In Caesar's pocket: the possible inseparability of church and state.

APART FROM his being a cardinal, which is pretty daunting, George Pell, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, is a very large man of imposing, if not menacing, presence. He has great intellectual acuity, a good education (DPhil, Oxon), is forthright, witty, and writes well. These qualities make life at least purgatorial for his enemies, with whom he is credited for a fair number. Serves them right.

The cardinal is also a great shaker of the certainties of non-enemies. His new collection of essays, God and Caesar, published jointly by Connor Court and the American Catholic University Press, presents a forceful case for church involvement in politics, given an intriguing ambience by the observation that Jesus was not a political activist but "subversive of all politics".

I have always been rather impressed by the biblical abjuration to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's", and a keen, not to say noisy, supporter of a signposted separation of church and state. It is a post-Reformation position that enjoys wide popularity. However, Pell's measured argument in God and Caesar that Western society is the creation of Christianity, and cannot survive a divorce from it, has raised an unfamiliar concern that I may have fallen too deep into Caesar's pocket.

Pell argues that, without the influence of Christian values, the US Constitution and the United Nations charter would be profoundly different documents. Many great civilisations, he says, citing Rome before the advent of Christianity, showed no concern for social justice and, in fact, considered such ideas a sign of weakness. He then asks rhetorically:

 
   What are the sources of a secular society's values? 
   Can it be taken for granted that Westerners will 
   always be committed to human rights and concern 
   for the poor? Or does the commitment to these 
   values need to be renewed with each generation? If 
   so, where does the energy for this renewal come 
   from? ... And what sustains the commitment against 
   the powerful appeals of individualism and 
   consumerism and the fantastic rewards that come 
   from material success for the lucky few? 

Well, I respond defensively, separation of church and state applies to power exercised by two institutions and does not mean that Christians (and members of other faiths) should not be active in politics, guided by religious principles. On the contrary. However, I believe, perhaps more tentatively after reading God and Caesar, that this work is best left to civilians--basically, in a democracy, to individual voters consulting their religious beliefs at the polling booth. The major role of the clergy, it can be reasonably if not definitively argued, is to guide and instruct the civilians in the traditions and tenets of their religion.

My attitude to political priests is, I guess, coloured a little by acquaintance with Evelyn Waugh's sinister Jesuit, Father Rothschild, often to be seen pedalling his bicycle around Whitehall in the early hours of the rooming. Waugh did not specify what Father Rothschild's politics were, but his role as a stealthy infiltrator of the political process was clear. Although aware of Waugh's masked reference to the Jesuit martyrs who stealthily infiltrated Elizabeth I's totalitarian England, and not unattracted by the notion of Father Rothschild pitting his wits against cabinet ministers and civil service mandarins, I suspect him of neglecting his priestly duties, if only by staying out so late that he would inevitably be tired at morning Mass.