Michael October - November - December 2013

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the right to encroach upon what belongs to God;
that Caesar must respect the dignity, freedom, and
the rights of each and every citizen. This includes the
right to life and to those conditions which will permit
the full development of their personality. The rights
of Caesar are limited by the prior rights of the human
person.
In a paper written in Melbourne in 1956, and later
reproduced in booklet form, Eric Butler, an Australian
journalist, quoted Lord Acton:
“When Christ said, `Render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things
that are God’s’, He gave to the State a legitimacy
it had never before enjoyed and set bounds to it
that had never yet been acknowledged. And He not
only delivered the precept but He also forged the
instrument to execute it. To limit the power of the
State ceased to be the hope of patient, intellectual
philosophers, and became the perpetual charge of a
universal Church.”
What Lord Acton meant was that the Church of
Christ has the duty to make sure that Caesar does not
go beyond his rights. This function of the Church had
been exercised and acknowledged during Christian
centuries; it prevented several Caesars — little and
big ones — from ruling like absolute dictators over
the people. But, added Eric Butler:
“Unfortunately however, the perversion of
Christianity has reached the stage when even large
numbers of the Christian clergy, instead of striving
tirelessly to limit the powers of the State, are help-
ing to urge that society be reformed by the power
of the State. They are, in fact, appealing from God
to Caesar. Every increase in the power of the State,
or of monopolistic groups, irrespective of the plaus-
ible arguments used to try and justify the increase,
must inevitably take from the individual his right to
personalize his life by the exercise of his free-will.”
(Social Credit and Christian Philosophy, p. 13.)
Eric Butler was a Protestant, and he was talking
here about the clergy of his Church. We leave others
to decide if this remark also applies to the Catholic
clergy, and if it does, to what extent.
The human person before Caesar
Acton, Butler, and Noel Dorion therefore see in
the words of Our Lord a limitation to the power of
Caesar, instead of a justification for any kind of tax.
This is because they quote it in full: “Render, there-
fore, to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is
God’s.”
To Caesar what is Caesar’s — no more than
that; and everything does not belong to Caesar.
It is precisely to protect the citizens from the all-
powerful State, to make Caesar the guardian of the
rights of individuals — at least in principle — that, on
August 4, 1960, the Canadian Parliament unanimously
voted in the Bill of Rights, however incomplete it was.
In presenting this bill, on July 1, 1960, Prime Min-
ister Diefenbaker himself stressed its purpose: “To
keep and safeguard the freedom of the individual
from the governments, even the all-powerful ones.
Why? Because the individual, the human person, is
sovereign before Caesar. Diefenbaker knew it, and he
said:
“The sacred right of the individual consecrates
him sovereign in his relationship with the State.”
Pope Pius XI wrote in his encyclical letter, Divini
Redemptoris:
“The human person ought to be put in the first
rank of earthly realities.”
In the first rank, therefore before any other institu-
tion, before any Caesar.
Pope Pius XII wrote in his letter to the chairman of
France’s social works on July 14, 1946:
“It is the human person that God put at the top
of the visible universe, making him, in economics
and politics as well, the measure of all things.”
It is not Caesar who is at the top; it is the human
person. The human person therefore does not be-
long to Caesar; it is rather Caesar that must belong to
the human person, who must serve him by exercis-
ing his function of guardian of human rights.
Maurice Allard, the MP for Sherbrooke, QC, also
said during this debate on the Bill of Rights:
“The individual must not become a tool or a vic-
tim of the State; it is the State which, while making
laws, must favour the numerous freedoms of man.”
Caesar has therefore no right to rob people
through taxation; he does not have the right to allow
the human person to be deprived of the necessities
of life.
R.S. MacLellan, the MP for Inverness-Richmond,
Nova Scotia, was no less categorical:
“The individual comes before the State... The
only purpose of Government is to guarantee indi-
vidual freedoms.”
The statements from these politicians lead us to
believe that it is not through ignorance of principles,
but by not implementing them into legislation, that
Caesar — either the federal, provincial, or municipal
Caesars — all too often manipulates people, pushing
and throwing them into poverty, whereas it is pos-
sible to do the opposite.
Caesar’s share
Still, one must render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Render to him not all that he
wants or can seize, but only
what belongs to him.
So, what does belong
to Caesar ? We think it can
be defined as follows: what
is necessary to carry out his
functions.
This definition seems
to be implicitly accepted by
Caesar himself, by the govern-
ment, since the government
says to those who complain
about the burden of taxes:
“The more services people
demand, the more means the
government needs to provide
these services.”
This is true. But in order
to carry out his proper func-
tions, Caesar must not have
recourse to means that pre-
vent people and families from
carrying out theirs.
Besides, in order to in-
crease his importance, Caesar
is always tempted to take
over functions that normally
belong to the families, to lower organisms, and not
to the State. Moreover, the citizens would not need
the help of Caesar so much if Caesar first removed
the obstacle that only he can remove: the artificial
obstacle created by a financial system that is not
in keeping with the huge physical possibilities that
could satisfy the basic material needs of every indi-
vidual and family of our country.
Because Caesar does not correct this situation,
Caesar goes beyond his proper role and accumulates
new functions, using them as a pretext for levying
new taxes — sometimes ruinous ones — on citizens
and families. Caesar thus becomes the tool of a fi-
nancial dictatorship that he should destroy, and the
oppressor of citizens and families that he should pro-
tect.
The life of the individual does not belong to
Caesar, but to God. Life is something that belongs
only to God, something that not even the individ-
ual can suppress or shorten deliberately. But when
Caesar puts individuals in conditions that shorten
their lives, then Caesar takes what does not belong to
him; he takes what belongs to God.
The human person and the family are a creation
of God and Caesar must not destroy nor take over
this. He must, on the contrary, protect against who-
ever wants to undermine their integrity and rights.
To deprive a family of its home because it cannot
pay the property taxes, is to act against the family
and against God. Caesar does
not have that right.
How many other infringe-
ments on the rights and be-
longings of individuals and
families could be mentioned!
Before Caesar’s needs
But Caesar has indeed
some functions to carry out
that cannot be entrusted to
individuals. There are some
services and goods that
can only be obtained from
Caesar — for example, an
army to defend our country
in case of war, a police force
to keep order against those
who disturb it, the building of
roads, bridges, public means
of communication between
various towns in our country.
Caesar must have the means
to provide the population
with these services.
Certainly, but what does
Caesar need to provide these
services? It needs human
and material resources. It needs manpower.
Caesar needs one part of the production capacity
of our country. In a democratic system, it is up to the
elected representatives of the people to determine
what part of the country’s production capacity should
be used for the needs of Caesar.
If one thinks in terms of realities, one must admit
that there is no difficulty whatever in giving Caesar
one part of the country’s production capacity, while
leaving at the disposal of private needs a produc-
tion capacity that can easily meet all the normal
needs of the citizens.
Let us use the verb “to tax” in the sense of “mak-
“Render, therefore, to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the
things that are God’s.” (Mt 22:21.)
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