“Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”  In the gospel, Jesus offers us a very sound principle of discernment.  In making decisions in our life we are to first separate out what is truly important from what only seems to be important, what is a real good from what is a fabrication, what is an eternal truth from what is simply human opinion.  The Pharisees and Herodians recognize Jesus’ true competence in teaching and guiding us in the way of life when they assert, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.  And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status.”  The true genius of Jesus in laying out for us a way of life is that he always lives according to the truth.  He is a truthful man and he teaches in accordance with the truth and therefore the way of life that he teaches us is the “way of God”.  This “way” is not a fabrication of someone’s subjective opinions that is true for some and not for others.  The “way” of Jesus is based upon an objective truth that is universal and is true for all people, in all times and in all cultures.

     In our first reading from Isaiah, God proclaims through the prophet Isaiah, “I am the Lord, there is no other.”  There is only one source of life, of truth and of goodness – the Lord.  Even though Cyrus does not know the Lord, it is the Lord who is working through him to bring about the good for his people Israel.  When we serve the true, the good and the just we are serving the Lord.  Conversely, there is only one source of life, of truth and of goodness and that is the Lord.  There are many seemingly powerful leaders in our world today that want us to believe that something is true simply because they say that it is true.  However, a person’s status does not guarantee a truth and even if many people accept the word of that person it still does not make what they assert any more true.  We have seen in history how much harm has come to the world and its people by false claims made by deceptive leaders.  There has been much discussion by our recent Popes about the “dictatorship of relativism” that is causing much harm to people and societies today.  “What belongs to Caesar” is often illusive, limited and fleeting and based upon the dictates of Caesar.  It doesn’t have true, lasting value and often will not lead to the true common good for all people.  “What belongs to God” is eternal, true, real and will serve the common good of all people for all time.

     As a people of the Lord we are called to “repay to…God what belongs to God.”  We are responsible to seek to establish a way of life that is consistent with God’s way.  There is a legitimate autonomy of politics from religion but there should be no separation between human values and divine, eternal values.  Politics cannot exempt itself from ethics and morality.  Our country with its rights and freedoms has been established on human values that are written in our constitution.  These human values owe their authority and power to the extent that they are informed by eternal, objective, divine truths that respect the human dignity of each person.  A truly great nation is built upon values that reflect their closeness to God and his divine, eternal truths, even if there is not a recognized relationship to God.

     When a nation begins to make laws that do not respect the religious freedoms and beliefs of its people and their right to conscience and forces them to act contrary to God’s eternal values and laws then we as a people of God have a responsibility to oppose those laws.  Recently there have been proposals made in health care and in marriage and family issues that are directly opposed to Catholic moral teaching and which threaten the religious freedom of Christians to live their faith.  These laws would not be good for our country and would violate the principles upon which our country was formed.  In this instance Caesar is threatening to take that which is God’s, the respect for all human life and the foundation of our society which is marriage and family founded on the complementary nature of two human beings, a man and a woman, joined together in a stable union of love.

     Our Church reminds us, “The Church’s obligation to participate in shaping the moral character of society is a requirement of our faith, a part of the mission given to us by Jesus Christ. Faith helps us see more clearly the truth about human life and dignity that we also understand through human reason. As people of both faith and reason, Catholics are called to bring truth to political life and to practice Christ’s commandment to “love one another” (Jn 13:34). According to Pope Benedict XVI, “charity must animate the entire lives of the lay faithful and therefore also their political activity, lived as ‘social charity’” (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, no. 29).