Is the Church Globalist or Nationalist?

The world is changing all around us. So much so that it might leave us feeling a bit dizzy. In just two short decades, the United States went from being the world’s predominant power, to finding itself challenged by rising nation states all across the globe. This is of course particularly true with Russia, which appears to have turned the tide in its special military operation in Ukraine. China’s economy is outgrowing the US as the US adds one trillion dollars to the national debt every one hundred days. We now hear increasing talk of an emerging multipolar world – that is, a world in which many nations will decide the course of global events. In such a changing global environment, we as Catholics – especially American Catholics – might wonder what our faith would have us think about all these changes. Does the Faith support multipolarity or unipolarity - nationalism or globalism? Should we be rooting for a continued global American hegemony or for a world of many independent nations?

It’s actually not an easy question to answer as there are instances of both views within the Catholic tradition.

If we go back the Old Testament, we find that the very thing that made Israel unique was its status as a nation. Virtually all other polities of the ancient world were empires, not nations. What’s the difference? A nation brings together a people with a common culture, religion, and language within a bounded territory. An empire wages wars of conquest aimed at bringing many nations under its control. Clearly the Old Testament is pro-nation.

Turning to the New Testament, we find Christ calling on the Apostles to “baptize the nations” (Matthew 28:19). While a minimal interpretation of this passage might lead us to believe that Christ merely wanted the Church to baptize discreet individuals within nations, the Christian faith is such that it produces a cultural and religious identity that can’t help but forge nations. Indeed, the emergence of the modern nation state is a reality that stems precisely from the Christian faith.

From the days of Pentecost to the Edict of Milan in AD 313, the Church had bigger issues to deal with than those related to the nation and the empire. It wasn’t until around the year AD 494 that Pope St. Gelasius I wrote a letter to the Roman emperor of his day, Anastasius, that there should exist a universal Church under his papal leadership and a universal empire under the rule of Anastasius. Termed the “two swords theory” in reference to Luke 22:38, Gelasius argued that the inferior temporal sword of the state belonged in the hands of a universal emperor while the superior spiritual sword of the Church belonged in the hands of the Pope. This theory remained an important part of the Church’s views on politics and was the basis behind the ire of the Byzantine emperors when the Pope recognized the rule of the upstart Holy Roman Empire in the 9th century. In crowning a new emperor in the West, the papacy recognized the Holy Roman Empire as the empire that should unify all mankind under the single temporal sword of the state.

Other popes, however, encouraged the emergence of nations states. Pope St. Nicholas the Great, for example, all but endorsed the emergence of Slavic nations in eastern Europe as he approved the creation of a liturgy in the Slavic language. What’s more, the development of new languages from Latin (e.g. French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) brought with them unique cultures and emerging national identities. Languages stemming from German did precisely the same thing, and soon the landscape of Europe changed into one of many nations each sharing a common Christian faith. The wars of the Reformation might have destroyed a unified Catholic faith in western Europe, but it did solidify the European multi-polar world of nations at Westphalia in 1648.

But what was the Church to make of all this? Would it endorse a world of many nations, or insist on a unipolar world of one universal empire?

The fact is that the Church has gone back and forth on the issue. While the First Vatican Council endorsed the Gelasian argument of the Church as the wielder of the universal spiritual sword through what it termed the Church’s universal spiritual jurisdiction, the Second Vatican Council seemed to place a stamp on the world of nations. (This move towards multi-polarity, however, does not necessarily mean the rejection of the temporal sword. What it means is that the temporal sword is best divided among the nations rather than placed into the hands of a single imperial superstate.)

Yet many leaders within the Church’s hierarchy continue to foster the idea of universal empire. Given its deep history within the tradition, such a vision might be understandable. Particular attention should be given to the positive position many in the clergy hold in regards to the European Union. The Church is even considering the canonization of Robert Schuman, an important founder of the EU. Yet while the EU was originally aimed at ending European wars by making the economies of European nations mutually dependent, the EU has morphed into a kind of neo-Holy Roman Empire that is steadily destroying the nations under its control while imposing a militantly atheist ideology at every turn.

Is the Catholic faith globalist or nationalist? In the final analysis, nationalism (the belief that nations should be independent and free to pursue their good through the exercise of legitimate authority within a fixed territory) is much more consistent with the biblical and historical tradition. Yet the early medieval theories of Pope St Gelasius I, along with the same universalist sentiments (going back to the Tower of Babel) persist. While the desire for universal human solidarity is understandable and admirable, the destruction of the nations in favor of universal empire is pure folly. God’s ultimate plan for the nations is not their destruction, but rather their communion as corporate organs within the body of Christ. In short, we must follow the last command of Christ. We must baptize the nations, not destroy them.