WI pope excommunicates politician(s) for their non-catholic ways?

OK, so WI after WW2 pope decides that catholic politicians are strying away from church's teachings and issues warning that those who will continue to support policies that go against these teachings will be excommunicated. They are ignored and pope actually does it, excommunicating people supporting abortion, birth control measures, gay rights and so on.

I know thisis borderline ASBs but a more radical pope, specially after Cold war might do it. effects? Who do people support? In Italy this might have some effects, in US protestant fundies would simply go on about how pope wants to control everything.

thoughts?
 
They tried that, up until the 1950s. It tended to backfire, though. In some countries, they got into pretty nasty brawls with the secular authorities (which they generally lost) and it certainly contributed to anti-Catholic prejudice in much of the Protestant world.

I suspect a rerun would go down just as badly, really.
 
Complete blockage of deplomacy with Rome. And the Pope during WWII was a bit non-christian, so many would say the hell with him too. Seriously, the Pope (his positions and he as the entity not single man) has had a pretty disastorous run for quite some time and while there have been good men in Rome, seems more often than not there were many many bad. Before the age of global communication, the argument that the pontiff had become ineffectual seemed pretty reasonable.

Once he could speak directly to his flock, his positioned strengthend, but the men elected didn't help. So no, the Pope excommunicating anyone would probably be pointless. Might even serve as a springboard to fame in primarily Protestant run countries.
 
Well, if the pope were consistent, they would also excommunicate any politician supporting capital punishment, which would hurt Catholic Republican politicians just as much as Catholic Democratic ones.
 
In majority Protestant countries, it would lead to a complete backlash against Catholic representation in the various political structures run by said nations. Roman Catholicism has technically more in common with the traditional left (redistribution of wealth and a stronger sense of society over individualism) which would then be isolated if a Pope such an attack.

It would also make a mockery of the "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's" verse in the bible.
 
In majority Protestant countries, it would lead to a complete backlash against Catholic representation in the various political structures run by said nations. Roman Catholicism has technically more in common with the traditional left (redistribution of wealth and a stronger sense of society over individualism) which would then be isolated if a Pope such an attack.

It would also make a mockery of the "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's" verse in the bible.

Specifically, how so?
 
Because the message is that one should be a good individual and avoid entanglements in the government where possible.

No, the message of that text is, give to the state what you owe to the state and give to God what you owe to God.

Now if a Pope did start the porcess of excommunicating large numbers of politicians world-wide for their "non-catholic" ways, there would be a swift, violent and vile backlash against him. More likely then moving to have said politicians excommunicated, a pope thus inclinced might move to instruct local bishops and priests to exclude wayward politicans from receiving the sacraments.
 

MrP

Banned
No, the message of that text is, give to the state what you owe to the state and give to God what you owe to God.

Surely we're simply saying the same thing with slightly different starting viewpoints, causing our final answers to appear more divergent than they are.
 
An activist Pope along those lines would play right into popular prejudice of the time in majority protestant countries - like say NZ. I know a few +70 year old types who still harbour a residual anti Catholicism for no good reason, so I'd hate to see what they'd be like if political excommunication had been common
 
What P said - it's kinda along the same lines as the argument Jefferson used for separation of church and state.

But that's not what the verse you quoted talks about. That verse invites us to ask ourselves, "what is my duty to the state" and "what is my duty to God" and "what do I need to do do to fulfill my duty to both."

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More to the topic:

Once the anti papal backlash began to die down, I would imagine that lawmakers of faith (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever) would begin to ask themselves, "what does my faith teach me about "A" or "B" and what am I to believe and do in response?" or "what does it mean to be a faithful Christian/Jewish/Muslim/etc. legislator?"
 
OK, so WI after WW2 pope decides that catholic politicians are strying away from church's teachings and issues warning that those who will continue to support policies that go against these teachings will be excommunicated. They are ignored and pope actually does it, excommunicating people supporting abortion, birth control measures, gay rights and so on.

I know thisis borderline ASBs but a more radical pope, specially after Cold war might do it. effects? Who do people support? In Italy this might have some effects, in US protestant fundies would simply go on about how pope wants to control everything.

thoughts?

While the Vatican never went as far as excommunicating politicians promoting legislation not in line with catholic doctrine, the catholic church was always quite vocal in taking position.

Twice the Italian electorate was called to vote in a referendum on ethic issues: in 1974, on divorce law introduced 3 years earlier, and in 1981 on abortion law approved in parliament in 1978. In both cases, the church position was defeated, by quite a substantial margin IIRC.

I would feel quite sure that an even more heavy-handed intervention in secular affairs would have resulted in a strong backlash against the church (and possibly even a diplomatic incident: IOTL, there were a few case of diplomatic protests lodged with the Vatican for excessive meddling)
 
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