Magisterial Invocation of Natural Law: Leo XIII and Diuturnum Illud, Part 3

COMPLETING OUR REVIEW of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Diuturnum illud in this posting, we turn to Leo XIII's solutions. The rise of false theories of the State and revolutionary movements spawned by such false theories provide the State with serious threat, threats it has a certain extent the right to counter. But power alone will not remedy the problem giving rise to or stemming forth from such erroneous theories of the State. "[N]o power of punishment can be so great that it alone can preserve the State." DI, 24. Fear of punishment is simply too weak a reed upon which to build a civil society and upon which to found a governing organ. To base order on fear of punishment, in fact, tends to brew discontent and incite rebellion. "It is therefore necessary," says St. Leo:

to seek a higher and more reliable reason for obedience, and to say explicitly that legal severity cannot be efficacious unless men are led on by duty, and moved by the salutary fear of God.

obediendi altiorem et efficaciorem causam adhibere necesse est, atque omnino statuere, nec legum esse posse fructuosam severitatem, nisi homines impellantur officio, salutarique metu Dei permoveantur.

DI, 24. The desire for obedience must be internalized, and the only way to do this is through an understanding of the religious foundation of the State, as this "enters into the souls and bends the very wills of men causing then not only to render [external] obedience to their rulers, but also show their affection and good will." DI, 24. It would do good, therefore, for the State to "defend religion, and to consult the interest of their Lord to defend religion, and to consult the interest of their States by giving that liberty to the Church which cannot be taken away without injury and ruing to the commonwealth." DI, 25.

Portrait of Leo XIII

The State ought not see the Church as a competitor for civil power, for the "things that are of a civil nature," are "under the power and authority of the the ruler," and those areas which belong "both to the sacred and to the civil power," such as marriage and its civil emoluments, should be exercised in harmonious manner. "Never opposed to honest liberty, the Church has always detested a tyrant's rule," atque honestae libertati nuspiam inimica tyrannicum dominatum semper detestari consuevit. DI, 26.

Leo XIII then ends his encyclical Diuturnum illus with a short litany of duties that a properly-ordered State would have:

1. Strive with all possible care to make men understand and show forth in their lives what the Catholic Church teaches on government and the duty of obedience;
2. Let the people be frequently urged by the State's authority and teaching to fly from the forbidden sects, abhor all conspiracy, have nothing to do with sedition, and understand that they who for God's sake obey their rulers render a reasonable service and a generous obedience.

God is the source of authority and power, and supplies both the reasons for and limits on the exercise of its power by the State, and the reasons for and limits to obedience by the people. This belief thus ennobles, without divinizing, the authority of the State, and gives reason other than fear of punishment for obeying the State.

And as it is God "who gives safety to kings," [Ps. 152:11] and grants to the people "to rest in the beauty of peace and in the tabernacles of confidence and in wealthy repose," [Isa. 37:18] it is to Him that we must pray, beseeching Him to incline all minds to uprightness and truth, to calm angry passions, to restore the long-wished-for tranquility to the world.

Quoniam vero Deus est, qui dat salutem regibus, et concedit populis conquiescere in pulchritudine pacis et in tabernaculis fiduciae et in requie opulenta. Ipsum necesse est orare atque obsecrare, ut omnium mentes ad honestatem veritatemque flectat, iras compescat, optatam diu pacem tranquillitatemque orbi terrarum restituat.

DI, 27.

Our states have gone a different way than what Leo XIII prayed for, have turned him a deaf ear, and the secular rulers and secular state have turned less and less to religion and more and more to process and to the thin veneer of "human rights," which, without God, also have little foundation. In the West, the theory of the modern State is built on sand, on the sands of social contractism, on the sands of moral relativism, on the sands of the will of man as if the will of the majority, which is so easily manipulated, is the cure for all ills. It is a recipe for either revolution or tyranny, not for peace or tranquillitas ordinis.

Our prayer may now be:

Usquequo Deus inproperabit inimicus inritat adversarius nomen tuum in finem?

How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach: is the adversary to provoke thy name for ever?

