The Catholic Church has witnessed a variety of different regimes throughout its two-thousand year history. During the Church’s first three hundred years, the Roman Empire persecuted it, and it was subject to much violence. Yet, the witness of the martyrs was a testimony of the faith of the Church. “The blood of the martyrs,” Tertullian wrote at the end of the second century, “is the seed of the church.” After a particularly violent persecution by Diocletian, the Church gained its freedom through the Edict of Milan. Then, in 380, the Emperor Theodosius declared it the official religion of the empire. Yet, at that point, the empire was in decline. Once Rome finally fell, the Catholic Church was the only organization that could establish order among the ensuing chaos of marauding Germanic tribes and political decentralization. The Church made significant gains by converting the rest of Europe throughout the first millennium.

Just as the Church had recognized the legitimacy of the Roman Empire, the Church also recognized the legitimacy of the emerging European monarchies. Catholic political thought affirmed St. Paul’s exhortation to be subject to political authorities (Romans 13:1-7). As a consequence, the Church taught that there was a separation between the spiritual power and the political power, best known as the “two swords” theory. The Church wielded spiritual power, while the commonwealth wielded political power. The spiritual power is directed to guiding the faithful to a supernatural end (i.e., heaven), whereas the political power is directed to ensuring the administration of earthly justice. Both powers have a legitimate and just end, but the spiritual power is greater than the temporal power, since the end (telos) of the spiritual power is greater than the temporal one. Thus, while separate powers, the temporal power cannot interfere or act contrary to the teachings of the spiritual power.

The “two swords” doctrine is particularly important, since pagan societies did not recognize it. Rather, the pagan tendency was to make the spiritual power subordinate to the temporal power. Often, the pagan ruler not only decided the religion, but often interjected in how that religion was to be administered, whether through appointments, edicts, decrees, exhortations, persecution, etc. Thus, one of the great political achievements of Catholicism was to recognize the distinction between these two powers.

Still, the history of Catholicism shows that Catholic intellectuals, scholars, popes, clerics, kings, rulers, and laymen often had different political opinions. Some favored monarchy, while others advocated for empire or republicanism. Some were cosmopolitan, while others favored subsidiarity. Some favored granting political power to the pope, while others rejected it or advanced the indirecta potestas. Some drew upon Justinian’s law code, while others were more sympathetic to more regional or cultural law codes.

The Church has faced a variety of political challenges, such as the battling of heresies, the witnessing of the Protestant Reformation’s splintering of Europe, the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon’s secularism, the loss of official state religion status in many countries, and the decline of Mass attendance in historically Catholic countries.

Yet, despite these ideological differences and historical setbacks, the Church remains committed to its core principles: the rights and freedom of the Church, the distinction between spiritual and temporal power, the natural law, the just war theory, subjective rights rooted in objective truth, conscience, and protections for the vulnerable, such as the unborn and the poor. The Church continues to believe that Catholic social teaching should influence and guide political action prudentially.

Archbishop Charles Chaput, Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia, delivered the 2022 Address at the Benedictine Leadership Institute. In this video, he outlines the relationship American Catholics should have with their country.