Chapter VI: Divided Loyalties

 



            I remember being asked by a classmate, either as an undergraduate or in graduate school, if all Catholics had “Vatican citizenship.”  I looked at the person dumbfounded, and said, “No,” but now I wonder if such a question may have been due to the influence of Chick Publications.

            In any case, when someone is baptized in the Catholic Church, he or she does not receive automatic citizenship to Vatican City.  The same is also true, when someone is baptized in the Episcopal Church (the common form of the Church of England/Anglican Church in the United States).  He or she does not receive automatic citizenship to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, even though the British monarch is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

            But Chick’s charge that if Helen is a good Catholic, her first loyalty will be to the Vatican and not the United States is a throwback argument to the prejudice that Catholics faced in the United States during the Great Period of Immigration (1844-1924), or that Alfred Smith and John F. Kennedy faced during their presidential campaigns (1928 for Smith, 1960 for Kennedy).  Essentially, that if someone is a Catholic, the Bishop of Rome (who is commonly referred to as “the pope”) always has final say in his or her life—in this case, the rule of law in the United States.  To Catholics, the charge is laughable.[1]  Just like the charge is laughable to any citizen of the United States that the President of the United States has final say in his or her life.


[1]All one needs to do is look at the conflicts that popes have had with governments/citizens from countries that are predominately Catholic.

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