This homily was delivered at the Red Mass of the Kings County Catholic Lawyers Guild held at St. James Cathedral Basilica October 17.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
When Jesus was confronted with the legal question, whether "as Jews, could they pay taxes to the Roman conquerors," He asked for a coin and said: "Whose image is here?" Then He said: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." This enigmatic saying perhaps needs some explanation. It can be the basis on which we can address issues today that you, as a legal community, confront daily: issues of the relationship between Church and State, issues between morality and law, between individual conscience and politics.
If we were to interpret Jesus' saying, perhaps clearly the simplest interpretation is that since Caesar's image is on the coin it belongs to him and there is no more need to discuss the question; however, a deeper understanding of the Jewish reluctance to pay tribute is that they were not supposed to carry or look at coins with images of any kind. More importantly, however, is Jesus' emphasis that the things of God must be given to God, as He emphasizes in His proclamation about the Kingdom; it is the Kingdom of God that we must seek. The Kingdom of God is not the kingdoms of this earth or the dominion of earthly powers. Rather, our emphasis in the long run must be establishing the kingdom that has no earthly form, but rather one that recognizes God as the almighty and all powerful.
The second reading also provides us with a view of how we must look at the structures of governmental authority. St. Paul speaks in various places in Scripture regarding the divine origins of civil authority. This, however, applies only to legitimate civil authorities, not one that is despotic or does not support the human dignity of every individual.
So then, what conclusions can we draw for your profession, either as lawyers, judges, legal assistants, or anyone enjoined in the works of justice? Yes, it is justice that is your vocation in life, to seek justice for someone who somehow was wronged and to instill justice in our society which desperately needs it. Justice perhaps is not so difficult to define. It comes from the point of view that we see justice when each person in society is given their due and their rights are not violated. It is, however, more difficult to see in our society when the relationships between individual and society are on a collision course. Where can justice be found?
In the Catholic tradition, the human dignity of the individual is the starting point of all moral and ethical reasoning. At the same time, however, the rights that an individual has because of his personal dignity cannot be asserted above the common good of the society in which we live. Our citizenship is a matter of shared relationships and responsibilities of persons working for the common good. Individuality cannot exist outside of the person and prior to our social relationships with one another. It is a delicate balancing act that we must perform in order to find justice for individuals, but also for our society and for the effects of one man's rights on the rights of another. You have dedicated your life to this principle of justice.
The law, however, is the servant of justice in our land. Laws are not always made with the intention of carrying out justice, but rather are influenced by all sorts of extraneous influences. That our democracy has survived for over 200 years is because we are able to change our laws. The democratic process produces them but the democratic process also changes our laws. Of course, we base ourselves on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, all of which in their essence derive their understanding from the common good. To quote the Declaration of Independence, "each man is endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
What makes these rights of man "self-evident" if it were not recourse to the common good, which can be discerned by all men of good will by what is called the natural law. Natural law is that law which exists in the hearts of men, which allows them to be in relationship with others in an equitable way. Hopefully, our society can continue to recognize that the common good is what we pursue when seeking justice. Never violating the rights of the individual, while at the same time never forcing society to abandon its responsibilities to its members because of the desire of an individual.
There are many inconsistencies that appear when we look more closely at the pursuit of justice, especially when we seek to inject the issue of religion. From the time we are young, our parents admonished us not to speak about politics or religion in polite company. The fact is that politics and religion are the life's blood of society. Both of these relational entities deal with our relationship with one another; politics and religion are intertwined. Relationship is key to understanding our pursuit of justice.
How true it is that the separation of Church and State is a fundamental principle of our democracy and that no religion should be established by the State. The "invisible wall" that Thomas Jefferson espoused was intended to protect the believer and the unbeliever from the tyranny of the State, so that all churches, all religions in our democracy could have an equal opportunity to seek justice in the greater entity, which is society itself.
The Government is merely the operational modality of the State that serves the greater society. So, we must assert that religion has a place in society, for religion and society truly are inseparable.
As you know, it is not the "Establishment Clause" that impedes the Church's ability to influence the political process but rather Internal Revenue Service regulations, a byproduct of our laws, that threaten our "tax-exempt" status.
So churches have every right to be involved in the political process but operate under regulatory oversight as opposed to Constitutional constraints. We as official representatives of the Church choose not to be involved in the election and defeat of candidates for public office, but that does not mean that we cede our "rights" to be involved in public discourse on policy matters important to Catholics and people of faith. Indeed, it is impossible that religion and politics not interface with one another.
Perhaps the best example of how they do interface is the example of how laws are made. There are those who assert incorrectly that religion and morality are inseparable and therefore without religion there can be no set laws, which can regulate interaction with another. However, it is the natural law and not religion that is the fundamental building block of morality. It is the conscience of man, which always seeks the good, although many times not achieving it, which generates morality.
The late Doctor Martin Luther King reminded us of the primacy of conscience when he said in his l963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail": "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I agree with St. Augustine ‘an unjust law is no law at all'."
Had not people of faith, like the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., led and collectively opposed unjust laws, neither the Abolitionist Movement of the 19th century nor the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century would have been successful. And in this 21st century, will people of faith free undocumented immigrant workers from unjust and unworkable laws?
I would like to interject a small anecdote, which perhaps illustrates my point about conscience formation. As a young priest, I visited a juvenile detention center for a program of catechetical instruction and counseling for juvenile delinquents, as we called them in those days. Doing one such program, after we had the catechetical session, or teaching session, one of the young men asked to go to Confession. This was also part of my responsibility, so I obliged him. He had not been to Confession in a long time and asked if I could help. So, I began with what I thought was the most basic question, I asked him what he was sorry for. He thought for a moment and then responded, "I'm sorry I'm here."
Clearly, his conscience was not one that was formed to take into account either the Ten Commandments or civil law, and this is the problem that we clearly face today in our society. What will be the basis on which morality and respect for law can be communicated, if we banish the place of religion to the sidelines? What will be the way that we communicate laws which are meant to serve as guide markers for moral conduct? Who will tell the people that murder is wrong and that stealing is not acceptable? There must be a place for education in morality and education in the law. But where will it be? Can it take place in our public schools where guidance seems to be the only curriculum that can deal with these issues? If there is no religion to influence our society and form consciences, where do we go to find the means to teach the fundamentals of our relationships with one another?
Another difficulty we face is the correct place of religious professionals in politics. The principle of the separation of Church and State does not preclude a religious leader from seeking to influence political decisions. In recent years there is an unfortunate distinction being made between private or personal morality and public morality. Moreover, the popular culture makes sacrosanct the claim of individual freedom, for example, abortion-on-demand at public expense.
We ought to ask ourselves, is it possible to divorce an individual's private moral convictions from decisions about public policy. Does the same also hold true for persons with non-religious values? Is one value more important than another? Are religious values of less importance than the value of personal freedom? These are the questions that confront us today and they offer a challenge to you whose vocation is to seek justice which consumes your lives. How can we find a way to enunciate moral principles in our society today?
Political and legal strategies to codify moral principles or value principles are the work of not only legislators, but also of those whom they represent. We must "put out into the deep" so we can return to where we began. How can we render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God? Certainly, it is by engaging ourselves in the things that belong to Caesar, society and law, so that truly we can render to God the things that belong to God.
