Newmah's Anglican days made him acutely aware of how the language of Catholicism sounds strange in unaccustomed and indeed suspicious ears and how readily misunderstanding ensues. Infallibility is taken to be a claim to be right on everything, the Immaculate Conception is confused with the Virgin Birth, and the remission of sins becomes a permission to continue in evil ways. It is, he saw, a general problem in dealing with the unfamiliar, and he wondered what a hostile foreigner would make of the maxims of the laws of England. Might he not, reading in Blackstone's incomparable Commentaries that ‘the power and jurisdiction of parliament is so transcendent that it cannot be confined either for causes or persons within any bounds’, see a blasphemous claim to divine omnipotence? Might not the assertion that ‘the king can do no wrong’ seem an arrogant claim to divine sinlessness? In truth, of course, all that is meant is that in English law there is no higher authority than Parliament and that the King cannot be sued in his own Courts: nothing more. Newman could but ask the hostile foreigner to abide a while and abate his hostility.

Aquinas, writing in a highly technical Latin and within a philosophy and theology alien to modern ears, is no less prone to be misunderstood, and the modes of misrepresenting him, often unwitting, are many. What he has to say about marriage and related issues has been the object of recent attacks: often he is read as if he were a Lutheran or Calvinist. It may be well to note some of these types of error before dealing with his own understanding in these matters.

Education and schooling are not the same thing. Education, correctly understood, is a lifelong process. Schooling occupies our young days. Although it is a generalisation, I think it is true to say thal modern schooling is the product of the Industrial Revolution.’ Education, by contrast has a longer pedigree. We have schooling because an industrialised nation requires skills best imparted by a schooling process. Recent education reforms (1988 onwards) — particularly under the influence of Toryism — have tried to cement schooling to current economic theory.

The Catholic Church cannot afford to dedicate too many of her resources to reinforcing a particular economic or social theory. Indeed, history shows that the Church has demonstrated wary resistance to such trends. A turning-point arose at Vatican II. In the Decrec Gravissimum Educafionis we read: “Holy Mother Church … is under an obligation to promote the welfare of the whole life of man.” (In modern — politically correct — speech, we would say person, of course). Many, though not all, diocesan education departments concentrate on schooling. This falls under the spell of a myth. The myth suggests that schooling educates. Reality suggests that schooling may open avenues, but education is a most complex process. As the Church slowly climbs out of the shadows of medievalism, we are discovering the need for broader minds, broader concepts of formation. Trends are gradually changing.

Introduction

The question of the relationship which should obtain between Church and State has vexed Christians for two millenia and will probably go on doing so for another two. Nonetheless this problem has become the subject of renewed debate following the publication of the recent papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae. Towards the end of the encyclical the Pope urges that those in public office are obliged unequivocally to defend the rights of the unborn. A practical conundrum is, therefore, posed for those who exercise public office in lay States and who at the same time consider themselves to be members of the Christian faithful. Put very concretely, the question may be posed like so: Is there a conflict between my responsibilities to the Church and my duties to a democratically elected government which espouses laws that do not cohere with the Church's positions on human rights? At times the potential conflict of allegiances that may result poses the broader theological problem of the autonomy of the lay sphere. More specifically, in the case of Evangelium Vitae, it raises the problem of the relationship between the civil law and the moral law and the claims of the magisterium to interpret the latter as a criterion of legitimacy for the former. In the short space available to us we cannot hope to explore both of these questions comprehensively. The following thoughts are offered as reflections on the current problems which vex the theological and legal statement of the Church's relationship to the State and of the allegiancgs of the faithful owed to the civil legislature.