Some people claim that the Church used to profess the doctrine of the confessional state, but that Vatican II (1965) rejected the doctrine. They say:
[Church doctrine was] … abrogated by later teaching, and that is exactly what happened to the teaching on the confessional state when the Second Vatican Council taught contrary doctrines. (“Integralism and Catholic Doctrine”)
The teaching of Vatican II corresponds to the error of the religious indifferentism of civil authorities. (“The State of Necessity (2)”)
To explore those claims it would be helpful to clarify a few concepts. A “confessional state” is one that enacts the Integralist idea that a nation state should have an official state religion (or established church). The opposite of that idea is the view that the state should treat religion indifferently, neither favoring nor opposing it. That view is variously called civil indifferentism, state atheism, laicism, or “the apostasy of society” as Pope Pius XI called it in 1933 (Dilectissima Nobis 6).
There are degrees to which a nation state can be confessional. Minimally, a confessional state might just celebrate communal events (like state funerals) according to the rites of a specific state church. In this piece we will explore whether that minimal idea was taught by the Church prior to Vatican II.
A more substantial understanding of the idea of a confessional state includes the idea that the state should “care for religion” (cura religionis) by doing things like paying clergy salaries, or repairing churches, or punishing heretics (etc.). Whether the Church prior to Vatican II taught that more substantial version of the doctrine, will be a focus of Part II.
In Part III we will explore the question of whether Vatican II rejected those ideas.
1. Scripture
When we look at what Scripture teaches about confessional states, there are three types of texts which theologians have traditionally cited.
There are texts which talk about the importance of ensuring that citizens follow religious commands:
Josiah… the king issued a command to all the people… “[Do] as it is written in this book of the covenant.” (2 Kings 23:19–21)
There are texts which state the importance of preventing the practice of other religions:
[Hezekiah] did what was right in the Lord’s sight… It was he who removed the high places [of the other religions]. (2 Kings 18:3–4)
And there are texts which stress the importance of not allowing the faithful to deviate from the practices of their religion:
I hold this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, … who teaches and misleads my servants to play the harlot and to eat food sacrificed to idols. (Revelation 2:20)
It is a question of interpretation whether texts such as these do in fact teach that a state must be confessional. If we look at Church history, then that will help us to see the tradition of what the Church has taught on these matters.
2. The Early Church Era
The Church’s earliest thinking about the state was largely focused upon surviving its (Roman) persecution, rather than thinking about what states should do if they were one day to be Christian.
The situation began to change in 301 when the Kingdom of Armenia adopted Christianity as a state religion. In 313 Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire (Edict of Milan). In 380 it became the sole religion of the Roman Empire (Edict of Thessalonica).
Events such as those mean that from the fourth century, we start to see significant expression of Christian views about the relationship of the Church to the state.
The view of the Christian emperor is recorded in the Codex Theodosianus of 438. It stated:
It is our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans… It is evident that this is the religion that is followed by the Pontiff Damasus. (The Theodosian Code, Bk 16, 1.2)
A similar view was expressed by Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) when he wrote to King Edilbert (Aethelberht), saying:
Make haste to extend the Christian faith among the peoples under your sway, redouble the zeal of your rectitude in their conversion, put down the worship of idols… so you may find Him your recompenser in heaven Whose name and knowledge you shall have spread abroad on earth. (Register of Epistles, Bk 11, letter 66)
Texts like those show that there was an expectation in both the Church and that state, that citizens will practice the Christian faith, and that the ruler will take appropriate steps to ensure that that is the case.
3. Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages the ideal was that a Christian monarch would lead a confessional state. That ideal was exemplified in the lives of medieval monarchs who were also saints. This includes St. Alfred the Great (d. 899) of England, St. Henry II (d. 1024) of the (German) Holy Roman Empire, St. David I (d. 1153) of Scotland, St. Erik IX (d. 1160) of Sweden and St. Louis IX (d. 1270) of France.
In the case of each saint, part of what made the rulers into saints is that they exercised the “virtue of religion.” St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) described that virtue as involving the rendering to God of what is owed to God. (See Summa Theologiae 2-2, Q.81, a.2.) Part of what is owed to God is worship. So, an important element in the sanctity of medieval rulers was that they worshiped God, and that they ensured that their subjects did so, too.
We can see Pope Alexander VI encouraging a similar approach, when he said in 1493:
As becomes Catholic kings and princes… you have purposed… to bring under your sway the… islands with their residents… and to bring them to the Catholic faith…. [W]e exhort you very earnestly… to lead the peoples dwelling in those islands… to embrace the Christian religion. (Inter Caetera)
4. Reformation
After the sixteenth-century Reformation, religious conflict broke out in Europe. While many doctrines were disputed, there was considerable agreement upon the desirability of confessional states, albeit with disagreement about which denomination of Christianity should be confessed by each state.
Disagreements were eventually resolved by accepting a principle of monarchical positivism. That meant that the head of state decided which religion should be confessed in each state. (See Cuius regio, eius religio.)
That principle was enunciated in 1555 at the Peace of Augsburg. However, it was strongly rejected by the contemporary Pope Paul IV. (See Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, 1559.) The principle was reiterated in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia. Once again, the current pope, Innocent X, strongly objected. (See Zelo Domus Dei, 1650.)
The reason for papal objections was that the principle was contrary to Church teaching. The Church taught that every person had the duty to confess the one religion which is true (i.e., the Catholic religion). So, it was doctrinally false, and immorally sinful, to allow a monarch to determine the religion for a state, as if it were morally permissible for a state to have any religion at all. That point was made clearly by St. Robert Bellarmine (d. 1621) who said:
…without a doubt the Christian princes are obliged… to see to it that the faith that the Catholic bishops and especially the Supreme Pontiff teach to be the true one is preserved. (On Temporal and Spiritual Authority, On Laymen, Chap. 18)
We can see similar thinking in the background of Pope Clement XI’s 1701 objection to events in Prussia (Germany), where he rejected the idea of a non-Catholic leading a state. He said:
To Louis of France… Frederic, Margrave of Brandenburg… gave a bad example to the whole of Christianity when he presumed to usurp… the royal name… [T]his act is contrary to the Apostolic Ordinances… since a non-Catholic has assumed… the holy name of king. (Church and State Through the Centuries, pp. 220–21)
5. Post-Revolution
The question of the confessional state came to a head following the French Revolution (1789). The revolution was explicitly anti-religious (anti-clerical). It exported its antagonism to a confessional state across Europe. That meant that the Church was forced to think carefully about its position on the matter, and to clarify which aspects of previous Church statements represented changeable assumptions, and which were non-negotiable doctrines.
Over the course of eighty years, at least five different popes reiterated prior Church teaching, stating it as what we typically refer to as the doctrine of the confessional state.
In 1864 Pope Pius IX rejected the view of those who:
dare to teach that “the best constitution… require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist.” (Quanta Cura 3)
In 1885 Pope Leo XIII wrote:
The State… is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion… It is a public crime to act as though there were no God. (Immortale Dei 6)
In 1906 Pope Pius X wrote:
That the state must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false… Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is… guilty of a great injustice to God; for… we owe Him… not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. (Vehementer Nos 3)
In 1925 Pope Pius XI wrote:
If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to… promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ. (Quas Primas 18)
In 1939 Pope Pius XII wrote:
There is yet another error no less pernicious to the well-being of the nations… It is the… ideas which do not hesitate to divorce civil authority from every kind of dependence upon the Supreme Being. (Summi Pontificatus 52)
The Church has constantly and consistently proposed the doctrine of the confessional state for 1700 years. The fact that the statements above were intended to clarify matters in the face of opposition arguments, means that these statements are not just incidental repetitions of prior assumptions. They represent magisterial clarifications which were intended to clarify and settle matters which were being disputed.
6. Eve of Vatican II
The idea that the state (or civil power) must confess the faith by worshiping God was reiterated on the eve of Vatican II, in the draft Constitution on the Church, which was sent to all the bishops in 1962. The text says:
The good of the State itself requires that the civil power not consider itself indifferent towards religion… Although, in the order willed by Christ, liturgical worship belongs only to God’s Church, still the civil society must also worship God in some social way. (Draft of a Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 42)
That draft document was authorized by the Holy Office as an accurate statement of the Church’s faith, before it was sent to the world’s bishops.
Although the bishops did not approve the document at Vatican II, no one has ever disputed the doctrinal orthodoxy of the paragraph above.
7. Conclusion
When we look at Scripture (section 1) and Church history (sections 2–6), we can see a long and consistent living tradition which teaches the doctrine of the confessional state. As the doctrine was explicitly reiterated in the face of contemporary opposition (section 5), it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the tradition has some degree of magisterial authority.
In Part III we will ask whether Vatican II rejected that doctrine. Before turning to that question, however, in Part II we will explore the related issue of whether, and to what extent, the doctrine of the confessional state also included the idea that the state must care for religion.
