Catholic Church and politics

The Catholic Church and politics concerns the interplay of Catholicism with religious, and later secular, politics. The Catholic Church's views and teachings have evolved over its history and have at times been significant political influences within nations. Historically, the Church followed the policy of strict neutrality, with Catholic thinkers such as Eusebius of Caesarea believing that the Church should not concern itself with political matters. However, Saint Augustine, one of the Doctors of the Church, influenced the Church towards his theory of minimal involvement in politics, according to which the Church "accepted the legitimacy of even pagan governments that maintained a social order useful to Christians as well and to the extent that the freedom of the Church to carry out its evangelical task was allowed." In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas discussed the concept of political legitimacy and the moral issues of using political power, concluding that explicit limitations to governmental power are necessary. Later Thomists such as Saint Cajetan, Francisco Suárez and Robert Bellarmine introduced the idea of early Christian democracy, according to which political power was granted by God to each community, and every political official was to obey the community's determination in his political decisions; according to this concept, the community could transfer the authority from one official to another as well. In early Church, the biblical passage Matthew 22:21 ("Render to Ceasar, the things that are Ceasar's, and to God, the things that are God's") was a source of discussion regarding the role of the Church and its relations with secular governments, defining the dualism of Catholic political thinking - unlike earlier religions, the Catholic Church became a separate, independent institution that was not a part of any ethnic or political structures of already existing communities. The Church's doctrine considered Christian communities to be the "recipients of divine grace and inspiration", along with the clergy.

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Related concepts (5)

Christianity and politics

The relationship between Christianity and politics is a historically complex subject and a frequent source of disagreement throughout the history of Christianity, as well as in modern politics between the Christian right and Christian left. There have been a wide variety of ways in which thinkers have conceived of the relationship between Christianity and politics, with many arguing that Christianity directly supports a particular political ideology or philosophy.

Anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics and/or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the United States, turned anti-Catholicism, opposition to the Pope (anti-Papalism), mockery of Catholic rituals, and opposition to Catholic adherents into major political themes and policies of religious persecution.

Gallicanism

Gallicanism is the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by the monarch's or the state's authority—over the Catholic Church is comparable to that of the pope. Gallicanism is a rejection of ultramontanism; it has something in common with Anglicanism, but is nuanced, in that it plays down the authority of the Pope in church without denying that there are some authoritative elements to the office associated with being primus inter pares ("first among equals").