Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Features

The issue of Church and State

byStaff writers
7 April 2014
Reading Time: 4 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By Peter Holmes

THE call for a separation of Church and State has been echoing around the Australian media for as long as I can remember.

When the Church offers any kind of input to a public debate, there are loud calls for the Church to stay out of politics.

When a member of parliament or anyone who holds public office seems to be influenced by their personal faith, the same voices call their suitability for public office into question.

Unless, of course, the Church happens to agree with the media’s present opinion on a hot topic, in which case the government are called to listen to the voice of “compassion”, while they carefully avoid attributing any moral authority to the Church itself.

Over the years I have been privileged to participate in public and private discussions and debates with agnostic and atheist friends.

With a few notable exceptions, these friends have played the “separation of church and state” card as if it were the trump card which defeats all of the Church’s or individual believer’s attempts to contribute to public debates on moral matters.

The use of this slogan against the Judeo-Christian moral code is ironic in the extreme.

Because the separation of Church and state is an idea introduced and implemented by God himself, in the Jewish Scriptures, and defended and advocated by both Christians and Jews to the present day.

It is, in short, a Judeo-Christian idea.

Related Stories

All Catholics invited to pray rosary for peace with Pope Francis next Tuesday

Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria

Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia

When the Israelites first demanded a king “like the other nations”, God warned them that taxes and misuse of worldly power would be a serious drawback of the kind of kingship typical of the nations around them.

In the nations around Israel, in fact in most ancient nation states, the absolute ruler of the nation was also a religious leader.

 In some cases he was worshipped as king and god of that nation, or perhaps as a kind of avatar of the deity.

In any case, he wielded both secular and religious authority from the same throne.

But in Israel, things were different.

When God relented and finally gave the Israelites the king they wanted, He set in place an arrangement we refer to today as ‘the separation of Church and state.’ On the one hand the king ruled via the military and political means available to the nation, but he was supposed to maintain and defend the innocent, the weak and the poor according to God’s definition of justice, not his own.

On the other hand the priests and prophets had little military or political power, but mediated God’s forgiveness and proclaimed his divine word. The king was responsible for protecting the weak and providing a kingdom where all that is good could flourish.

Should the king become corrupt, or begin using his God-given authority to harm the innocent, or disregard the needs of his subjects, the prophets would hold the king to account.

Even King David, the greatest of the Israelite kings, the king by whom all other kings are measured, once used his power to murder an innocent soldier and take the man’s wife as his own.

In this case, the prophet Nathan confronted David with his evil deeds and pronounced God’s judgment on the king.

What is worth noting is that neither the king nor the prophet are permitted to seek to take over the responsibility of the other.

The relationship between the king and the prophet worked both ways. Just as husband and wife are different, bringing different gifts and responsibilities to the relationship, neither the king nor the prophet may dominate the other, discount the other nor overstep the boundaries of their particular role in the kingdom.

A wife is not a husband, but it would be ridiculous for a husband to ignore his wife’s feedback and advice on being a husband.

In the same way, though we celebrate and cherish the unique and unrepeatable gifts that a wife brings to a marriage, it would be folly for her to completely ignore her husband’s advice on the basis that he was not a wife.

The relationship relies on a delicate balance between the two, mutual feedback and mutual support.

The moral codes that have formed the basis of Western civilisation have been perpetuated and sustained by this delicate balance.

At times in history the balance has teetered too close to one precipice or another, but the balance has been maintained.

The Church has clearly and energetically advocated the separation of Church and state in Australia.

Where the agents of the Church have failed to uphold this standard, the state has held her to account.

The Church in Australia willingly and properly submits herself to the scrutiny and censure of the state where she has failed to protect the vulnerable people she cared for.

On the other hand, the Church still energetically and properly calls the government of Australia to account on moral matters.

This is not a usurpation of power, neither of religion or of the state, it is an enhancement and protection of a proper use of authority.

It is a voice of conscience, which is not muted by the rich and powerful, by a social majority or a tribal prejudice.

It is the voice that carries a genuine concern for the innocent, the weak, the vulnerable, the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the refugees.

Please God both Church and state continue to hold each other to account in the promotion of good, the defense of the innocent and vulnerable, and in the promotion of the flourishing of all Australians.

Peter Holmes is an Australian theologian.

 [divider]

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Forty years full of faith

Next Post

Opportunity to meet asylum seekers

Staff writers

Related Posts

Vatican

All Catholics invited to pray rosary for peace with Pope Francis next Tuesday

27 May 2022
Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria
World

Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria

27 May 2022
Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia
Australia

Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia

26 May 2022
Next Post

Opportunity to meet asylum seekers

The morality of dreams

A life well lived

Popular News

  • Blessed Sacrament desecrated in robbery of sacred vessels at Canberra church

    Blessed Sacrament desecrated in robbery of sacred vessels at Canberra church

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Christian Brothers’ community mourn the passing of Brother Tony White

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • All Catholics invited to pray rosary for peace with Pope Francis next Tuesday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Abdallah family launch forgiveness campaign one year on from crash that killed four children

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Vatican

All Catholics invited to pray rosary for peace with Pope Francis next Tuesday

by Staff writers
27 May 2022
0

By Catholic News Agency THE Vatican is inviting Catholics to join Pope Francis in praying the rosary...

Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria

Gunmen kidnap two Catholic priests in Nigeria

27 May 2022
Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia

Ethiopian cardinal brings sense of gratitude to Australia

26 May 2022
Blessed Sacrament desecrated in robbery of sacred vessels at Canberra church

Blessed Sacrament desecrated in robbery of sacred vessels at Canberra church

26 May 2022
Pope Francis – ‘My heart is broken’ over Texas elementary school shooting

Pope Francis – ‘My heart is broken’ over Texas elementary school shooting

26 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping