Adauge Nobis Fidem! Pope Leo XIII's Battle Call in Sapientiae Christianae

UNITY IN FAITH DOES NOT of course mean that there will be no differences of opinion on the balancing of interests that relate to the common good and to the implementation of "the single reserve . . . of the rights of justice and truth." In the "sphere of politics ample matter may exist for legitimate differences of opinion." SC, 29. Understanding this, there are, however, two temptations that must be resisted. The first is to make the Church politically partisan by equating her with one political side. The second is to allow the interests of partisanship to overcome the interests of the Church. When the interests of the Catholic Church are threatened, all Catholics ought to set aside partisan bickering and close ranks to protect the Church. Internal dissensions should be cast aside. Additionally, members of the Church must not be inert, passive, but must be more militant in their duties and in demanding their rights.

Adauge nobis fidem! "[I]t is certain," Leo XIII states, that the "perverse-minded," whose ideas have led to the spiritual malaise of the West, could have been stopped if "the faith 'which worketh by charity' had been generally more energetic and lively in the souls of men, and had there not been so universal a drifting away from the divinely established rule of morality throughout Christianity." SC, 32. Our faith, then, must be coupled with unity and with courageous action. "May at least the lessons afforded by the memory of the past have the good result of leading to a wiser mode of acting in the future."

Though State and Church have their areas of sovereignty in public life, as institutions they ought to not have an antagonistic relationship. Rather, their relationship should be complementary. Man has more than physical existence: man does not live by bread alone. Man also has a moral life, a moral life which "which consists exclusively in the knowledge and practice of virtue," and which includes striving for religious perfection, "in the knowledge and practice of the true religion," of "that religion which is the queen of virtues, because in binding these to God it completes them all and perfects them." SC, 30. The State cannot ignore this moral and religious dimension in man: it cannot simply think and act as if man were one dimensional and blithely ignore what is most important in man, thereby trampling on the rights of the Church as well as her faithful:

Therefore, they who are engaged in framing constitutions and in enacting laws should bear in mind the moral and religious nature of man, and take care to help him, but in a right and orderly way, to gain perfection, neither enjoining nor forbidding anything save what is reasonably consistent with civil as well as with religious requirements. On this very account, the Church cannot stand by, indifferent as to the import and significance of laws enacted by the State; not insofar, indeed, as they refer to the State, but in so far as, passing beyond their due limits, they trench upon the rights of the Church.

SC, 30.

Adauge nobis fidem! Here is the radicalism of Leo XIII's message: the Church has rights the modern State never dreamed of.

From God has the duty been assigned to the Church not only to interpose resistance, if at any time the State rule should run counter to religion, but, further, to make a strong endeavor that the power of the Gospel may pervade the law and institutions of the nations.

Quin imo resistere, si quando officiat religioni disciplina reipublicae, studioseque conari, ut in leges et instituta populorum virtus pervadat Evangelii, munus est Ecclesiae assignatum a Deo.

SC, 31. We have the duty "to make a strong endeavor that the power of the Gospel may pervade the law and institutions of the nations," a duty given to the Church by God, which carries with it, of course, the inalienable right to do so without constraint or interference by the State. The Muslims act as if they had this divine imperative, though it was not given them. Christians act as if they had no such divine imperative, though it was given them. The Liberals don't care about divine or natural imperatives: they just want to cut through or dissolve all joints of the body politic in their rabid and irrational thirst to justify their relativism and intrinsic disorder.

Santiago Matamoros . . . Santiago Mataliberales?

