St. Francis of Paola was an Italian mendicant friar and the founder of the Roman Catholic Order of Minims. His fame of sanctity was well-known before he died because he performed many miracles while he was alive, and people wanted to meet him. One of those who wanted to meet him, or actually, to have him in his castle was Louis XI, king of France. This king was an ambitious man, and he wanted all the important people to live with him. That is why he wanted to have St. Francis within his castle.
St. Francis rejected his petitions; he wanted to have a poor and silent life, rather than a rich and noisy life. The king was unhappy with his answer, so he used his power and influence to get him in his castle. He asked Pope Sixtus IV to send St. Francis to him. Pope Sixtus obeyed King Louis and ordered St. Francis to go to France to live with the king. St. Francis obeyed Pope Sixtus and went to live with the king even though the Pope was abusing his power.
I think this story is a good example of how to live and how not to live the well-known maxim of Jesus: repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God (Mt 22:21). St. Francis gave to the king what belongs to him, that is a “no,” and to God what belongs to God, that is, a “yes” (obedience to Pope). Pope Sixtus gave to Caesar what did not belong to him, that is, St. Francis of Paola and gave to God what did not belong to Him that is “disobedience” (his abuse of power was disobedience, since God gave him power in order to lead the Church and not to serve human powers).
This also can teach us that Jesus’ answer is more than a way to escape from the Pharisees’ test. Jesus, in His merciful goodness, wanted to teach us the right relationship between Church and State, and more concretely He solved the question about obedience to the civil authority. Nowadays, it is very important to rightly understand this topic, because we are living in a very confusing time regarding this question.
Obedience, although it is a very important Christian virtue, is not the first virtue. It belongs to the virtue of religion, and it has limits. The most important limits are charity and prudence. That is why, it is not good to obey Caesar rather than God, as St. Peter says: We must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). We cannot obey against charity; we cannot obey any civil or religious authority when they ask us to sin.
If the Church has so many martyrs, particularly in the first four centuries of Her life, it is because the Christians, although they were some of the best citizens, did not want to obey the “Caesars” when they ordered them to do something against God’s law.
