On the incompatibility of the Catholic Church and the modern state.

Today, there is an opinion that the Catholic Church is incompatible with the modern state. The contemporary state professes a doctrine of sovereignty that cannot be reconciled with the Catholic Church’s claims, and this inevitably results in conflict. It can be spread over three objections:

1. The Catholic Church claims the universal right to judge in matters of faith and morality, and this means—theoretically and practically—the right to destroy by any means all subjects who disagree with it (heretics, schismatics, and others). For the secular state, even the presence of the Catholic community is a mortal danger.

2. Catholics’ reason is subordinated to the general authority of the Church and especially to papal authority, which is incompatible with the concept of citizenship in the modern state—it is based on the belief that all issues are decided individually by each citizen, in complete freedom from any authority, and the free decision of the majority commits the minority to obedience.

3. The universal claims of the Catholic Church conflict with the claims of the modern lay and absolute state. The term „laic“ means that the state must not adopt or support any particular transcendental philosophy. The term „absolute“ means that the modern civil state, like the ancient pagan state (which is getting closer and closer), does not allow the distribution of its sovereignty. It requires its citizens to commit themselves to obedience exclusively to the state and no other power.

The modern state differs from the medieval one in that it claims complete independence from any authority other than its own, while the medieval state considered itself only part of Christianitas and felt bound by general moral laws and the order of the Christian world. Modern state absolutism began in the 16th century with the belief of Protestant princes that their power was independent of the Church and its doctrine. Thus arose the doctrine of „divine law kráľov“ and its heir is today’s modern state – whether monarchist, republican, or other – when it claims the complete allegiance of its citizens.

The fear that the Catholic community in a non-Catholic society will use all available means to destroy the non-Catholic elements in it and force it into Catholic discipline is unfounded. The Catholic community will not do so – and not out of fear, but out of its principles. These principles define Catholic doctrine as accurate and sound, thereby implicitly labeling anti-Catholic doctrine as false and evil. A Catholic considers heretical and pagan morals harmful and believes that society should get rid of them. However, a Catholic must not strive for their destruction other than by free conversion. Catholic society has the right to defend itself against internal subversion, promote Catholic education and culture, and preserve Christian civilization’s unity. However, it does not have the right to violently attack a non-Catholic society that has been established somewhere for a long time, because it also has its rights (e.g., the right of the family to raise a child), the violation of which would be unfair.

Catholics will always—so they should—strive to convert the society in which they live. Sometimes, as in the case of the Roman Empire, they succeed, and other times, as in the case of Japan, they fail. But the effort to convert must not be violent. The Catholic State has the right to defend itself against attempts to destroy itself. However, the Catholic minority in a non-Catholic state does not have the right to speak out violently against it.

All claims of „catholic danger“ are based on misconceptions about Catholic claims and their application. Although the Catholic Church claims to be the only authority in matters of faith and morality, it exercises this authority differently than its opponents say. The Catholic faith does not allow forcible conversion because it understands that moral action must be free. If there have been violent conversions somewhere in history, it was wrong. Furthermore, it is rightly pointed out that an individual Catholic accepts the judgment of the Church and, in some instances, the judgment of the Pope as superior to his own. However, the general idea of non-Catholics how it goes is wrong. The fault lies in the notion that the Catholic attitude is irrational and unreasonable, while the attitude of a non-Christian is reasonable. It doesn’t work that way.

All people accept some authority. The difference lies in the type of authority they accept. A Catholic has come to believe – or obtained it through education – that Divine Revelation once occurred. He will discover and recognize the unique action of God on this earth. He discovers and recognizes the voice of the Catholic Church and an elaborate doctrinal system that is internally consistent and correct. The incarnation of the Deity in man Jesus Christ, the immortality of the human soul, its responsibility towards the Creator for good and bad deeds, its subsequent fate after death, the sacraments, the teaching about the Eucharist – it forms a continuous whole, which is the only consistent guide to the exemplary life, and a proper set of statements about the nature of essential things. To be Catholic is to accept this guidance, this set of claims. To doubt or deny it is to reject Catholicism.