The Christian then "will triumph over the craft of their adversaries by wisdom, and over their violence by courage." SC, 32. This appears to imply the opposite: that we will not engage in "craft" and will not dabble in "violence." It is to craft and violence that Christians will be opposed, and will be opposed using different tools than the world gives: wisdom and courage. But wisdom and courage must be distinguished from "two criminal excesses: so-called prudence and false courage." This so-called prudence, "prudence of the flesh," prudentia carnis, which is nothing less than an indication of a dead soul, advises against boldly attacking evil when it is the ascendancy, arguing it will only cause evil to become more hostile. Those motivated by this false prudence may talk the talk, but do not walk the walk: "They moan over the loss of faith and the perversion of morals, yet trouble themselves not to bring any remedy; nay, not seldom, even add to the intensity of the mischief through too much forbearance or harmful dissembling." SC, 33. This "prudence of the flesh" is highly unseemly in the Christian, as "every Christian ought to be a valiant soldier of Christ." SC, 34. Christianum quemque debere bonum militem Christi esse! We are, moreover, soldiers that are loved, soldiers that are bound to conquer: "But in all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us," says St. Paul to the Romans (Rom. 8:37). Why act as if it were a rout? Why be a coward? Why, when we are conquerors by divine right? Deus lo vult!

While we are conquerors, we, especially the laity, are not to go about our battle rashly, and we are not to go about it without guidance of, or in opposition to, the hierarchical, teaching Church. "Whence it is clear that, in addition to the complete accordance of thought and deed, the faithful should follow the practical political wisdom of the ecclesiastical authority." SC, 37. Nor, in our zeal for the social justice, are we to forget our own life: our own life must be regulated by the regime of Christian virtue or nothing we do will avail much.

Adauge nobis fidem! Unlike the Church which will never be deserted by God, nations may be deserted by God. There is no nation, and this includes the United States, that enjoys indefectability, some sort of divine exceptionalism. The United States is not exceptional by nature. If it is exceptional, it will be only insofar as it cleaves to God. If it falls away from God, it will be miserable, like all nations, for "'sin maketh nations miserable.'" Miseros enim facit populos peccatum. SC, 39 (quoting Proverbs 14:34). "There are, in truth, very many signs which proclaim that just punishments are already menacing, and the condition of modern States tends to confirm this belief, since we perceive many of them in sad plight from intestine disorders, and not one entirely exempt." SC, 39. There is, indeed, grounds to think that "the very foundations nature has laid for States to rest upon" will be "utterly destroyed." If there were grounds for worry in 1890 when Leo XIII issued his encyclical Sapientiae Christianae, there are certainly grounds now. With the vast numbers that have rejected the Christian faith, or have compartmentalized it, hiding it, as it were, under a bushel basket, we are suffering from our lack of faith or lack of courage. We have come to the point, predicted by Leo XIII, "where blinded by their passions," we "search in vain for truth," and we lay hold "on on the false for the true," and think ourselves wise when we call "evil good, and good evil," and "put darkness in the place of light, and light in the place of darkness." SC, 39 (quoting Isaiah 5:20). Abortion is a natural right; preventing it is evil. Homosexuality is a right; opposing it is homophobia and a violation of natural rights. Safe sex is virtuous; pregnancy, not unchastity, is the great evil. Homosexual couples have rights to raise children: children have no rights to an ordinary, natural family. This is calling evil good and good evil. From whence commeth our help? "It is therefore necessary that God come to the rescue, and that, mindful of His mercy, He turn an eye of compassion on human society." Then do so God!

Adauge nobis fidem, spem, et caritatem! Quicken in us, God, love, not as the world gives, but as you give. Quicken in us the charity which will bind us intimately to you, and which will causes us to draw our life from God, to act with God, to refer all to God. SC, 40.* Quicken in us anew the virtue of piety, and of charity. Inspire us with lofty deeds and imbue us with new life. SC, 41. And from a quickened love of God shall flow a quickened love of neighbor. And it is in the commandment of loving God and of neighbor that we find a new law; nay, not really a new law, but rather an old law pronounced in a manner new:

And this commandment concerning charity its divine proclaimer styled new, not in the sense that a previous law, or even nature itself, had not enjoined that men should love one another, but because the Christian precept of loving each other in that manner was truly new, and quite unheard of in the memory of man. For, that love with which Jesus Christ is beloved by His Father and with which He Himself loves men, He obtained for His disciples and followers that they might be of one heart and of one mind in Him by charity, as He Himself and His Father are one by their nature.

