Pope Leo XIII Outlines How Protestantism Led to the Godless State

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Pope Leo XIII, in his 1885 encyclical “Immortale Dei,” traces the rise of the modern godless conception of the state to protestantism—not because such a thing was the subjective intention of the “reformers” (it was not), but because their novel theological and ecclesial principles led to the rise of novel philosophical and political principles.

Just as the “reformers” asserted that no Christian was essentially bound by the authority of another, and thus not bound by the determinations of the living authority appointed by God to render judgment in matters of faith and morals (the successors of the Apostles with the successor of Peter, the Pope), this theological/ecclesial principle eventually manifested in philosophy/politics as the assertion that all men were equal, unbound by any other except by their own consent, from which flowed all legitimate political authority.

If men cannot be bound without their consent by authority within the divinely constituted society (the Church), how can they be bound without their consent by any lesser authority?

Much more could and will be said on this.

But it is important to realize that ideas have consequences, and we need not know or understand what the bad consequences of our ideas may be in order for those consequences to be attributed to us. An error at the beginning leads to greater (and often unintended) errors at the end.

Such was the case of the self-appointed “reformers.”

Here are Pope Leo XIII’s words:

(§23) But that harmful and deplorable passion for innovation which was aroused in the sixteenth century threw first of all into confusion the Christian religion, and next, by natural sequence, invaded the precincts of philosophy, whence it spread amongst all classes of society.

From this source, as from a fountain-head, burst forth all those later tenets of unbridled license which, in the midst of the terrible unheavals of the last century, were wildly conceived and boldly proclaimed as the principles and foundation of that new conception of law which was not merely previously unknown, but was at variance on many points with not only the Christian, but even the natural law.

(§24) Amongst these principles [“of that new conception of law”] the main one lays down that as all men are alike by race and nature, so in like manner all are equal in the control of their life; that each one is so far his own master as to be in no sense under the rule of any other individual; that each is free to think on every subject just as he may choose, and to do whatever he may like to do; that no man has any right to rule over other men.

In a society grounded upon such maxims all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people, and the people, being under the power of itself alone, is alone its own ruler. It does choose, nevertheless, some to whose charge it may commit itself, but in such wise that it makes over to them not the right so much as the business of governing, to be exercised, however, in its name.

(§25) The authority of God is passed over in silence, just as if there were no God; or as if He cared nothing for human society; or as if men, whether in their individual capacity or bound together in social relations, owed nothing to God; or as if there could be a government of which the whole origin and power and authority did not reside in God Himself.

Thus, as is evident, a State becomes nothing but a multitude which is its own master and ruler. And since the people is declared to contain within itself the spring-head of all rights and of all power, it follows that the State does not consider itself bound by any kind of duty toward God.