This attitude is adopted under the sharp light of reason. It is not true, as people ignorant of history believe, that these truths were accepted without vetting in barbaric and pre-critical times. That logical argumentation is a modern invention. From the first apologetics in the 2nd century to today, during the Dark Ages, and when society reached a high intellectual level, Catholics universally and continuously invoked reason. Even today, Catholics are the only organized group that consistently invokes reason and the laws of thought and does not accept the a priori ideas of materialistic scientists and the confused views of emotional and fantastic philosophical systems. A Catholic acts based on reason when he recognizes the Church’s goodness, holiness, and authoritative divine character, just as a person acts based on reason when he acknowledges an individual voice or face. Once he has recognized such authority, his reason necessarily requires submission to the decisions of the Church. With his reason and experience, one can know that the Catholic Church is the only divine authority on earth. However, he cannot come to the certainty with his mind that a disturbed human nature can achieve eternal bliss without help. Reason can only accept it indirectly, based on authority.

A Catholic bases his faith on reason, and this faith, once accepted, prevents him from playing the role prescribed to the ideal citizen of a modern state. A Catholic will not subject all things to separate and individual private judgment, nor will he necessarily and always consider it a moral duty to obey laws passed through the majority voting process. In many questions –, for example, in the question of the indissolubility of marriage, – will accept established learning and prefer it to any possible conclusion arising from one’s own limited experience, judgment and ability. If the majority were to pass a law forcing him to act against Catholic morality, he would refuse to obey it.

About the principles of the secular state

The secular state is built on the principle of political atheism. Society consists of two elements, the ruling, which represents power and authority, and the ruled, or subject, whom the ruler rules to achieve the common good. In this regard, the ruling element, whether it is the king, the prince, the president, the government, the parliament in establishing laws, in enforcing them, or in the exercise of judicial power, can act so that, as if God does not exist and disregard God’s laws, natural or positive?

The political atheist will answer the question positively. It is not difficult to find the delusional principles from which he derived them, because they were already enumerated and condemned in the Syllabus of the errors of Pius IX. Depending on whether God’s existence is rejected, confused with nature or the world, or whether God’s existence is recognized, but His providence (God’s management of the world) rejected – God is in any case excluded from the world and „any divine intervention against people and the world is denied“.

From this, the logic of the political atheist is as follows: Human reason is the only arbiter of truth and error, good and evil. The innate faculties of human reason acquire all religious truths. Reason is the highest law by which man can and must come to the knowledge of all truths and can ensure good for people and nations with his natural abilities. The rules of morality and other human laws do not need authority to come from God. Philosophical and moral knowledge and civil laws can and should be exempted from God’s and the church’s authority. The State, the originator and source of all rights, has unlimited authority. Authority is nothing but the sum of material power. All these delusions are interconnected: by denying God’s existence, man comes to materialism and the tyranny of the stronger. This is both a principle and a consequence of political atheism.

Political atheism dismantles society itself. The last goal of society is the improvement of citizens who cannot achieve it alone, but achieve it through society. This perfection consists mainly in knowing the duties that belong to everyone and in learning the virtues that are necessary to fulfill these duties. The basis of all responsibilities is religious duties. Therefore, citizens should know how better to meet their religious obligations in and through society. Political atheism either rejects or does not care about things that belong to religion. Therefore, political atheism contradicts the most fundamental goal of human culture.

Elements of society are the government and the subjects. The government rules and subjects obey it according to the law. According to the secularist hypothesis of political atheism, state power rests on no moral foundations, only on the stronger one. But state power is not only the sum of material forces; it is something essential moral, because it considers its right to rule over society to be just, whether based on inheritance, military power, chance, by the consent of the people, etc. Therefore, it does not come from individual reason, which by itself has no authority to rule over others, nor does it come from an impersonal source that is abstract and fantastic. Still, it comes directly from God and is a share and participation in God’s power. Therefore, political power cannot be understood atheistically, because it would negate itself with this act.

Civil laws are immoral unless they express or clarify natural law; however, natural law is nothing more than participation in the eternal law from which it takes authority. Therefore, political atheism is a rejection of authority as such. It is a rejection of human legislation, because according to the atheistic hypothesis, it has no power to morally bind it. Power, as long as they move away from God, depends on nothing but themselves. Thus appeared the so-called. The Divine State, which in its essence is nothing more than the will of the monarch, only helps a more vigorous monarch. In political atheism (secular state), human society is not governed by moral authority, but only by the will to rule, just as it is among wild animals.