Atque hoc de caritate mandatum divinus ejus lator novum nominavit, non quod diligere homines inter se non aliqua jam lex, aut ipsa natura jussisset, sed quia christianum hoc diligenti plane novum erat atque in omni memoria inauditum genus. Qua enim caritate Jesus Christus et diligitur a Patre suo et homines ipse diligit, eamdem impetravit alumnis ac sectatoribus suis, ut cor unum et anima una esse in ipso possent, sicut ipse et Pater unum natura sunt.

SC, 40.

Adauge nobis fidem, spem, et caritatem! Why did we not heed Leo XIII's voice?

Let dissensions therefore, if there be any, wholly cease; let those strifes which waste the strength of those engaged in the fight, without any advantage resulting to religion, be scattered to the winds; let all minds be united in faith and all hearts in charity, so that, as it behooves, life may be spent in the practice of the love of God and the love of men.

SC, 41.

Let our family life revive! "The family may be regarded as the cradle of civil society, and it is in great measure within the circle of family life that the destiny of the States is fostered." SC, 42. From the corruptions imposed upon the family, from the outrage upon parents, let us shield ourselves. Parents, we must remember, and not the State, "hold from nature their right of training the children to whom they have given birth, with the obligation superadded of shaping and directing the education of their little ones to the end for which God vouchsafed the privilege of transmitting the gift of life." SC, 42.

It is, then, incumbent on parents to strain every nerve to ward off such an outrage, and to strive manfully to have and to hold exclusive authority to direct the education of their offspring, as is fitting, in a Christian manner, and first and foremost to keep them away from schools where there is risk of their drinking in the poison of impiety. Where the right education of youth is concerned, no amount of trouble or labor can be undertaken, how great soever, but that even greater still may not be called for.

SC, 42.

There is no more straddling the fence. Alioqui propugnare pro Christo nolle, oppugnare est. To refrain from doing battle for Jesus Christ amounts to fighting against Him. SC, 43. And if we do not hear Leo XIII's voice, perhaps we shall hear the voice of the Son of God whose vicar he was? Qui non est mecum contra me est et qui non congregat mecum spargit. He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth. (Matt. 12:30; cf. Luke 11:23)

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*"Yea, truly, charity is the bond of perfection, for it binds intimately to God those whom it has embraced and with loving tenderness, causes them to draw their life from God, to act with God, to refer all to God." Vere vinculum est perfectionis caritas, quia quos complexa est, cum Deo ipso intime conjungit, perficitque ut vitam animae hauriant a Deo, cum Deo agant, ad Deum referant. SC, 40.

Natural Law Limits of State: Leo XIII's Sapientiae Christianae, Part 2

THE DESERT FATHERS TALK ABOUT WATCHFULNESS (νήψις or nēpsis) and "guarding the heart" in the spiritual life, and Leo XIII advocates just such an attitude on the part of the Christian who confronts a civil society headed by a State that has ostracized God from everyday life and law.

Under such evil circumstances therefore, each one is bound in conscience to watch over himself, taking all means possible to preserve the faith inviolate in the depths of his soul, avoiding all risks, and arming himself on all occasions, especially against the various specious sophisms rife among non-believers.

His igitur tam iniquis rebus, primum omnium respicere se quisque debet, vehementerque curare, ut alte comprehensam animo fidem intenta custodia tueatur, cavendo pericula, nominatimque contra varias sophismatum fallacias semper armatus.

SC, 13. This watchfulness is to be an informed and faithful watchfulness, and it requires a "deep study of Christian doctrine," an imbuing of the mind with a knowledge of "those matters that are interwoven with religion and life and lie within the range of reason." It requires, moreover, or perhaps principally, an increase in faith: "the suppliant and humble entreaty of the apostles ought constantly to be addressed to God: 'Increase our faith.'"* Adauge nobis fidem!

