The Politics of the Lion of Münster

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 19, 2026

The periodic assemblies of American bishops are not the “Democrat Party at Prayer.” Neither are they the “Republican Party at Prayer.” Humility requires clerical restraint, avoiding any claims beyond the clergy’s competence, especially on technical scientific questions and matters requiring lay prudential judgment. At other times, the same humility requires prophetically bold action to avoid pastoral negligence. Where do we draw the line?

The tension between religious and political authority was evident in Roman-occupied Judea. Jesus was not a political activist. The Pharisees maneuver to entangle Him in His words (cf. Matthew 22:15-21). With the Herodians, they ask a “damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t” question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” If Jesus supports Roman taxes, He becomes an enemy to His followers. If He opposes Roman taxes, He becomes an enemy of the state.

But Jesus, aware of their malice, outmaneuvers them. “Show me the money for the tax. Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They respond, “Caesar’s.” Then, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus turned their trap into a lesson for all time: we have binding obligations to civil authority, but they do not supersede our obligations to God. The principle would challenge political authority throughout Christian history.

The tension between Church and state is ever ancient, ever new. The Roman Empire persecuted Christians; later, Christianity became the empire’s official religion. Yet imperial power had limits. After the massacre at Thessalonica, St. Ambrose confronted Emperor Theodosius, insisting that the emperor was subject to God’s moral law and must do public penance. He did. In the years before and during World War II, Clemens August Graf von Galen was Bishop of Münster. As a young priest, Galen visited the sick and poor, became president of the Catholic Young Men’s Association, and gave religious instruction in the schools. Parishioners affectionately named him Papa Galen. His only reported vice, which he refused to give up, was smoking his pipe.

During World War I, Galen encouraged his parishioners to serve their country. In 1917, he visited the front lines in France. His example illustrates the legitimate duty to serve one’s country. Yet patriotism, like every human loyalty, must remain subordinate to God’s law.

The Vatican biography notes that von Galen criticized the “neopaganism” of National Socialism in a pastoral letter in 1934. In 1937, Pope Pius XI called him and the Bishop of Berlin to Rome to discuss the situation in Germany and the possible publication of an encyclical. During World War II, he led Catholic protests against Nazi euthanasia, condemning the Aktion T4 euthanasia program in sermons. A critic of Hitler and Nazi ideology, he text denounced Gestapo lawlessness and the persecution of the Church<.a>. Von Galen, the “Lion of Münster,” died in 1946, at the age of 68. In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI beatified him.

Could Cardinal Von Galen be accused of “meddling in politics” as a priest? No. Von Galen’s ministry illustrates that God’s law reigns supreme. When we render unto God what belongs to Him, we also render unto our country what belongs to her. We are patriots.

In November 2026, Virginia voters will consider a constitutional amendment establishing a right to so-called reproductive freedom. The first proposed amendment aims to expand the so-called “right” to destroy innocent human life. The second proposed amendment endorses the LGBTQ ideological agenda, violating the sanctity of matrimony. These are not merely partisan disputes. They concern moral principles that the Church has a responsibility to teach. But they also raise a question: Will future laws adequately protect the right of faithful Catholics (and others) to dissent on grounds of conscience?

Virginia’s Catholic bishops have accordingly spoken publicly about the proposed amendments and encouraged a “no” vote. Von Galen himself spoke just as directly:

The sixth commandment tells us, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ Consider the instructions and assurances laid down on the question of free love and child-bearing outside the marital law in the notorious open letter of Rudolf Hess… look at the immorality and indecency everywhere in Münster today. Our young people have little respect for the propriety of dress today. Thus is modesty, the custodian of purity, destroyed, and the way for adultery lies open.

Across the ocean, another Catholic invoked God’s law to judge the conduct of nations. In a compelling 1944 article in the Jesuit journal Theological Studies, the American moral theologian John C. Ford, SJ, examined the morality of obliteration bombing. Ford distinguished precision bombing directed at specific military targets from the indiscriminate destruction of large urban areas, including civilian neighborhoods:

• He compiled wartime evidence.
• He examined statements revealing intentions behind the bombing campaign.
• He cited papal and episcopal protests.
• He argued that the principle of double effect could not justify obliteration bombing.
• He warned that accepting obliteration bombing as legitimate would help normalize increasingly barbarous warfare.
• He wrote in 1944, while the war was still raging. His arguments took on added significance with the horrors of 1945.

Those who defended obliteration bombing before 1945 were at least more candid about its purpose—to punish and demoralize the enemy nation—than later defenders who failed to confront the moral implications of that purpose.

In our troubled world, is there sufficient evidence for clergy to condemn acts of terrorism, war crimes, indiscriminate destruction of population centers, public executions, deliberate attacks on children and other noncombatants, and the forced displacement of entire populations?

The moral principles that compelled von Galen to speak against Nazi crimes are universal. So is the obduracy of the Pharisees. But in the spirit of von Galen, woe to us if we quietly suspend God’s law when it is politically inconvenient.

Blessed Clemens August Graf von Galen, the Lion of Münster, pray for us.