Sermon about Observance to Civil Authorities

Sermon about Observance to Civil Authorities

 Introduction

In the epistle of today, St Peter reminds us especially to respect those having authority, because of God: “Be ye subject to every human creature for God’s sake, whether it be to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good.” (1 Pet 2;13).

I will speak today of the special virtue which regulates our attitude towards leaders, that is to say the virtue of observance.

1.      Definition of observance:

There are two things because of which we owe reverence to somebody: his excellence and the benefits which we have received from him. His excellence gives him a superiority over us, and the benefits which we have received from him make us be his debtor. The higher his excellence and the bigger the benefits we have received, the deeper is our obligation of reverence.

Above everybody, there is God: He is the Supreme Being, the Supreme Excellence: He is goodness, wisdom, power, beauty, truth, all perfections. He is the Supreme governor of the world: everything is under His control. He is our Supreme Father, the one who gives us our existence, our human nature, our knowledge, our goodness, all our perfections. For these reasons, we owe Him a supreme reverence and worship. When we give God that worship, we practice the virtue of Religion.

But God does not give us our life, our education and our goods directly. We received them through our parents firstly and also from our fatherland. We grow up in a certain country and we are formed according to the customs and civilisation of the people of that country. If we are what we are, after God, it is thanks to our parents and to our fatherland. Hence, we owe them a special reverence. And when we give them such reverence, then we practice the virtue of Piety.

God has authority over the whole world and everybody, but He does not govern alone: He governs us through other men. The husband leads his family; the mayor governs his city; the king leads his country; the soldiers are commanded by their officer; the students are taught by a professor, and so on…  To all these people who have a authority over us, we owe them a certain respect. When we give them such respect, we practice the virtue of observance.

St Paul said: “I bow my knees to the Father of our lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named” (Eph 3;15). Take note of the connection between God, our parents and fatherland, and our leaders: ultimately, if we owe reverence to our parents, to our fatherland and to all the people having a position of leadership over us, it is because of God who makes them participate in His own supreme paternity over us. Because we respect God, then we respect those who are in dignity or power over us.

When we consider the life of our modern democracies, we see how little reverence people have often for their leaders: critics, mockeries, insults are very common in newspapers and other medias and conversations… It is actually not surprising: the leaders of our modern democracies claim to get their authority not from God but from the people themselves, so they deny to themselves what founds their superiority and dignity and consequently the reverence due to them by others. If they get their dignity and authority from people, then people may criticize and despise them when they don’t do what they want…

2.      Obligations of people towards the civil authorities

For us, we know that all authority is from God as Our Lord Jesus told Pilate: “You should not have any power against me, unless it were given you from above” (Jn 19;11). So, because of God, we must practice the virtue of observance towards our leaders. How? By honoring them because of their dignity; and by obeying them because of their authority.

·       Religious and civil leaders have a special dignity because of their leading position and their personal qualifications. So, they must be honored by the others, that is to say the others must acknowledge their excellence interiorly in their heart and also exteriorly by their respectful attitude and speech. Note that the dignity of leaders is attached to their function which is a share in God’s excellence. So, a Pope or a bishop or a president, even if he is a wicked man personally, must still be honored; a Pope, a bishop, a president, even if he is very humble, must accept the marks of honor he is given by people: this honor is not for him personally but for his function and ultimately for God.

In the Old Testament, remember the story of David. When he was persecuted by king Saul, he had several occasions to kill him, but he always refused to do it because Saul had been anointed by God as king. And later on, when the young Amalecite went to David to tell him that he had killed Saul, hoping to get a reward from David, David told him: “Why did you not fear to put out your hand to kill the Lord’s anointed?” (2 Kings 1;6) and the Amalecite was immediately punished by death penalty.

·       Secondly, we practice the virtue of observance towards our leaders by obeying them because of their authority. Generally speaking, obedience is the promptitude to fulfil the will of somebody else, especially our Superiors or leaders. But must we obey them in everything which they tell us to do? No, such obedience is due to God only. God has authority over the whole world without restriction, everything belongs to Him: so, we owe Him a total obedience: we can never oppose rightly His will. But, human leaders have only a share in God’s authority: our duty of obedience follows the limits of their authority. If they command something which is clearly beyond their authority, we don’t have the obligation to obey; if they command something which is against God’s law, we must resist them because as St Peter said: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Act 5;29). For example, when a government authorizes abortion or divorce or religious liberty, we must oppose these iniquitous laws.

3.      Criminal laws

About obedience to the civil authorities and their laws, there is one specific point which I would like to develop.

ü Civil leaders have authority to govern people. They make laws and unless these laws are against God’s Commandments, we must obey them. However, that obligation is not the same for all the laws. There are some civil laws which oblige us morally, that is to say if we don’t obey them, we commit a moral fault, a sin. For example, there is a law forbidding drugs: if I bring drugs in Malaysia, not only I incur a penalty but also I commit a sin because the use of drug is against the 5th Commandment of God. Such laws must be obeyed conscientiously.

ü But there are also some other laws made by the government in order to regulate the exterior activities of the population, which considered as such, do not oblige morally but only under a penalty. That is to say, the one who infringes such a law does not commit a moral fault or sin but is morally bound to accept the penalty if he is caught by the civil auhtorities. If the road speed limit is 50 km/h and I speed up to 70 km/h, being granted that doing so I don’t objectively endanger the life of anybody, I am not committing a sin but if I am caught by a speed limit radar, then I have to pay the fine. We call these laws: “Penal or criminal laws”. Are such for example: the regulations concerning road traffic, regulations for hunting and fishing, for custom duties, for entertainments…

Of course, it is not because we don’t commit a sin when infringing a penal law, that we can do so freely and often. We may indeed indirectly scandalize others, or be uncharitable to our neighbour, or become disrespectful of the civil authorities. However, we may infringe them if these regulations are objectively a non-sense as it happens sometimes, or if we do it for a higher cause. For example in time of pandemics: if the government has the right to set up laws to regulate the move of people and to fine those who would infringe those regulations, we must say also that God who is greater than the civil authorities, has still the right to be worshipped; if people have the moral obligation to take care of their physical health, they have also the moral obligation to take care of their spiritual health. For such higher cause, we may infringe penal laws.

Conclusion

Since today the Church reminds us of the dignity of those having authority, religious or civil, let us remember to practice the virtue of observance towards them: to show them the honor due to their position and to obey their lawful authority. All of this because of our respect and love for God, the origin of all excellence and authority. Let us be careful not to indulge in the detestable habit of mocking, ridiculing, detracting our religious and civil Superiors and leaders, but on the contrary to pray for them, because they will have to give account to God for their leadership.