Adauge nobis fidem! God will give us faith if we pray for it. "And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened." Luke 11:9-10. God does not give stones when we ask for bread, or scorpions when we ask for an egg. The gift of faith which is sure to come upon the asking of it will increase commensurately our responsibilities: to show forth one's faith, to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, and to repel the attacks of unbelievers.** Then, in a remarkable statement, Leo XIII states: "Christians are, moreover, born for combat." Christiani ad dimicationem nati! Leo XIII thus enjoins Christians to close ranks, to bind themselves closer to the Church, to put aside their minor differences and strive toward a harmonious "union of minds and uniformity of action," so they may be more effective in confronting the enemies of the Faith and their strongholds. SC, 18.

Adauge nobis fidem! Reason has its place. But reason alone is not enough in confronting the principalities of this world. And if it ever was, it certainly is not now. One is reminded of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman's statement in his The Idea of a University:

Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.

Listen to the message of Leo XIII. It is the same:

In the case of those who profess to take reason as their sole guide, there would hardly be found, if, indeed, there ever could be found, unity of doctrine. Indeed, the art of knowing things as they really are is exceedingly difficult; moreover, the mind of man is by nature feeble and drawn this way and that by a variety of opinions, and not seldom led astray by impressions coming from without; and, furthermore, the influence of the passions oftentimes takes away, or certainly at least diminishes, the capacity for grasping the truth.

SC, 20.

Adauge nobis fidem! To have that unanimity in action which the unity of truth requires, Christians need to rely, with greater assurance, on the teachings of the Church, "by whose authority and under whose guidance they are conscious that they have beyond question attained to truth." SC, 21. There is required a "complete submission and obedience of will to the Church and to the Roman Pontiff, as to God Himself." SC, 22. This unanimity of Faith, assured by an intimate, deep, and abiding communion with the Church and the Church's magisterial authority, especially as found in the Pope, is "the saving principle whence proceed spontaneously one and the same will in all, and one and the same tenor of action." But more than mere submission to doctrine is required. Christians are to douse themselves, nay, immerse themselves in the Church: "it is necessary to enter more fully into the nature of the Church," a "divinely established and admirably constituted society." SC, 25. We ought to be governed by the Church, not only externally, but internally. The full breadth of our mind, heart, soul, and strength ought to be governed by the Church. We ought to sentire cum ecclesia!*** Ultimately, the State has no business in soulcraft separate and apart from the Church: In soulcraft, the Church is our mother: "No one can, however, without risk to faith, foster any doubt as to the Church alone having been invested with such power of governing souls as to exclude altogether the civil authority." SC, 27. We are therefore never linked or subordinate to party:

The Church, therefore, possesses the right to exist and to protect herself by institutions and laws in accordance with her nature. And since she not only is a perfect society in herself, but superior to every other society of human growth, she resolutely refuses, promoted alike by right and by duty, to link herself to any mere party and to subject herself to the fleeting exigencies of politics. On like grounds, the Church, the guardian always of her own right and most observant of that of others, holds that it is not her province to decide which is the best amongst many diverse forms of government and the civil institutions of Christian States, and amid the various kinds of State rule she does not disapprove of any, provided the respect due to religion and the observance of good morals be upheld. By such standard of conduct should the thoughts and mode of acting of every Catholic be directed.

SC, 28.

