The Reform of Catholic Political Theory
Armstrong, Paul F. Working Paper The Reform of Catholic Political Theory Working Paper No. 2016-04 Revision 18 April, 2017 Revision 19 January, 2019 Suggested Citation: Armstrong, Paul F. (2019). The Reform of Catholic Political Theory. MIRCS Institute, Working Paper No. 2016-04, Halifax, Canada. This Version is available at: http://www.mircs.ca/education/working_papers/ Terms of use: MIRCS Institute grants you, the user, the non-exclusive right to use the selected work free of charge, territorially unrestricted, on the following terms: attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives, as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 3 The Reform of Catholic Political Doctrine Paul F. Armstrong Working Paper No. 2016-04 Version: 19 January, 2019 In the previous chapter, I outlined the different models of civil society which developed in the late medieval and early modern periods – the communicatio politica of the Medieval church and the societas civilis of Renaissance humanism. In this chapter, I will discuss the centuries- long development and reform of Catholic political doctrine in early and middle modernity,1 focussing particularly on the church’s conception of authority. It is of interest not just because this history informs the priest-leadership of the Antigonish Movement, but because it is the single most sustained intellectual debate we have about the nature and sources of authority in civil society. Unitary conceptions of sovereignty, whether of kingship or democracy, homogenize all political questions in terms of a single principle. Pluralist conceptions, on the other hand, provide for alternative answers built on different principles. The Augustinian theology of the heavenly and earthly cities is pluralist in this sense.
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