(Ps. 73:10)

Magisterial Invocation of Natural Law: Leo XIII and Diuturnum Illud, Part 2

CONTINUING ON OUR REVIEW of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Diuturnum illud which addresses the origin of government, and rejects social contractism, we ended our last blog posting with the notion that civil power is given to the ruler by God for the public good and for the purpose of promoting the common good of those assigned to his care. The ruler has not right to use the power he has been given by God for private gain. Government is thus a res publica, a public thing. In fact, its abuse by the ruler will expose him, as it does all men, to the judgment of God: "they are warned in the oracles of the sacred Scriptures, that they will have themselves some day to render an account to the King of kings and Lord of lords; if they shall fail in their duty, that it will not be possible for them in any way to escape the severity of God." DI, 16.

Portrait of Leo XIII

The other side of the coin of the concept that power and authority come from God is that the people have a duty to obedience to the State. The citizen is not to be seen as some sort of pawn or slave of the state, but one who submits himself to the divine will, thus fully retaining his dignity "even in obedience" and submission to their rulers because the rulers in a certain way "bring before them the image of God, "who to serve is to reign," cui servire regnare est.

This principle remains true even if "the Christian form of civil government may not dwell in the minds of men." DI, 18. Historically, the Church taught the faithful that they were obliged to give due obedience even to the Pagan emperors, as St. Paul states it "to be subject to princes and to powers, to obey at a word." DI, 18 (quoting Titus 3:1). Indeed, more than obedience was the practice, as Christians were enjoined to pray for "kings and all that are in a high station." DI, 18 (quoting 1 Tim. 2:1-3). And the early Christian obedience to the Roman authority was exemplary, and it provided a singular argument that laws against them were unjust. Thus the Christian lawyer Tertullian could argue:

The Christian is the enemy of no one, much less of the emperor, whom he knows to be appointed by God, and whom he must, therefore, of necessity love, reverence and honor, and wish to be preserved together with the whole Roman Empire.

Christianus nullius est hostis, nedum imperatoris, quem sciens a Deo suo constitui, necesse est ut et ipsum diligat et reuereatur et honoret et saluum uelit, cum toto Romano imperio, quousque saeculum stabit: tamdiu enim stabit.*

Yet though history shows that the obedience and docility of the Christians was exemplary, to the point that they could be a foundation for a plea for toleration, it is equally true that the obedience only went so far. The duty to obey properly constituted authority, even if secular or pagan, only goes as far as that authority--which comes from God--is used in accordance with the law of God. That is to say, no State has the authority to order any man to do something that contradicts the natural moral law or that contradicts divine positive law. DI, 20.

When Christians became head of States, there was cooperation between the Church and State, and the ends of both overlapped, both recognizing the Divine source of any power and authority, and hence the limits to it. "And, indeed, tranquility and a sufficient prosperity lasted so long as there was friendly agreement between these two powers." DI, 22. But the writings of recent political philosophers have injected into the mix a poison. That poison arises from "an unwillingness to attribute the right of ruling to God, as its Author," ius imperandi nolle ad Deum referre auctorem. Instead of finding the source of authority and power from God, they place it at the feet of the people, a doctrine which assures abuse and rebellions and dissatisfaction:

And they who say that this power depends on the will of the people err in opinion first of all; then they place authority on too weak and unstable a foundation. For the popular passions, incited and goaded on by these opinions, will break out more insolently; and, with great harm to the common weal, descend headlong by an easy and smooth road to revolts and to open sedition.

Quod autem inquiunt ex arbitrio illam pendere multitudinis, primum opinione falluntur; deinde nimium levi ac flexibili fundamento statuunt principatum. His enim opinionibus quasi stimulis incitatae populares cupiditates sese efferent insolentius, magnaque cum pernicie reipublicae ad caecos motus, ad apertas seditiones proclivi cursu et facile delabentur.

DI, 23.

Leo XIII places the fount and origin of these erroneous notions of authority at the feet of the "so-called Reformation." The attack by the Protestant Reformers on the foundations of religious and civil authority, particularly Luther, invited the Peasant Rebellion which required repression by the German princes. So also did it invite "an outburst of civil war and with such slaughter that there was scarcely any place free from tumult and bloodshed," DI, 23, which appears to be a reference to the Wars of Religion. It was from the Protestant heresy that there arose a philosophy that sought to justify civil authority, and which postulated its origin in the people, taking it away from God:

From this [Protestant] heresy there arose in the last century a false philosophy--a new right as it is called, and a popular authority, together with an unbridled license which many regard as the only true liberty.

Ex illa haeresi ortum duxit sœculo superiore falsi nominis philosophia, et jus quod appellant novam, et imperium populare, et modum nesciens licentia, quam plurimi solam libertatem putant.

DI, 23.

Placing authority at the feet of the people is not only wrong, but it leads to social and political horrors. And like a bad apple or an insidious lentivirus, this philosophy has led to a virtual wax house of political philosophies, where all philosophies are false, made of wax by human hands, and not are real, based upon nature and nature's God:

Hence we have reached the limit of horrors, to wit, communism, socialism, nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin. And yet too many attempt to enlarge the scope of these evils, and under the pretext of helping the multitude, already have fanned no small flames of misery.

Ex his ad finitimas pestes ventum est, scilicet ad communismum, ad socialismum, ad nihilismum, civilis hominum societatis teterrima portenta ac pene funera. Atqui tamen tantorum malorum vim nimis multi dilatare conantur, ac per speciem iuvandae multitudinis non exigua jam miseriarum incendia excitaverunt.

DI, 23.

(continued)
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*In the Encyclical, the cite is to Tertullian's Apologeticus, 35 (PL 1, 451), but I could not find this quotation in Tertullian's Apologeticus under this reference. Indeed, it is an apparent error, as the cite is to Tertullian's Ad Scapula, II.6.

Magisterial Invocation of Natural Law: Leo XIII and Diuturnum Illud, Part 1

THE RICHNESS OF THE NATURAL LAW shown forth in the thought of Pope Leo XIII, who "even more than Pius IX, based his teaching on the laws given by nature, meaning the Creator of nature." Fuchs, 5. Leo XIII's pontificate was a rich one indeed, and many things could be said of it. But with reference to the natural law, one has to focus on Leo XIII's contribution to Catholic social thought, in particular his groundbreaking encyclical on social questions, Rerum novarum, which fittingly means "On New Things." The world that Leo XIII confronted was saying new things, preaching new doctrines and new gods, based upon principles that were new, not perhaps in the sense that they were never known, for there is nothing new under the sun, and much of what was going under new thought was but paganism with a new sheen, but new in the sense that answers were being sought for new social and moral problems without reference to God or to the natural law. The number of Leonine encyclicals that address the applicability of the natural law and its principles to questions of government, slavery (In plurimis [On the Abolition of Slavery]) liberty and freedom (Libertas praestantissimum donum [On Liberty]), Christian democracy (Graves de Communi Re [On Christian Democracy], socialism (Quod Apostolici Muneris [On Socialism]), the relationship of Christianity to the State (Immortale Dei [On the Christian Constitution of the State], Sapientiae Christianae [On Christians as Citizens]), social justice [Rerum Novarum [On Capital and Labor]), marriage (Arcanum divinae sapientia [On Christian Marriage]), and so forth is remarkable.

Leo XIII, who was deeply influenced by the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas, and in fact promoted their importance in the life of the Church through his encyclical on St. Thomas Aeterni Patris,* applied these traditional Thomistic methods, including those relating to the natural law doctrine, to these new questions and arrived at remarkable refreshing answers to the social questions of the day. Alas, freemasons, socialists, communists, liberals, secularists, even "Americanists,"** all turned a deaf ear, and the world, or at least the West, continued to unravel.

Portrait of Pope Leo XIII

Confronting the extreme positions of political nihilists and anarchists, which were ultimately founded upon the false philosophical and political principles of Protestantism, the "so-called Reformation," and the Enlightenment, and spurred by the murder of the Russian emperor Alexander II (1818-1881) by the political group called Narodnaya Volya (Народная воля, the "People's Will"), a political terrorist organization, Leo XIII addressed the issue of civil power, its source, and the role of the civil power relative to the people and the common good in an encyclical entitled Diuturnum illud (On the Origin of Civil Power). The encyclical Diuturnum illud combines both the insights of Christian revelation as well as principles of natural law philosophy to arrive at the ultimate notion that all power comes from God. It rejects the notion that power is derived from the people and assigned, through some sort of social contract, to the ruler. In rejecting the political philosophy based upon social contract notions, it, however, does not reject the democratic process and the people's role in choosing a ruler if it accords with the customs, social, and political institutions of a people. Regardless of the procedural vehicles that relate to the selection of one's leader or leaders, however, the fundamental teaching of the natural law (as well as Revelation) is that all power--this includes priestly power, paternal power, and civil power--comes from God and is given to men for the purpose, not of private gain, but of promoting the public good. There is no power in the individual that he can convey to the ruler, for no man has the authority over any other man by virtue of their fundamental equality in nature.

