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PARTISAN REVIEW
mystery disguised as a metaphysical necessity, avails nothing.
For even
the Church
in time is distinguished from the Church as
an organization of men hierarchically organized to exercise power
in the political and social struggles of the day. When the Pope
issues an Encyclical (not to mention his prayers for Franco) it may
be that he is not proclaiming the truths of the Kingdom of God.
But does he speak for
the Church in time
or for the Church as a
corporation whose seat is in Rome and whose representatives bar.
gain for the extension of its corporate rights in almost every court
and chancellory of the world?*
The importance of M. Maritain's intellectual procedure jus·
tifies restating this in another way. On the one hand, Catholicism
is neutral to things in time including politics. On the other hand,
it is essentially concerned with them and especially with politics,
for politics falls within the domain of morals, and moral values
"imply a reference to the supernatural order and to revelation."
This revelation is granted to the Catholic church and
only
to the
Catholic church. Consequently, no right order of society is achiev·
able, no science or philosophy of politics can be true or even
wholly useful, which does not judge and evaluate its objects "by
the light of revealed principles." The objects judged are secular
and temporal. The principles by which they are judged are super·
natural, substantially of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of
God can never be realized in this world but it can be prepared
for by the Catholic church.
Now the
extent
of the temporal power which the Church
should claim in order to effect this preparation, is not a matter for
sacred Catholic theology to decide but for Catholic politics in·
formed by supernatural truths. In principle it is unlimited: in
practice, a function of expediency-a high expediency. Empiri.
cally, however, it varies with the power (wealth, numbers, influ·
ence) of the Church communicants in specific historical contexts,
and with the shrewd estimates by the hierarchy of the danger that
its own principle of intolerance, used to further the Kingdom of
-No one really knows when the Pope is speaking
ex cathedra
except the Pope
himself. For all practical purposes, however, the Papal Encyclicals have a binding
force not only on the behavior of the faithful but on their religious assent. "Encycli.
cals are not necessarily
ex cathedra
pronouncements, though the Pope could,
if
he so
willed, issue definitions in that way. The faithful are bound to give them a religious
assent,
interior as well as exterior,
and
obedience and respect."
Addis and Arnold,
Catholic Dictionary,
p.
298
(my italics). Cf. Poynter "Catholicism and Sociology"
(XIXth Century and Alter)
Jan. 1940.
