Religion & Law

Fr. Bramwell has an outstanding piece over at The Catholic Thing on that work of the pastors of the Church that is rarely named today, viz., governing.  True governing, as Bramwell observes, is a form of service, the service of leading souls to God.  Such service also takes the forms of teaching and sanctifying, of course, but -- this is Bramwell's point -- it does properly take the form of governing, as Bramwell shows in interpreting some recent and subtle words of Pope Benedict. 

This governing role within the Church is important to our MoJ discussion of the reasons there should be a libertas eccelsiae.  Honestly, if the pastors of the Church cannot  -- or do not! -- govern, this might appear, to some at least, as a reason to bring the Church within the scope of the "sovereignty" of the civil governing authority.  Vigorous and upright exercise of the governing authority by the pastors of the Church should provide a concrete reason, among others, for the state to stand back and let the Church be Church.  No persuasive argument for true libertas ecclesiae, I suspect, can be grounded in the Church as (to borrow a phrase from Chief Justice Roberts in the Free Enterprise case) "cajoler-in-chief."