The heart of the Encyclical would seem to be the principle, attested to both by Scripture and the natural law, that civil authority, though required as a result of man's natural disposition to live in common and so to that degree is natural, does not arise out from the people to be conveyed to the ruler. Rather, the only explanation for political power and the possible source of it is that it comes from God. If this principle is not fastly held, then there is no limit to what the civil authority can do in the name of the people, and there is, ultimately, no basis for power except raw power.

11. And, indeed, nature, or rather God who is the Author of nature, wills that man should live in a civil society; and this is clearly shown both by the faculty of language, the greatest medium of intercourse, and by numerous innate desires of the mind, and the many necessary things, and things of great importance, which men isolated cannot procure, but which they can procure when joined and associated with others. But now, a society can neither exist nor be conceived in which there is no one to govern the wills of individuals, in such a way as to make, as it were, one will out of many, and to impel them rightly and orderly to the common good; therefore, God has willed that in a civil society there should be some to rule the multitude. And this also is a powerful argument, that those by whose authority the State is administered must be able so to compel the citizens to obedience that it is clearly a sin in the latter not to obey. But no man has in himself or of himself the power of constraining the free will of others by fetters of authority of this kind. This power resides solely in God, the Creator and Legislator of all things; and it is necessary that those who exercise it should do it as having received it from God. "There is one lawgiver and judge, who is able to destroy and deliver." [James 4:12] And this is clearly seen in every kind of power. That that which resides in priests comes from God is so acknowledged that among all nations they are recognized as, and called, the ministers of God. In like manner, the authority of fathers of families preserves a certain impressed image and form of the authority which is in God, "of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named." [Eph. 3:15] But in this way different kinds of authority have between them wonderful resemblances, since, whatever there is of government and authority, its origin is derived from one and the same Creator and Lord of the world, who is God.

Et sane homines in civili societate vivere natura jubet, seu verius auctor naturae Deus: quod perspicue demonstrant et maxima societatis conciliatrix loquendi facultas et innatae appetitiones animi perplures, et res nëcessariae multae ac magni momenti, quas solitarii assequi homines non possunt, juncti et consociati cum alteris assequuntur. Nunc vero, neque existere neque intelligi societas potest, in qua non aliquis temperet singulorum voluntates ut velut unum fiat ex pluribus, easque ad commune bonum recte atque ordine impellat: voluit igitur Deus ut in civili societate essent qui multitudini imperarent. — Atque illud etiam magnopere valet, quod ii, quorum auctoritate respublica administratur, debent cives ita posse cogere ad parendum, ut his plane peccatum sit non parere. Nemo autem hominum habet in se aul ex se, unde possit huiusmodi imperii vinculis liberam ceterorum voluntatem constringere. Unice rerum omnium procreatori et legislatori Deo ea potestas est: quam qui exercent, tanquam a Deo secum communicatam exerceant necesse est. Unus est legislator et judex, qui potest perdere et liberare. Quod perspicitur idem in omni genere potestatis. Eam, quae in sacerdotibus est proficisci a Deo tam est cognitum ut ii apud omnes populos ministri et habeantur et appellentur Dei. Similiter potestas patrumfamilias expressam retinet quamdam effigiem ac formam auctoritatis, quae est in Deo, ex quo omnis paternitas in cœlis et in terra nominatur. Isto autem modo diversa genera potestatis miras inter se habent similitudines, cum quidquid uspiam est imperii et auctoritatis, eius ab uno eodemque mundi opifice et domino, qui Deus est, origo ducatur.

The encyclical finds the first seeds of false doctrine in the ideas of the Protestant reformers which were amplified and carried through by the philosophes of the Enlightenment. It was from first the rift and misunderstanding of civil power and the power of the sword, and then the full rejection of the notion that civil power comes from God, that required some alternative theory of justification. Most common was the notion of social contractism, the Hobbesian/Rousseauian notion that power is conveyed to the ruler by the people, and finds its fount and origin, and therefore its limits, if any there be, in the people. God is thus removed from question of power, all power is secular, material, and ultimately without any limiting principle, and certainly no spiritual limiting principle.

