to belong to the soul of the true Church.

b) The Church and the State

In this difficult matter we shall merely state principles which reason makes evident about the relations existing necessarily between the true Church and civil society. There has been much controversy on the matter, and it has all arisen out of a misunderstanding on the part of those not of the true Church about the necessary character of that institution. If all men were actually in possession of the true religious facts; if all were members of the body and soul of the true Church, the matter would be entirely simple. But many do not have any clear notion of what the true Church is; and many are inclined to regard the Catholic Church as merely one of a great group of various and opposed bodies, of which it is the strongest numerically, and among which (as they think) it has the tendency to dominate. These persons regard the Catholic Church as they would regard a strong nation ; they are on the alert for “encroachments,” they suspect political motives, they approach the subject of Church and State with their defensive forces strictly drawn up, their suspicions keenly aroused, their hostility ready to show itself at the first seeming provocation. They come to this subject armed in impatience ; they are ready to burst forth into irritable speech, “Get this Church out of here! Keep it clear of our political business! Let’s have absolute separation of Church and State—especially of the State. Let Church and State be equal—particularly the State! Let each keep strictly within its own domain—especially the Church!” And then comes the timid Catholic, a man who knows the truth, and knows he knows it, but who is anxious to avoid irritating the really very irritable gentlemen who object to the union of Church and State—particularly the Church. This

Catholic is apologetic, in the sense that he seeks to excuse, not in the sense that he seeks to offer a defence. And his excuses muddle the issue so thoroughly that, to quote Mark Twain, “The oldest man in the world couldn’t understand it,” after he has done. And then the irritable gentlemen swell generously up with aerated Babbittism, and concede the right of existence to the Catholic Church, as a special favor not to be pressed too far. The timid and unreasonable Catholic is at the root of the whole difficulty. Hundreds of Catholics who are not timid, and who write and speak plainly, and in accordance with the dictates of reason, are unable to clear the matter because their own timid representative has mixed things up so, and is quoted back against them as having equal authority to speak with themselves. But, after all, it is not a question of authority but of plain reason. Make the case, for the moment, a supposititious one: if there is one, and only one, Church to which men are bound to belong; if this obligation is made evident by sound natural reason; if it is the clear duty of every man to achieve his last end by accepting the teaching and spiritual direction of this one Church—then certainly it will not be denied by the hottest antireligionist or the smallest-souled Babbitt that civil government must, while having its own special field, keep itself entirely in harmony with, and in subordination to, the one big issue and the one big institution of life and the world. Any other position in the matter would be untenable. For, life means nothing if it loses its end, its goal, the purpose for which life is made. And, according to our supposition, the Church is the means, and the neccessary means, for the achievement of that end. There is nothing a sound mind can, in the circumstances, possibly conclude except that the Church is the one institution among all the institutions that really matters; and that in importance it far surpasses any civil government, any State; nay, a sound mind must conclude that any State is a menace to men if it does not help them to know, to love, to obey the Church which is the necessary means of attaining their eternal end. Now, this supposititious case is really not supposititious, at least in its essential features. True, all men do not recognise the fact that there is such a Church, and such a duty of knowing it, belonging to it, loving and obeying it, as we have described; but the fact is a fact for all that. Many in the world know it; millions know it; all Catholics know it. And do Catholics, therefore, seek to subvert civil governments? Of course not! The Catholic Church recognizes the natural necessity of civil governments, and, if truth were only admitted, it is her morality that gives to just governments their solidity, their authority, their power for good. The Church not only does not seek to overthrow governments, but she would establish them. If the whole world were Catholic, if there were not a non-Catholic in existence, then civil govern- ments would exist, and very probably in the very forms in which they now exist, in the various countries ; for the Church has no choice in the matter of civil forms or regimens, and no concern with them. Then, as now, the following principles regarding the relation of Church and State would be the true principles in the matter: i. There can be no true clash between Church and State. The State is a perfect society; so also is the Church. This means that each is self-sufficient in its own sphere. Each has its own immediate end to achieve: that of the Church is the sanctification and salvation of men; that of the State is the material welfare of men, and, indirectly, the prospering of men in the attainment of their last end. Thus Church and State must work side by side, each in its own sphere, neither one ignoring or denying the other, neither trespassing on the other’s rights. ii. Therefore, the Church must not interfere with the State in matters that belong exclusively to its temporal domain. Thus, for example, the Church must leave civil society free to set up what form of just governing power it pleases to choose. iii. The State must not interfere with the Church by trespassing upon her spiritual domain. Thus, for example, the State must not interfere with the right of the Church to establish schools for religious instruction. iv. The State must not ignore the Church (and this is what most moderns mean by “Separation of Church and State”), but must, as having its own authority from God, protect and support the Church in its efforts to bring men to God, and must, in the framing of its laws, and in their execution, submit to the morality taught by the true Church of God. v. The Church must not ignore the State, but must teach her children that obedience to duly constituted civil authority is a matter of conscience and an obligation imposed upon them by rational nature and by God, the Author of nature.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have defined the Church, and have indicated its character as that of a true and perfect society. We have discussed the obligation, incumbent upon all men by the natural law, of belonging to the true Church. We have briefly discussed the relations that must exist between a justly established civil society (a State) and the true Church, and we have set down the principles dictated by the natural law in this matter.