The image of coins reflects part of the Gospel message for the weekend of Oct. 17-18. Pixabay photo
Gospel reflection for Oct. 18, 2026, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Father Garry Koch
The Pharisees understood Jesus well, perhaps even more so than the disciples who were with him every day. It was their total rejection of his teaching that turned them against him. They knew that they were the foil for his teaching, calling out their hypocrisy and abuse of authority. At the same time Jesus lifted up those on the fringes and insignificant, further enraging the Pharisees. Having heard Jesus condemn their sense of justice and presumption of justification, they tried to trap him into making a legal misstep, but they were once again caught in their own charade. To God alone belongs all that we have and are, we owe nothing to the world.
The Romans had a very tight control on the occupied territories within the empire, and certainly the land of Palestine was of significant concern to them, given the obstinance of the people in their opposition to conforming to the customs of the broader world. The Pharisees tried to walk in both worlds. They were zealous in their defense of the Jewish Law but were happy to take advantage of their position to enrich themselves at the hands of their Roman overseers. Jesus has, in some not-so subtle ways, called them out for their duplicity, and in this moment, in the Temple precincts ringed with Roman guards, the Herodians – mere puppets of the Pharisees –attempted to entrap Jesus with a pointed question.
To this moment, Jesus had not spoken of the Romans at all. He healed the child of a centurion, but otherwise the Romans did not factor into his preaching or his ministry at all. So, the question, “is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?”
That was a loaded question, and those who posed it knew exactly what ruse they were attempting. As usual, Jesus upended the question and dodged it by not answering directly. He used the coin – bearing the image of the emperor – as the foil, as he responded: “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” End of discussion.
Over time, as the Church grew and the empire itself waned, the Church gradually assumed the responsibility for the protection of the citizens, the good functioning of the civic structures, and the care of the goods of the world. This blurred those lines, and as the Church more and more filled the vacuum of power, the Church became the power. By the High Middle Ages, the pope was the most important political power in Europe. The Reformation, the Napoleonic Wars, and eventually the unification of Italy brought that political power to an end and transformed the influence and power of the papacy to what we know today, forged in large part by the work of Pope St. John Paul II.
The so-called American experiment, and the codification of freedom of religion in the Constitution, while controversial at the outset, has become the standard for most of the nations of the world.
We, as disciples of Jesus Christ, and faithful Catholics, walk precariously through our faithful citizenship in whichever nation we live and call home. This often means that we are at odds with the major political parties and the power structures in our nation, our state, and even our local community. We then need to take great care in the exercise of our political rights and freedoms, protecting life, and the rights and dignity of all persons.
For the past 50 years, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, has issued and quadrennially updates a document entitled: “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” it is available on the Conference website and provides a careful presentation assisting us in making those difficult decisions that confront us almost every day in exercising our freedom of religion in a secular and pluralistic society.
Pope Francis, at the onset of his papacy in 2013, published the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. There, in paragraph 64, he wrote: “The process of secularization tends to reduce the faith and the Church to the sphere of the private and personal. Furthermore, by completely rejecting the transcendent, it has produced a growing deterioration of ethics, a weakening of the sense of personal and collective sin, and a steady increase in relativism. These have led to a general sense of disorientation, especially in the periods of adolescence and young adulthood which are so vulnerable to change. As the bishops of the United States of America have rightly pointed out, while the Church insists on the existence of objective moral norms which are valid for everyone, ‘there are those in our culture who portray this teaching as unjust, that is, as opposed to basic human rights. Such claims usually follow from a form of moral relativism that is joined, not without inconsistency, to a belief in the absolute rights of individuals. In this view, the Church is perceived as promoting a particular prejudice and as interfering with individual freedom’.We are living in an information-driven society which bombards us indiscriminately with data – all treated as being of equal importance – and which leads to remarkable superficiality in the area of moral discernment. In response, we need to provide an education which teaches critical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values.”
Now, as much as ever, we need to turn our ear to the Church – even and especially when it challenges our political minds – to more faithfully and consistently challenge the political culture of our country with the truth of the Gospel.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.