(continued)
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*Luke 18:5.
**Leo XIII cites to St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, IIª-IIae q. 3 a. 2 ad 2: "ubi fides periclitatur, quilibet tenetur fidem suam aliis propalare, vel ad instructionem aliorum fidelium sive confirmationem, vel ad reprimendum infidelium insultationem."
***Leo XIII does not use the notion of sentire cum ecclesia, but it is implicit in what he is advocating in his encyclical. The notion of "sentire cum ecclesia" is a phrase that may be attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius provides "Eighteen Rules of Sentire Cum Ecclesia": (1) All judgment laid aside, we ought to have our mind ready and prompt to obey, in all, the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our holy Mother the Church Hierarchical. (2) To praise confession to a Priest, and the reception of the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar once in the year, and much more each month, and much better from week to week, with the conditions required and due. (3) To praise the hearing of Mass often, likewise hymns, psalms, and long prayers, in the church and out of it; likewise the hours set at the time fixed for each Divine Office and for all prayer and all Canonical Hours. (4) To praise much Religious Orders, virginity and continence, and not so much marriage as any of these. (5) To praise vows of Religion, of obedience, of poverty, of chastity and of other perfections of supererogation. And it is to be noted that as the vow is about the things which approach to Evangelical perfection, a vow ought not to be made in the things which withdraw from it, such as to be a merchant, or to be married, etc. (6) To praise relics of the Saints, giving veneration to them and praying to the Saints; and to praise Stations, pilgrimages, Indulgences, pardons, Cruzadas, and candles lighted in the churches. (7) To praise Constitutions about fasts and abstinence, as of Lent, Ember Days, Vigils, Friday and Saturday; likewise penances, not only interior, but also exterior. (8) To praise the ornaments and the buildings of churches; likewise images, and to venerate them according to what they represent. (9) Finally, to praise all precepts of the Church, keeping the mind prompt to find reasons in their defense and in no manner against them. (10) We ought to be more prompt to find good and praise as well the Constitutions and recommendations as the ways of our Superiors. Because, although some are not or have not been such, to speak against them, whether preaching in public or discoursing before the common people, would rather give rise to fault-finding and scandal than profit; and so the people would be incensed against their Superiors, whether temporal or spiritual. So that, as it does harm to speak evil to the common people of Superiors in their absence, so it can make profit to speak of the evil ways to the persons themselves who can remedy them. (11) To praise positive and scholastic learning. Because, as it is more proper to the Positive Doctors, as St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Gregory, etc., to move the heart to love and serve God our Lord in everything; so it is more proper to the Scholastics, as St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and to the Master of the Sentences, etc., to define or explain for our times the things necessary for eternal salvation; and to combat and explain better all errors and all fallacies. For the Scholastic Doctors, as they are more modern, not only help themselves with the true understanding of the Sacred Scripture and of the Positive and holy Doctors, but also, they being enlightened and clarified by the Divine virtue, help themselves by the Councils, Canons and Constitutions of our holy Mother the Church. (12) We ought to be on our guard in making comparison of those of us who are alive to the blessed passed away, because error is committed not a little in this; that is to say, in saying, this one knows more than St. Augustine; he is another, or greater than, St. Francis; he is another St. Paul in goodness, holiness, etc. (13) To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed. (14) Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things. (15) We ought not, by way of custom, to speak much of predestination; but if in some way and at some times one speaks, let him so speak that the common people may not come into any error, as sometimes happens, saying: Whether I have to be saved or condemned is already determined, and no other thing can now be, through my doing well or ill; and with this, growing lazy, they become negligent in the works which lead to the salvation and the spiritual profit of their souls. (16) In the same way, we must be on our guard that by talking much and with much insistence of faith, without any distinction and explanation, occasion be not given to the people to be lazy and slothful in works, whether before faith is formed in charity or after. (17) Likewise, we ought not to speak so much with insistence on grace that the poison of discarding liberty be engendered. So that of faith and grace one can speak as much as is possible with the Divine help for the greater praise of His Divine Majesty, but not in such way, nor in such manners, especially in our so dangerous times, that works and free will receive any harm, or be held for nothing. (18) Although serving God our Lord much out of pure love is to be esteemed above all; we ought to praise much the fear of His Divine Majesty, because not only filial fear is a thing pious and most holy, but even servile fear—when the man reaches nothing else better or more useful—helps much to get out of mortal sin. And when he is out, he easily comes to filial fear, which is all acceptable and grateful to God our Lord: as being at one with the Divine Love.

Natural Law Limits of State: Leo XIII's Sapientiae Christianae, Part 1

CHRISTIANS ARE CITIZENS of two perfect societies as long as they are pilgrims on earth: the Church and the State. They are no different than other men, though--in contrast to their fellows--they also seek after the City of God. They also live in the City of Man. They, like their fellow citizens who may not be of the household of faith, are πολιτικά ζῷα, politika zōa, political animals, homines politici. Under the natural law--like their fellows--they have obligations to the common good. It is these obligations of the Christian citizen that Pope Leo XIII addresses in his 1890 encyclical Sapientiae Christianae. Christians had a public role when Christianity, as the informer of civil institutions and of law, was on the wane in the 19th century. Christians have a doubly-urgent public role when the universal message of Christianity and the universal natural law which reaches across all confessional boundaries are all but gone in the 21sthcentury as informers of civil institutions and law. They have both an evangelical obligation and an obligation under the natural law to speak to universal supernatural and natural truths, and to see that the laws of the State, if they do not conform to these truths, at least do not contradict them.

We are called to re-evangelize, re-convert our civil institutions. This does not mean we will be loved any more or hated any less than the early Christians were by their Roman fellows. We will, without doubt, be thrown to the maw of lions or the maw of the press, rabid liberal commentators, ridiculing night hosts, and vituperative comedians. But the line must be drawn in the sand. It is time to refuse to live etsi Deus non daretur, as if God did not exist. It is time to live veluti si Deus daretur, as if God did exist. It is time to tell our elected public officials so. And if there are organic laws and constitutions that--as a result of the tampering of zealous secularist men and women in black robes who parade under the name of "Justice" but do nothing other than mock it--have been suppressed or construed so as to prevent it (though these expressly talk of "Nature and Nature's God" or of "establishment" and not a "wall of separation"), it is time to have that changed. It's time to "throw the bastards out" and time to throw the bastard interpretations of law out. It's time for a political defenestration. Nothing less than the survival of our way of life and charity to our fellow men demands it.

As then Cardinal Ratzinger stated the day before John Paul II's death at the convent of Saint Scholastica in Subiaco:

The attempt, carried to the extreme, to manage human affairs disdaining God completely leads us increasingly to the edge of the abyss, to man's ever greater isolation from reality. We must reverse the axiom of the Enlightenment and say: Even one who does not succeed in finding the way of accepting God, should, nevertheless, seek to live and to direct his life "veluti si Deus daretur," as if God existed.*

To put it plainly, atheists should be made to live as if God exists;** it is not Christians who should be made to live as if God does not exist so as to appease the errant atheist. The reason Christians can so insist is because structuring our life, or civil institutions, as if God existed is a demand of the natural moral law, a demand that is universal and reaches across confessional divisions. The existence of God is, by the light of natural reason, sufficiently probable, sufficient real, to justify, by reason alone, structuring society "under God." On the contrary, to form governments and to fashion laws as if God did not exist is to live an unreal life, a law contrary to reason.

Pope Leo XIII states in the beginning of his encyclical Sapientiae Christianae:

To contemplate God, and to tend to Him, is the supreme law of the life of man. For we were created in the divine image and likeness, and are impelled, by our very nature, to the enjoyment of our Creator. But not by bodily motion or effort do we make advance toward God, but through acts of the soul, that is, through knowledge and love. For, indeed, God is the first and supreme truth, and the mind alone feeds on truth. God is perfect holiness and the sovereign good, to which only the will can desire and attain, when virtue is its guide.

