Many volumes have been written about this simple phrase of our Lord’s. It’s a critical moment of teaching for Christians when it comes to figuring out our relationship to the ruling authority — what we would call the government. We live in a system very different from that of Jesus and his disciples, at least in theory, but the question of what belongs to Caesar is still a live one.
In our country, it’s often been especially live for Catholics. The first European types to come here and settle were Catholics, but the dominant influence ended up being English and northern European Protestantism. Only one signer of the Declaration of Independence was a Catholic, and it’s a little surprising that there’s even one given
how much anti-Catholicism was around. It wasn’t just mindless prejudice, but rather a serious doubt that one could be both a good Catholic and a good American. Catholics, it was thought, have an allegiance to the Church and particularly to the Pope that makes it impossible for them to be true Americans. Public schools routinely taught anti-Catholicism along with basic reading and math, one of the reasons such a strong parochial school system developed here. Oregon actually outlawed Catholic schools in 1922, but was overturned by the Supreme Court. When Al Smith was the first Catholic to run for President, it was rumored that the Pope was planning to move to the USA if Smith won so he could keep closer tabs on his new property. As you know we did eventually get President Kennedy, the first and only Catholic President, and one important step to winning that election was consistently promising that no, he wouldn’t be taking orders from the Catholic hierarchy.