On the Social Kingship of Christ and a recent statement from the Swiss Bishops

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=16391
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news_digest/Catholic_bishops_oppose_minaret_ban.html?siteSect=104&sid=11194555&ty=nd

I was dismayed (but unsurprised) to find, via CathNews last Friday, the following quotation from a statement by the Conference of Swiss Bishops (Conférence des Evêques Suisses):

"As bishops and Swiss citizens, we are pleased that there are no longer any special articles relating to religion in the constitution. No new ones should be introduced," the bishops' statement added.
[http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news_digest/Catholic_bishops_oppose_minaret_ban.html?siteSect=104&sid=11194555&ty=nd
See also the full statement, available at

http://www.sbk-ces-cvs.ch/ressourcen/download/20090910091559.pdf
(This one-page document is in French but you can do a Google translation tools translation of it.)]

It called to mind the following error, condemned ex Cathedra by Bl. Pius IX:

the best plan for public society, and civil progress absolutely requires that human society be established and governed with no regard to religion, as if it did not exist, or at least, without making distinction between the true and the false religions.
[Encyclical Quanta cura,
http://www.catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma17.php]

So the Swiss Bishops say that they “are pleased that there are no longer any special articles relating to religion in the constitution”. Now some of the predominantly Catholic-populated cantons of Switzerland—among them the Ticino and the Valais, if I recall correctly—were, at least nominally, confessional Catholic but abandoned this status after Vatican II, so it seems that the Swiss Bishops are saying that they are “pleased” at what is virtually State apostasy. Is there any way in which such ‘pleasure’, coupled with an at least implicitly-stated desire for the Social Reign of Christ not to be recognised (‘no new special articles relating to religion should be introduced’) could be defended?

Now far be it from me to jump to the defence of those who ignore, are silent about, or distort the dogma of the Social Kingship of Christ. But it seems that, at least according to the letter of the quotation, the Swiss Bishops can be excused from such charges. Let us begin by stating the Swiss Bishops’ opinions as the following two propositions:

1. It is pleasing that there are no longer any special articles relating to religion in the Swiss constitution.
2. No new special articles relating to religion should be introduced into the Swiss constitution.

Now for one thing, the Swiss Bishops do not say that a lack of “special articles relating to religion in the [Swiss, or in any State] constitution” is the best plan for the State. Implicit in proposition 1. are the words ‘in these circumstances’—‘in these circumstances, it is pleasing …’. Make no mistake, State agnosticism towards—or worse, State apostasy from—Christ is an evil, but one may licitly permit an evil if one expects thereby to avert a greater evil, and so it is possible to be pleased indirectly at the occurrence of a certain evil in a certain set of circumstances because one is pleased directly at the greater evil being averted in those circumstances thereby. (Unfortunately, there is the problem that, as I understand it, at the time the Swiss Bishops went willingly along with the elimination of religion-related articles from the respective constitutions of the Swiss cantons after Vatican II rather than merely permitting it, so I don’t see how they could be excused on that count.)

The same reasoning apples to proposition 2.: this proposition implicitly says that

In the present circumstances, prudence dictates that no new special articles relating to religion should be introduced into the Swiss constitution.

So if the statement from the Swiss Bishops is motivated by a reluctant prudential judgment that re-introducing religion-related articles into the Swiss constitution would do more harm than good in the present circumstances, then it is justifiable. (I say “justifiable” rather than necessarily justified because of course one must verify whether the justifying circumstances are indeed present). Of course, if it is motivated by the error condemned infallibly in Quanta cura, then it too is to be condemned.

So as I’ve explained, the Swiss Bishops’ statement is a legitimate prudential judgment in some circumstances, but given that it is not, universally speaking (universal with regard to all times, places and circumstances), the best plan for society, and given that it is the duty of all Catholics to work towards the implementation of the best plan for society, it follows that it is our duty to work to change such circumstances as prevail, presumably, in Switzerland to a set of circumstances in which the best plan for society—profession of the Catholic religion by the State—is also the best plan for the prevailing circumstances. So for completeness, I humbly suggest that the Swiss Bishops would have put it best by saying something like

As bishops and Swiss citizens, given the present circumstances we are pleased that there are no longer any special articles relating to religion in the constitution. In the present circumstances, prudence dictates that no new ones should be introduced. But since the Social Reign of Christ requires not just that people in a society acknowledge Christ’s Kingship, but that people as a society acknowledge Christ’s Kingship too, we must work to bring about the circumstances in which it is prudent for the Swiss cantons to profess the Catholic religion, to unite themselves to the Catholic Church and to restrain, with enacted penalties, offenders of the Catholic religion.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Cornelius, Pope, Martyr, and of St. Cyprian, Bishop, Martyr, A.D. 2009