(Fr. Scalia is parochial vicar of St. Patrick Parish in Chancellorsville, Virginia. This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
If the coin in the Gospel belongs to Caesar because it bears Caesar’s image, then whatever bears God’s image must belong to God. Man, of course, bears God’s image. What our Lord asked about the coin may be asked of man: “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” Man is God’s image. And God has inscribed His law in man’s heart. What belongs to God is man himself. Not a part or a piece, but man in his entirety.
This does have implications for the political sphere. By contrasting what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, Our Lord teaches that worldly government is limited. Caesar — the state — has his own proper realm, beyond which he cannot go: he cannot claim what belongs to God. The state can regulate certain affairs of man’s life — property, economics, defense, etc. — but it can never claim absolute dominion over man himself.
This truth frees man from unjust domination by government. Governments that have tried to claim more than their rights have encountered the fiercest opposition from the Catholic Church. Fascists, Nazis and Socialists demanded an allegiance that can only be commanded by God. For this reason the Church, the greatest teacher and defender of man’s freedom, suffered persecution at their hands. Our own government violates the limits of state power when it legalizes the killing of the unborn. Such legislation, which gives to the state what belongs to God, contravenes God’s law and calls own His condemnation.
Our Lord’s teaching, however, has greater meaning for our spiritual life. Political freedom means nothing unless we possess the virtue of religion, the virtue that enables us to give to God what belongs to God. The reason we desire justice in the political realm is so that we can freely worship God. The Lord has the right to receive our adoration, worship and praise, to receive the gift of our lives. We belong entirely to God and must give Him what is His.
St. Therese once exclaimed, “My God, I choose all! I don't want to be a saint by halves!” She avoided the half measures, partial commitments and divided hearts that people give God every day. People find all kinds of things to substitute for the gift of themselves. They give to God only part: only time or money or work; only intellectual assent, or only slavish obedience. God does not, however, want just part of us or to receive us piecemeal. Our entire being belongs to God — that is what He desires to possess.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s: and to God, the things that are God’s.” St. Thomas More exemplifies both aspects of this teaching. He labored for years in the court of Henry VIII, giving witness to the legitimate role of government. But when the king seized powers reserved to God alone, Sir Thomas More resigned, thus declaring God’s primacy. His silent opposition to the king ultimately brought him to the scaffold, where he gave his entire self to the Lord. In his own words, he died, “the king’s good servant but God’s first.”
