Plain Reflections on Church, State, and Society
It is the fundamental error of the modern hedonist to believe that man
can abandon moral effort and throw off every repression and spiritual
discipline and yet preserve all the achievements of culture. It is the lesson
of history that the higher the achievement of a culture the greater is the
moral effort and the stricter is the social discipline that it demands.
Christopher Dawson, “Christianity and Sex”.
It is undeniable that we are going through times of
cultural decline, times when the public enactment of our culture and
civilisation is beset by confusion, contradiction and conflict. This is nothing
new – all civilisations go through periods of confusion, crippling self-doubt
and weakness. What we call our civilisation and our culture are, in fact,
nothing but the secularised continuation of what was once, at all levels of
society, the purposeful pursuit of a common vision. Certainly, there was dissent, confusion and
contradiction, but these were relegated to the margins – they were not allowed
to occupy the centre of the stage, to speak on behalf of society. It is not my
purpose to idealise the past, but to show the difference between then and now,
and to sketch the outline of what could be the basic parametres for the
restoration of this vision.
Giovanni Bellini, Corpus Christi Procession in St Mark's Square, Venice.
Then, there was a body of public doctrine and practice
that was refined by the cultivation of learning and manners. Life was dangerous
and bloody, the lifespan of most was short, and disease was rife: this vale of
tears was but the antechamber to the mountain of light. Yet, one could not give
up on the vale of tears entirely – it had to be arranged and organised in order
to purge society from the most sordid aspects of human existence and agency.
Sordid things did exist and happen, but nobody gloried in them, save the
perverted and the outcasts.
Social order endeavoured to rein in human passions, to
restrain and punish those who neglected their natural and social duties. The value
of the individual was in correlation with the ends of society, as much as the
value of society was in correlation with the nature of the individual. At the
basis of this social order was the family, itself a domestic society, a
microcosm mirroring the order of the universe. It was the society of
procreation and nurture, but also called to be the society of shared intimacy
and lifelong companionship between the husband and his wife; and a society of
mutual support between spouses, children, siblings and cousins. Public society,
on the other hand, was the society for the protection and preservation of
families. When Christianity became a public religion, the real dignity of the family
was acknowledged and it was canonised as the domestic church. The family and
public society catered for the body while the church catered for the soul. The
public or civil state of Christendom, in the cooperation of Church and State,
was meant to care for the whole man, body and soul, and to ensure that the
subordination of his natural ends to his supernatural ends be recognised as a fundamental
matter of public interest. Union without confusion, distinction without
separation: the union of Church and State in Christendom was understood to be
analogous to the unity of the two natures in Christ, according to the formula
of Chalcedon. The integrity of the analogy was not always maintained,
corruption did infect the body of Christendom, but the pattern of union was
maintained, if only theoretically.
Philipp Veit, The Introduction of the Arts to Germany by Religion
The terms and the bonds of this public union were
tenuous, as the State eventually came to see itself as the repository of what
was previously considered to be a divine attribute, namely, sovereignty. The
monarchical absolutism of the 16th and 17th centuries was
but a transitory and anticipatory phase to the eruption of popular sovereignty, the revolt against the monarchy and rights of God, and an uncompromising juridical absolutism
from the late 18th century onward. The Machiavellian doctrine of the autonomy
of political morality became the prevailing doctrine that inspired the various
laws decreeing the separation of church and state in what were then
predominantly Christian societies.
The effects of this privatisation of belief on society,
coupled with the concomitant transition from an agrarian to an industrial and
capitalist economy, were dire in physical, symbolic and ethical terms. The
introduction and normalisation of divorce also contributed to the erosion of
the social fabric. Social relations were no more seen as necessary and natural,
but as voluntary and optional. The public rejection of Christendom entailed the
public rejection of natural laws and natural morality as well, long before the
disorder of our own time. Worldly authenticity, verbose frankness and indulgent
self-fulfilment are the idols of our age.
The Mealtime Prayer or Grace before the Meal (1885) by Fritz von Uhde
Nothing that takes public discourse and practice
further away from traditional morality should surprise us, but it should
instead harden our resolve to cling to tradition and to the “old” morality and
civility. Traditional Christianity, with its austere demands and limited
temporal promises, is the school we need to re-orient ourselves in these times
of disorientation. Traditional liturgies, with their hallowed patterns of
repetitious but loving praise, with their ritualization and elevation of the
quotidian, are the patterns we need for the elevation of our disposition
towards God and the world. The practice of the corporal and spiritual works of
the mercy, necessarily coupled with constant prayer of the heart, is itself the
empirical ground where we may ask for and obtain the cardinal and theological
virtues. This need for the re-alignment and the re-organisation of our lives
will entail sacrifices, persecutions, disappointments, even bitterness and
despair. Let us start today, now, and work at changing what can be changed; let
us look at the patterns set for us by our fathers and mothers in the faith, and
carry on in hope.
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