Deum spectare, atque ad ipsum contendere, suprema lex est vitae hominum: qui ad imaginem conditi similitudinemque divinam natura ipsa ad auctorem suum potiundum vehementer incitantur. Atqui non motu aliquo cursuque corporis tenditur ad Deum, sed iis quae sunt animi, cognitione atque affectu. Est enim Deus prima ac suprema veritas, nec nisi mens veritate alitur: est idem perfecta sanctitas summumque bonorum, quo sola voluntas aspirare et accedere, duce virtute, potest.

SC, 1. The "supreme law of the life of man," is to "contemplate God," Deum spectare . . . suprema lex est vitae hominum. And this truth relates to each individual man, but it also relates to man-in-society, the ζῷον πολιτικόν (zōon politikon), the political man, the homo politicus. "What applies to individual men applies equally to society--domestic alike and civil." Quod autem de singulis hominibus, idem de societate tum domestica tum etiam civili intelligendum. SC, 2. So if the contemplation of God is the supreme law of the life of man, then what business has man building domestic and civil structures that ignore such supreme law? What business do Christians have in helping the misguided men building institutional structures that ignore such a supreme law?

Tower of Babel by the Meister der Weltenchronik (ca. 1370)
(Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)

Are we to build a Tower of Babel? No. The common good does not require us to build Tower of Babels. Rather, the common good requires us to spurn such projects. Pope Leo XIII makes this clear:

Nature did not form society in order that man should seek in it his last end, but in order that in it and through it he should find suitable aids whereby to attain to his own perfection. If, then, a political government strives after external advantages only, and the achievement of a cultured and prosperous life; if, in administering public affairs, it is wont to put God aside, and show no solicitude for the upholding of moral law, it deflects woefully from its right course and from the injunctions of nature; nor should it be accounted as a society or a community of men, but only as the deceitful imitation or appearance of a society.

Non enim ob hanc caussam genuit natura societatem ut ipsam homo sequeretur tamquam finem, sed ut in ea et per eam adjumenta ad perfectionem sui apta reperiret. Si qua igitur civitas nihil praeter commoditates externas vitaeque cultum cum elegantia et copia persequatur, si Deum in administranda republica negligere, nec leges curare morales consueverit, deterrime aberrat ab instituto suo at praescriptione naturae, neque tam est ea societas hominum et communitas putanda, quam fallax imitatio simulatioque societatis.

SC, 2. A society whose project is to form institutions of government and promulgate law that neglects God or the nature God established, and which shows no solicitude in conserving the moral law, is a society or a community of men in name only; nay, not even in name only. Rather, such a society is a "deceitful imitation or appearance of a society." It is an anti-Society, an ape of society.

When living within a State that ignores the natural moral law, the Christian is placed in a quandary in which he ought not to be. The Christian, like all men, ought to walk in conformity with the natural law which "enjoins us to love devotedly and to defend the country in which we had birth, and in which we were brought up." SC, 5. (Similarly, a Catholic will have a love, both natural and supernatural, for his Church, who has been the custodian of his soul and his soul's second birth.) In addition, the Catholic will have a natural and supernatural love for God. Since the ordered natural love of one's country and the natural and supernatural love of God and His Church stem from the same principle, they--like reason and faith--ought to complement each other, not detract from each other:

Moreover, if we would judge aright, the supernatural love for the Church and the natural love of our own country proceed from the same eternal principle, since God Himself is their Author and originating Cause. Consequently, it follows that between the duties they respectively enjoin, neither can come into collision with the other.

SC, 6. For that reason:

Wherefore, to love both countries, that of earth below and that of heaven above, yet in such mode that the love of our heavenly surpass the love of our earthly home, and that human laws be never set above the divine law, is the essential duty of Christians, and the fountainhead, so to say, from which all other duties spring.

Ambas itaque patrias unumquemque diligere, alteram naturae, alteram civitatis caelestis, ita tamen ut huius, quam illius habeatur caritas antiquior, nec unquam Dei iuribus iura humana anteponantur, maximum est christianorum officium, itemque velut fons quidam, unde alia officia nascuntur.

