A few years ago, a couple of my parishioners requested a Mass to be offered around her birthday for Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, as a leader and heroic figurehead for the Burmese opposition. However, at the time the request for Mass was made, she was the de facto Prime Minister of Myanmar, as it turned out, cut short by another military coup. Her short tenure was mired in controversy over the Rohingya Muslim genocide, the ultimate escalation of persecution dating back to at least the 1970s. While some accused Aung San Suu Kyi of inaction, others claimed she was powerless against Myanmar’s powerful military. When I offered a weekday Mass for her birthday, as requested, another parishioner inevitably gave me an angry lecture. Although it wasn’t my first or last such an occasion, it illustrated how politically complicated things can be.
As a lifelong observer of politics, from local to global, I’ve seen more than my fair share of conflicts and their victims, and I’ve heard, ad nauseam, mutually contradictory arguments from each side of any conflict. In my much younger years, still “drunk” on a sense of freedom after the collapse of communism in the Soviet bloc, I believed in similar outcomes for other peoples and nations, shackled by foreign powers or oppressive regimes. Harsh reality quickly shattered such an assumption. A series of well-intentioned military interventions around the globe produced outcomes as bad as in places where no interventions occurred, despite calls for them. Similarly, no political or economic sanctions imposed on various countries have produced expected results. I shared the frustration and sense of helplessness of someone who recently asked me what we can do about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict when I asked in response, “What can we do about the wars in Ukraine, Sudan, and the Middle East; what can we do about the persecution of the Uyghurs in China, Christians in Nigeria, and many other groups around the world?” The sense of helplessness, hopelessness and frustration can be overwhelming.
If you wonder why I’ve been so political for the last couple of minutes, it’s because of today’s gospel. At that time, the political situation was very complicated, and the social climate was highly volatile and flammable. Following the Maccabean revolt, the Jews established their proudly independent kingdom around 140 BC, ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty. It ended in 63 BC after a little-known civil war in which Roman forces intervened, turning the kingdom into a client state, symbolised by the Roman Senate’s appointment of Herod as King of the Jews around 40 BC. While some of his subjects appreciated his efforts to win over the Jews by massively expanding and upgrading the Temple in Jerusalem and other building projects aimed at modernisation of the kingdom, many more despised him for being half-Jewish, or a Roman Empire enforcer, or as immoral, or tyrannical, or all of the above. Herod’s growing unpopularity fuelled an insurrectionist climate that occasionally spilt into short-lived uprisings and bloodshed, as attested in the biblical Book of Acts (5:36-37).
When Jesus of Nazareth appeared on the national stage, many believed he would lead a revolt against the hostile political powers. The question posed by his opponents in today’s gospel was a seemingly perfect trap. They set it with their false admiration for Jesus’ independence of mind and opinion: “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.” Then an apparently innocent question sprang up: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” A “yes or no” answer would land Jesus in trouble with the authorities or ruin his popularity with the crowds, who hated the taxes for several reasons: they were a heavy financial burden, a symbol of Rome’s overarching power, and corrupt tax collectors often abused their position. Last but not least, the Roman coins bore the likeness of Caesar, whose claim to be divine was offensive to the Jews, whose laws also banned producing such images. Jesus’ answer wasn’t just a clever way out of trouble; it offered a foundational principle for the relationship between politics and religion, a balance we have tried to strike ever since.
Detailed deliberations about this would take far more time than I can devote to delivering this sermon, and it’s well above my pay grade. But a few important general points emerge from the Church’s teaching and the modern political landscape of the last century or so. In no particular order, the Church must remain apolitical in the sense of not siding with specific political parties, as doing so would automatically exclude their political opponents from the Church’s universal mission. It would also make the Church’s role as a bona fide, neutral arbiter between opposing sides impossible. Remaining politically neutral must not stop the Church from speaking on moral and ethical issues; in fact, its voice is stronger when it’s not tied to a specific political party. Lay members of the Church are encouraged to play an active role in political discourse and activities at all levels, from local to international, and in various forms, from volunteering and activism to political affiliation and party membership. In all those activities, your actions should be informed and shaped by the social teaching of the Church and charitable love towards others, imitating God himself, as presented by Jesus: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:44-45)
