It’s probably not a surprise to you that I don’t really enjoy preaching about politics.  But, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.  And to God what belongs to God.”  This Gospel popping up today, I guess is God and the Church saying, “Too bad.”  But my job is not to tell you whom to vote for, or whom not to vote for.  My job is to preach the Gospel, and to gently remind us of who we are as Catholic Christians, and what that means for our participation in public life in this world.  And it starts with this simple phrase: “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.  And to God what belongs to God.”  From the beginning of the Church, this simple phrase has been understood as the guideline for how Christians are meant to interact with the world, with civil society, and with human government.  

In the Holy Land at the time of Christ, the Roman Empire was an occupying force, and paying taxes was sometimes seen as a form of support for that situation, a kind of a validation of the unjust aggression and domination and tyranny of the Roman Empire.  Now of course, the Pharisees and Herodians aren’t asking an honest question here; like they do many times, they’ve come up with a question which they think Our Lord won’t be able to respond to: “is it permissible to pay tribute to Caesar,” a question with only wrong answers, answers with which they think they can discredit him.  He’ll show himself either to be a Roman collaborator, or a disloyal disturber of the peace.  As he does many times, Our Lord gives his enemies a profound response which goes far beyond their expectations.  His response is, give to Caesar what rightfully belongs to him.  The Second Vatican Council reminded Christians that we have “the obligation of rendering to the state whatever material and personal services are required for the common good.”  And there should be none in the world more dedicated to promoting the common good than we, the Christian faithful, because of the spirit of charity we’re called to have. 

So what does that mean?  We’re obliged first to pray for those who govern us.  We’re obliged to pay our taxes, to vote, to be involved in groups and associations which promote the common good; we’re called to be active in the world and we’re called to do everything in our power to protect and promote justice and human dignity from conception until natural death.  It takes about 65 million people to elect a President in this country.  Guess how many Catholics eligible to vote there are?  About 65 million.  Just think what we could do as a Church to further the common good and the dignity of the human person.  We have to do our part.  The world desperately wants us to forget about our Faith when we step into the voting booth, tries to shame us even into leaving our Faith behind.  But we can’t, because we know that our Faith is true: as I’ve said so many times before, our Faith is not a myth, not a preference, not a hobby: it’s the fundamental truth of who we are.  And so religion cannot be separated from life, either in theory or in reality. 

Separation of Church and State in our country is a good thing: it protects faithful people from being coerced by the government into actions which we know to be unacceptable.  It also protects us from being conscripted into a national religion against our will.  It does not mean that religion has nothing to do with civic life.  Quite the contrary in fact, because Faith is not just the way we choose to worship, it’s a whole way of looking at the world and at the human person: and so as long as there’s even one person who’s both a faithful Catholic and a proud American, Church and State will never be truly separate, because they come together in the heart of every person who is both a patriotic American and a sincere Catholic.  Whenever Christians play a part in public affairs, in education, in cultural life, we cannot behave as if we could restrict our Faith to these four walls.  The distinction Christ makes is not intended to limit religion to the church building, so that the affairs of the world would proceed entirely apart from the influence of God.  Christians are called to be salt and light in the world: in the middle of the world.  We’re called to transform the society in which we live, to make it more human.  To quote Vatican II again, “The laity accomplish the Church’s mission in the world principally by that blending of conduct and faith which makes them the light of the world, by performing their family, social, and professional duties with Christian generosity.”  We love the world passionately because God taught us to: Sic Deus dilexit mundum: God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son.  And that’s the foundation this all comes back to: the Incarnation: God took on our human flesh: he entered the world, became part of the history of our human race.  That proves that what goes on here on this earth matters. 

This is the radical Catholic worldview: we don’t hate the world: we don’t abandon the world: we think it’s redeemable.  Christ proved that by joining us here on this earth.  He took on our human flesh and used it to redeem us.  What greater proof could there be that God can and does use the people, the situations, the events of our world to accomplish his will.  We’re reminded of this incredible way that God works every time we’re present at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: because that’s what the Holy Eucharist is about: God taking the most common things in the world, a bit of bread and some wine, and transforming them into himself.  The Blessed Sacrament is our reminder, our commission, our strength to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, to convert hearts which are hard, to carry the Gospel of Christ into the world.  May his Body and Blood, his Soul and his Divinity, which we have the awesome privilege to receive, give us the strength and the courage to live our Faith, to carry it with us wherever we go, and so to transform our world in Truth and in Love.  And may God bless and protect our city, our state, our nation, and our world, today, these next few weeks, and always.