SC, 11.

Conflicts, if they arise, arise because the State assumes powers that are not its powers to assume or deprecates and ignores those realities which it ought not. By the very nature of things, however, devotion to God and His Church ought to precede--and inform--the love of one's country. "As to which should be preferred no one ought to balance for an instant." Uter vero sit anteponendus, dubitare nemo debet. SC, 7. Patriotism is not a virtue that rises above Faith, Hope, and Charity, but is a virtue that flourishes beneath them. The flag of patriotism should be beneath the flag of faith, just like a state flag should be placed beneath the U.S. flag in accordance with flag protocol. "It is a high crime (scelus est) indeed to withdraw allegiance from God in order to please men, an act of consummate wickedness (nefas) to break the laws of Jesus Christ, in order to yield obedience to earthly rulers, or, under pretext of keeping the civil law, to ignore the rights of the Church." SC, 7.

The State must recognize the proper definition of law and act within its confines:

Law is of its very essence a mandate of right reason, proclaimed by a properly constituted authority, for the common good. But true and legitimate authority is void of sanction, unless it proceed from God, the supreme Ruler and Lord of all. The Almighty alone can commit power to a man over his fellow men;*** nor may that be accounted as right reason which is in disaccord with truth and with divine reason; nor that held to be true good which is repugnant to the supreme and unchangeable good, or that wrests aside and draws away the wills of men from the charity of God.

Non est lex, nisi iussio rectae rationis a potestate legitima in bonum commune perlata. Sed vera ac legitima potestas nulla est, nisi a Deo summo principe dominoque omnium proficiscatur, qui mandare homini in homines imperium solus ipse potest: neque est recta ratio putanda, quae cum veritate dissentiat et ratione divina: neque verum bonum, quod summo atque incommutabili bono repugnet, vel a caritate Dei torqueat hominum atque abducat voluntates.

SC, 8.

Modernly, man suffers from hubris, a hubris spawned from his scientific prowess. "From the fact that it has been vouchsafed to human reason to snatch from nature, through the investigations of science, many of her treasured secrets and to apply them befittingly to the divers requirements of life, men have become possessed with so arrogant a sense of their own powers." SC, 12. This arrogance has led men to think that such scientific, empirical principles can be applied to social life; therefore, through their materialism and empiricism, they elbow God out from the public square. "Led away by this delusion, they make over to human nature the dominion of which they think God has been despoiled." Wed to the world of nature alone, to the the physical here-and-now, and refusing to entertain the thought that there may be a supernatural world, a metaphysical world of above-here-and-beyond now, the structure their entire political and social philosophies as if nature was all there was, and as if the author of nature did not exist:

[T]hey maintain, we must seek the principle and rule of all truth; from nature, they aver, alone spring, and to it should be referred, all the duties that religious feeling prompts. Hence, they deny all revelation from on high, and all fealty due to the Christian teaching of morals as well as all obedience to the Church, and they go so far as to deny her power of making laws and exercising every other kind of right, even disallowing the Church any place among the civil institutions of the commonweal.

SC, 12.

With such underlying philosophical principles, these men "lay hands on the rudder of the State, in order that the legislation may the more easily be adapted to these principles, and the morals of the people influenced in accordance with them." SC, 12.

Disorder thus injected into the system through the hands of unscrupulous, grasping men that are heedless of God and the supernatural verities, what is the Christian to do?

(continued)

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*For a text of Cardinal Ratzinger's speech, see Cardinal Ratzinger On Europe's Crisis of Culture at http://www.catholiceducation.org/.
**This, of course, does not mean the atheist must be forcibly converted, something altogether impossible anyway. We are talking about public and civil structures, external fora, not matters relating to the internal forum of conscience.
***In the English translation of the encyclical there is a footnote, not contained in the Latin text, which states: "Note the extreme importance of this principle; it justifies the doctrine according to which the only conceivable foundation of political authority must be divine in origin."