It is not ‘either Caesar or God’ but Caesar and God, each on his appropriate level. Caesar and God, however, are not put on the same level because Caesar too depends on God and must answer to Him. Thus, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” means: “Give to Caesar what God Himself wants to be given to Caesar.”

God is sovereign over all, including Caesar.

The Catholic is free to obey the State but he is also free to resist the State when it goes against God and His law. In such a case it is not legitimate to invoke the principle about the obedience that is owed to superiors, as war criminals often do when they are on trial. Before obeying men, in fact, you must first obey God the way His Catholic Church tells you. You cannot give your soul, which belongs to God, to Caesar.

When Jesus tells the Pharisees and Herodians in the Gospel of Matthew (22:21) to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”, He sets the framework for how we should think about religion and the State.

Caesar does have rights. We owe civil authority our respect and appropriate obedience but that obedience is limited by what belongs to God.

We serve Caesar best by serving God first. We honour our nation best by living our Catholic faith honestly and vigorously and bringing it without apology into the public square and its debates. We are citizens of heaven first. But just as God so loved the world that He sent His only son, so the sterling service of the Christian life is this: the more faithfully we love God, the more truly we serve the world.