12. Those who believe civil society to have risen from the free consent of men, looking for the origin of its authority from the same source, say that each individual has given up something of his right [an allusion to, among others Rousseau], and that voluntarily every person has put himself into the power of the one man in whose person the whole of those rights has been centered. But it is a great error not to see, what is manifest, that men, as they are not a nomad race, have been created, without their own free will, for a natural community of life. It is plain, moreover, that the pact which they allege is openly a falsehood and a fiction, and that it has no authority to confer on political power such great force, dignity, and firmness as the safety of the State and the common good of the citizens require. Then only will the government have all those ornaments and guarantees, when it is understood to emanate from God as its august and most sacred source.

Qui civilem societatem a libero hominum consensu natam volunt, ipsius imperii ortum ex eodem fonte petentes, de jure suo inquiunt aliquid unumquemque cessisse, et voluntate singulos in ejus se contulisse potestatem, ad quem summa illorum iurium pervenisset. Sed magnus est error non videre, id quod manifestum est, homines, cum non sint solivagum genus, citra liberam ipsorum voluntatem ad naturalem communitatem esse natos: ac praeterea pactum, quod praedicant, est aperte commentitium et fictum, neque ad impertiendum valet politicae potestati tantum virium, dignitatis, firmitudinis, quantum tutela reipublicae et communes civium utilitates requirunt. Ea autem decora et praesidia universa tunc solum est habiturus principatus, si a Deo augusto sanctissimoque fonte manare intelligatur.

The notion that rulers derive their power from God means that citizens have a duty to respect it and obey it. But with that dignity comes limitation. Since the power of the ruler comes from God, and his not his own, it comes with limits which may not be exceeded.

15. The one only reason which men have for not obeying is when anything is demanded of them which is openly repugnant to the natural or the divine law, for it is equally unlawful to command to do anything in which the law of nature or the will of God is violated. If, therefore, it should happen to any one to be compelled to prefer one or the other, viz., to disregard either the commands of God or those of rulers, he must obey Jesus Christ, who commands us to "give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," [Matt. 22:21] and must reply courageously after the example of the Apostles: "We ought to obey God rather than men." [Acts 5:29] And yet there is no reason why those who so behave themselves should be accused of refusing obedience; for, if the will of rulers is opposed to the will and the laws of God, they themselves exceed the bounds of their own power and pervert justice; nor can their authority then be valid, which, when there is no justice, is null.

Una illa hominibus causa est non parendi, si quid ab iis postuletur quod cum naturali aut divino jure aperte repugnet: omnia enim, in quibus naturae lex vel Dei voluntas violatur, aeque nefas est imperare et facere. Si cui igitur usu veniat, ut alterutrum malle cogatur, scilicet aut Dei aut principum iussa negligere, Iesu Christo parendum est reddere jubenti quae sunt Caesaris Caesari, quae sunt Dei Deo, atque ad exemplum Apostolorum animose respondendum: Obedire oportet Deo magis quam hominibus . Neque tamen est, cur abiecisse obedientiam, qui ita se gerant, arguantur; etenim si principum voluntas cum Dei pugnat voluntate et legibus, ipsi potestatis suœ modum excdunt iustitiamque pervertunt: neque eorum tune valere potest auctoritas, quae, ubi iustitia non est, nulla est.

The power of the ruler is not only limited by the natural law, it is also limited by the fact that it is ordered to the common good, and, by its nature, it is not ordered to any private good. It is a res publica, a public thing, and not a res privata, a private thing. Accordingly, any capture of that power by private interests is by definition an abuse of that power:

16. But in order that justice may be retained in government it is of the highest importance that those who rule States should understand that political power was not created for the advantage of any private individual; and that the administration of the State must be carried on to the profit of those who have been committed to their care, not to the profit of those to whom it has been committed.

Ut autem justitia retineatur in imperio, illud magnopere interest, eos qui civitates administrant intelligere, non privati cujusquam commodo politicam potestatem esse natam: procurationemque reipublicae ad utilitatem eorum qui commissi sunt non ad eorum commissa est, geri oportere.

(continued)

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*Leo XIII and his Aeterni Patris has been the subject of a prior post in Lex Christianorum. See The Disfigured Face: Pope Leo XIII to the Rescue.
**Americanism is a heresy that advocates, among other things, an extreme separation of Church and State, excessive notions of liberty and individualism, and particularism for the Church in America. Leo XIII addressed these issues in a letter in 1899 entitled Testem Benevolentiae.