/lit/ - Literature

>>22125738
>>22125867
Catholicism is political, indeed. It must be. Christ is the king not only of our souls but also of society. I will relate to you a conversation between Napoleon III and a French bishop:

>Bishop: Let me add, sire, that neither the Restoration nor you have done for God what should have been done, because you have not disavowed the principles of the Revolution nor have you raised his throne again. The social message on which your state inspires itself is still the declaration of the rights of man, which is nothing else, sire, than the formal denial of the rights of God.
>Now it is the right of God to govern over states just as over individuals. He must reign here by inspiring the laws, sanctifying the morals, enlightening and directing the actions of the government.
>Everywhere where Jesus Christ does not exercise this rule there is disorder and decadence.
>Our constitution, sire, is not that of a Catholic state. For although indeed our public law declares that the Catholic religion is that of the majority of the French, yet doth it add, that other forms of worship have a right to equal protection. Is this not tantamount to proclaiming that the constitution equally protects both truth and error?

>Emperor Napoleon: Yet do you believe that the age in which we live admits of that state of things? Do you not see, your excellency, that if I were to establish this exclusively religious reign that you ask of me it would be to let loose all the evil passions and sow discord within France?

>Bishop: Sire, when the great political men like your majesty raise these objections to me, that the time has not yet come, I can only yield because I am not a great political person. But, I am a bishop; and as a bishop I say to thee: if the moment has not come for Jesus Christ to rule, then the moment has not come for the state to endure.