“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.”
Governments and leaders who bear the brunt of the Church’s criticism often pull out this quote from the New Testament when Jesus pointed to Caesar’s image on a coin.
A Palace official recently grumbled about the Catholic hierarchy combining religion with politics instead of getting on with what he perceives as the clergy’s real business: the spiritual realm and not the secular.
Chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo said that a pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on the anti-terrorism law “appears to have” violated the constitutional provision on the separation of church and state.
Panelo accused the CBCP of pressuring the Supreme Court in “calling for prayers” and appealing to the conscience of the court’s members.
A total of 25 petitions have been filed so far asking the Supreme Court to declare Republic Act 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 unconstitutional to stop its implementation.
Bishop Broderick Pabillo, the apostolic administrator of Manila, answered Panelo by saying Catholic Church leaders are well within their rights to call out the government.
“Don’t we have the right to speak about the government’s shortcomings because we are members of the church? We are also citizens,” Pabillo said in a news conference. “If it really is violative, they should file a case against us. We are challenging them if our letter really violates that. We did that in order to raise awareness among Filipinos. Our call is clear in the text. It is a call to prayer.”
CBCP acting president Bishop Pablo Virgilio David also said that the bishops never intended to influence members of the Supreme Court or interfere with the operations of government.
“Our only influence is on conscience, because it is our duty to form consciences, and we are accountable to God for this. We draw inspiration from both the Scriptures and the magisterium of the church,” David said. “What we hope and pray for is that both our legislature and judiciary remain truly independent and continue to function as designed by our constitution.”
We do not and cannot claim to know more about theology than our Doctors of Divinity. But it is clear from the Gospels that while Jesus taught nonviolence and love for enemies, he was not a conservative who defended the traditions of the law in the manner of the Pharisees. He was not a collaborator who supported social indifference or political quietism in the face of corruption and social ills that he saw during his time—and Jesus lived during one of the most corrupt periods in history.
Historical records say that the Caesar Jesus referred to in the Biblical passage was Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar, who was known as a pedophile, a sexual deviant and a murderer; who as emperor claimed to be a god and oppressed and enslaved millions of people, including the Jews.
Surely Jesus never meant his quote to be interpreted as an endorsement of Caesar’s reign. Surely he never wanted people to simply close their eyes when there were so many victims of corruption and injustice.
Faith should not sedate people. Prayers should always come with action and good deeds. There is nothing un-Christian or un-Catholic about denouncing corruption, the lack of democracy and human rights violations.
Perhaps the Jesus quote about Caesar speaks more about people and institutions who go beyond their authority and the responsibility of Christians to stand in their way.
If the state—Caesar—exerts authority beyond its jurisdiction, if its leaders abuse their power and use their authority to perpetrate tyranny and injustice, then they do not render unto God what is God’s. In such cases, it is but Christianly to be politically engaged, to speak out and work against an unjust and tyrannical state or leader or government. And one need not be a bishop to do so.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano