Some people have disputed my statement that it doesn’t belong to governments to say whether we can go to Mass. Here is my explanation:

The temporal power (emperor, kings, presidents, prime and other ministers, parliaments, and courts of law) exists to promote man’s temporal

common good, i.e. the good which in virtue of his human nature he may achieve with others, and which comes to an end within this world of time. The spiritual power (pope, bishops, and their vicars) exists to promote man’s spiritual good, i.e. to bring us to eternal life.

Since the end which the temporal power pursues is infinitely less important than that which the spiritual power pursues, and is in any case only pursued well when it leads toward eternal life, the temporal power is subordinate to the spiritual power.

Therefore, if the spiritual

power judges that the temporal power is pursuing its end in a manner which prevents the spiritual power from attaining *its* end, the spiritual power may and should over-rule the determinations of the temporal power. “Whatever belongs either of its own nature *or by reason of the

end to which it is referred*, to the salvation of souls, or to the worship of God, is subject to the power and judgment of the Church” (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei).

Such conflicts can occur in what are known as ‘mixed’ matters, i.e. matters where each power has some legitimate

interest, such as marriage and education.

The temporal power is rightly concerned with public hygiene and therefore per se has the right to limit or forbid public assemblies in time of widespread and dangerous disease. When that public assembly is a Catholic ritual, the matter

is, however, a mixed one. The spiritual power, which, after all, has no special competence for judging matters of public hygiene, should for the sake of peace endeavour to adapt itself to the wishes of the temporal power (Rom. 12:18). It should therefore seek ways to fulfil its

mission which are compatible with the laws that the temporal power sets forth for public assembly.

If, however, the spiritual power judges that the faithful are being grievously harmed by exclusion from public worship and the sacraments, for example when such exclusion is

prolonged or indefinite, then it may and should invoke its superior rights, which are in fact the superior rights of God, and declare that its subjects are not bound by the enactments of the temporal power. A confrere gave the counter-example of the law forbidding people to go to

Mass by driving a car through a crowd of people. But there the law does not forbid attending Mass, but murder or reckless driving. If we cannot get to Mass except by driving through a crowd of people, it is not the government but natural law which prevents us from going to Mass

in those circumstances, and the spiritual power cannot over-ride this, having no power to dispense from natural law.

We have more discussion and precisions in the ‘Integralism’ book, especially chapters 7 and 11.