This is the eighth part of a series on the true nature of human freedom, as set forth in the teaching of Pope Leo XIII.  

The first part discussed man’s natural liberty, by which he is free to choose how he will act. The second part examined moral liberty, by which man freely acts in accordance with his own nature. The third part explored the ways in which God assists us, so that we might attain moral liberty. The fourth part explained how just laws made by the state can help man to attain true liberty. The fifth part examined the nature of liberalism, and its incompatibility with the Catholic faith. The sixth part treated of the modern error of “separation of Church and state”. The seventh part introduced the question of “liberty of conscience” by explaining the dictum “error has no rights.”  

In this eighth part we will examine whether the state can compel men to enter the Catholic Church. 

(LifeSiteNews) — Throughout this series we have encountered the fundamental truth of Catholic moral thought: all our human acts must be in conformity with the Eternal Reason of God, which orders and directs all created things. An act that accords with reason is a morally good act, and an act contrary to reason is a morally bad act. By living in accordance with reason we become free. As Our Lord taught: “the truth shall make you free” (Jn 8:32).    

Given that man has a moral obligation to act in accordance with reason, he cannot have a moral right to act contrary to reason. Hence, every human being has a moral obligation to seek the true religion, and to assent to it once it has been found. No one has the intrinsic moral right to hold a false opinion, on religious questions or any other, for that would be the same as to say that we have the right to misuse the faculties that God has given us. Therefore, we may truly say that “error has no rights.” 

As Pope Pius XII taught:  

[T]hat which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated.^[1]

In the next installments of this series, we will ask what the implications of this doctrine are for the practice and propagation of non-Catholic religions. But first we must briefly recall the Church’s doctrine on the state’s obligation to profess and promote the true religion.  

The state must be Catholic 

In an earlier article in this series, we saw that the Catholic Church teaches that just as all individual human beings have an obligation to profess the true religion, so too does the state, which is formed by the coming together of those same individuals in pursuit of the common end of temporal happiness. The state must therefore recognize that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind, and it must use its authority to assist its subjects in attaining their supernatural end of eternal happiness with God, as well as their natural end of temporal happiness 

In his encyclical letter Immortale Dei, on the Christian Constitution of States, Pope Leo XIII taught that: 

[R]ulers must ever bear in mind that God is the paramount ruler of the world, and must set Him before themselves as their exemplar and law in the administration of the State.^[2]  

The authority exercised by the state is derived from God:  

For, in things visible God has fashioned secondary causes, in which His divine action can in some wise be discerned, leading up to the end to which the course of the world is ever tending. In like manner, in civil society, God has always willed that there should be a ruling authority, and that they who are invested with it should reflect the divine power and providence in some measure over the human race.^[3] 

The power held by those who govern must “be administered for the well-being of the citizens, because they who govern others possess authority solely for the welfare of the State.”^[4] 

The pope continues: 

As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law.^[5]  

Therefore: 

[M]en living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose ever-bounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings.^[6]  

As a consequence: 

[N]o one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its reaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion – it is a public crime to act as though there were no God.  

So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will.^[7]  

This means that all those who exercise power in the state have as one of “their chief duties” to “to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety.”^[8]

This is the “bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule” because: 

[O]ne and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavour should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent.^[9]  

It follows that: 

[C]ivil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the well-being of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.^[10] 

This passage from Leo XIII is an excellent summary of the teaching of the Catholic Church on this the proper union of Church and state. A more in-depth explanation of the doctrine can be read here.   

Our discussion must now turn to how such a state ought to act towards those of its subjects who do not profess the true religion. 

There can be no coercion of the act of faith 

The Code of Canon Law clearly states: 

Nobody may be forced to embrace the Catholic faith against his will.^[11] 

There can be no coercion with regard to the act of faith. The act of faith is the assent of the intellect to truths revealed by God, under the direction of the will moved by divine grace. The virtue of faith is, according to the Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Church promulgated by the First Vatican Council:  

[A] supernatural virtue, by means of which, with the grace of God inspiring and assisting us, we believe to be true what He has revealed, not because we perceive its intrinsic truth by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God himself, who makes the revelation and can neither deceive nor be deceived.^[12]

It is impossible for this act – which involves the human will’s free cooperation with grace – to be coerced.   

Hence, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: 

Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will.^[13]  

To go through the outward motions of professing the faith would not actually be faith. In fact, it would lead to the sacrilegious reception of baptism and the other sacraments.  

Pope Pius XII provides an excellent summary of the Church’s doctrine on this matter in his encyclical letter Mystici Corporis Christi:  

Though We desire this unceasing prayer to rise to God from the whole Mystical Body in common, that all the straying sheep may hasten to enter the one fold of Jesus Christ, yet We recognize that this must be done of their own free will; for no one believes unless he wills to believe.  

Hence they are most certainly not genuine Christians who against their belief are forced to go into a church, to approach the altar and to receive the Sacraments; for the ‘faith without which it is impossible to please God” is an entirely free “submission of intellect and will.’  

Therefore, whenever it happens, despite the constant teaching of this Apostolic See, that anyone is compelled to embrace the Catholic faith against his will, Our sense of duty demands that We condemn the act. For men must be effectively drawn to the truth by the Father of light through the spirit of His beloved Son, because, endowed as they are with free will, they can misuse their freedom under the impulse of mental agitation and base desires.^[14]  

This teaching of Pope Pius XII is in accord with the constant practice as well as the constant teaching of the Church. The Church has always sought to bring men and women to Jesus Christ by the preaching of the gospel and has always condemned attempts by states to compel conversions. 

As Pope Leo XIII taught: 

[I]n fact the Church is wont to take earnest heed that no one shall be forced to embrace the Catholic faith against his will, for, as St. Augustine wisely reminds us, ‘Man cannot believe otherwise than of his own free will.’^[15]

Thus, if a person has never been baptized, the Church is opposed to using coercion to bring them into the Church.  

The limits of state intervention in the life of the individual and the family 

The individual human being, made in the image and likeness of God, is the fundamental unit of the state. However, in a healthy society, many intermediate units come between the individual and the state.  

The family is the most important of these intermediate units. It was established by God, and it is the only intermediate society which must necessarily exist in each and every state, and in all the different conditions in which a state might exist.  

The proper end of the state is the common good of the society of which it comprises. It ought not to interfere unduly in the private life of the individual or the family. It may not seek to usurp the functions which God has given to the family and to its individual members. 

Foremost among the functions of the family is the education of children. Pope Pius XI teaches: 

The family therefore holds directly from the Creator the mission and hence the right to educate the offspring, a right inalienable because inseparably joined to the strict obligation, a right anterior to any right whatever of civil society and of the State, and therefore inviolable on the part of any power on earth.^[16]

And Pope Leo XIII teaches: 

The contention that the civil government should, at its option, intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family is a great and pernicious error.^[17]  

Only in a very limited range of circumstances – such as the grave abuse of its members – can the state intervene in the domestic sphere: 

If, within the precincts of the household, there should occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public authority should intervene to force each party to yield to the other its proper due; for this is not to deprive citizens of their rights, but to safeguard and strengthen them. But the rulers of the State must go no further: here nature bids them stop.^[18] 

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that for this reason the state ought not to bring children into the Church against the will of their parents: 

Injustice should be done to no man. Now it would be an injustice… if their children were to be baptized against their will, since they would lose the rights of parental authority over their children as soon as these were Christians. Therefore, these should not be baptized against their parents’ will.^[19] 

For, he continues: 

[I]t is against natural justice. For a child is by nature part of its father: thus, at first, it is not distinct from its parents as to its body, so long as it is enfolded within its mother’s womb; and later on after birth, and before it has the use of its free-will, it is enfolded in the care of its parents, which is like a spiritual womb, for so long as man has not the use of reason, he differs not from an irrational animal; so that even as an ox or a horse belongs to someone who, according to the civil law, can use them when he likes, as his own instrument, so, according to the natural law, a son, before coming to the use of reason, is under his father’s care.  

“Hence,” he continues: 

[I]t would be contrary to natural justice, if a child, before coming to the use of reason, were to be taken away from its parents’ custody, or anything done to it against its parents’ wish. As soon, however, as it begins to have the use of its free-will, it begins to belong to itself, and is able to look after itself, in matters concerning the Divine or the natural law, and then it should be induced, not by compulsion but by persuasion, to embrace the faith: it can then consent to the faith, and be baptized, even against its parents’ wish; but not before it comes to the use of reason.   

Thus, once more we observe that the act of faith must be free. The Church does not force anyone to join her, nor does she bring children into her ranks against their parents will.  Rather, she induces souls “not by compulsion but by persuasion, to embrace the faith.” 

St. Thomas concludes: 

Hence it is said of the children of the fathers of old that they were saved in the faith of their parents; whereby we are given to understand that it is the parents’ duty to look after the salvation of their children, especially before they come to the use of reason. 

It should not be thought that parents have a moral right to teach their children error. In fact, they have the moral obligation “to look after the salvation of their children”. However, the failure of parents to fulfil their moral obligation in this regard, does not justify the state intervening in a manner which would violate the natural authority that parents have over their children.  

And St. Thomas also notes that such a practice would put the faith of the child thus baptised at risk:  

For children baptized before coming to the use of reason, afterwards when they come to perfect age, might easily be persuaded by their parents to renounce what they had unknowingly embraced; and this would be detrimental to the faith. 

To this, some might object that baptism is so necessary – it determines whether a child who dies before the age of reason will be in heaven or hell for ever – that the good of children requires that they be baptized, even against the will of their parents, and even if there is a danger that they will later abandon the faith. How can parents be allowed to stand in the way of their child being brought into union with the God who made them? 

To these kinds of objections St. Thomas answers:  

Man is directed to God by his reason, whereby he can know Him. Hence a child before coming to the use of reason, in the natural order of things, is directed to God by its parents’ reason, under whose care it lies by nature: and it is for them to dispose of the child in all matters relating to God. 

And   

[N]o one ought to break the order of the natural law, whereby a child is in the custody of its father, in order to rescue it from the danger of everlasting death.

Once again, we are confronted by the fundamental truth that the morality of an act is determined by the reasonableness of the act. One may not violate the order placed in creation by God, even for sake of the salvation of souls.   

However, the salvation of souls is paramount, and those who do not believe in the Catholic faith do not have the right to threaten the spiritual or temporal wellbeing of the society to which they belong.  

Hence, after affirming clearly, as already cited above, that those who have never received baptism “are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will,” St. Thomas immediately states: 

[N]evertheless they should be compelled by the faithful, if it be possible to do so, so that they do not hinder the faith, by their blasphemies, or by their evil persuasions, or even by their open persecutions.^[20] 

That is, while the non-baptised may not be forced to accept the faith by methods of compulsion, the state may use its coercive power to prevent them from doing that which hinders the spread of the faith to others, or which leads people away from it. 

This is a doctrine that the popes have discussed at length, and which we will examine in more detail in the next installment.