Church and State Relations

The most controversial figure in the history of Church and State relations was Pope Boniface VIII (1234-1303), and his Bull, Unam Sanctam, issued in 1302, was the high point of the controversy.

In order to appreciate the full import of Pope Boniface's legislation, we should recall the circumstances under which it was enacted. Political rivalry among the Hapsburgs prevented the coronation of a Western Emperor for half a century in the late 1200's, with the result that during this time the Roman Pontiffs became the acknowledged visible heads of Catholic Christianity to a degree unparalleled in papal history. When Boniface VIII, a professional jurist, ascended the throne of Peter, he decided to embody in a general enactment the legal position of the Roman See, as it had crystallized during the thirteenth century. His instrument was the Bull, Unam Sanctam, which subsequently became part of the Church's Canon Law.

The immediate occasion of the Bull was a long and heated conflict between the pope and the king of France, Philip IV, called "The Fair." Philip insisted on deriving his authority in the tradition of Charlemagne and was reluctant to admit any principle of subordination to the papacy in secular matters. When the king imposed a heavy taxation on the French clergy without previous agreement with Rome, Boniface took this as an infringement of ecclesiastical rights and after protracted study of the principles involved, published the document that was to sum up the plenitude of papal power over all the Christian community, including France and her king. Some have wrongly considered the Unam Sanctam an angry rejoinder of the pope, composed in a fit of revenge. Actually it was the deliberate pronouncement of a synod, headed by the pope, in which there were (besides others) thirty-nine French archbishops and bishops. Nor is it a document which the Holy See has ever retracted. In fact it was solemnly confirmed by the Fifth Lateran Council in 1513; and the very point in its teaching to which exception has been taken, is reaffirmed in the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX.

After declaring there is only one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, over which Christ placed only one head, "not two heads as if it were a monster," Boniface explained the relation of the secular power to the spiritual. "We are taught in the words of the Gospel that in this Church and in its power there are two swords, namely, a spiritual and a temporal. It is necessary that one sword should be under the other, and that temporal authority be subjected to the spiritual. For, the truth bearing witness, the spiritual power should instruct the temporal power and judge it, if it be not good. Hence We declare, affirm, and define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary for the salvation of every creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff."[1]

At the outset we must distinguish between defined doctrine and ordinary papal teaching. Only the final sentence was solemnly defined and clearly represents traditional Catholic dogma on the Church's necessity for salvation.

But how are we to understand the preceding statements on the subordination of State to Church. We cannot interpret Boniface to mean that the whole sphere of temporal jurisdiction is directly subject to the Church; an injustice against which he protested shortly after the Bull was published. Followers of Philip the Fair inserted into the document the spurious phrase, "We wish you (the king) to know that you hold your kingdom from Us," adding that anyone who denied the proposition was a heretic. In a solemn consistory, Boniface denounced the forgery. "For forty years We have studied law, and We know that there are two powers appointed by God. Who should, then, or can, believe that We entertain, or have entertained, such stupid absurdity? We declare that in no way do We wish to usurp the jurisdiction of the king. And yet, neither the king nor any one else of the faithful can deny that he is subject to Us where a question of sin is involved (ratione peccati)."[2]

The pope's phrase "ratione peccati," has since become the Church's norm to judge when and to what extent she may use her spiritual power to intervene in the secular affairs of State. She may do so when, in her judgment, an otherwise temporal affair (like civil legislation) affects the religious interests of the faithful by placing unwarranted burden on their conscience, exposing them to sin or otherwise conflicting with that spiritual welfare over which the Church believes she alone has ultimate jurisdiction by the mandate of her Founder.

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Notes

[1] Enchiridion Symbolorum, 469.
[2] H. Finke, Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII, Munster, 1902, p. 156.

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Hardon, John, S.J. Vol. 2 of Religions of the World. Garden City: Image, 1960.