Herzog on Trujillo on Catholic public officials

Here is an interesting and provocative post, from the "Left2Right" blog, by Don Herzog, "Egging on the Conscientious Public Official."  Herzog is addressing a recent statement by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, of the Pontifical Council for the Family:

All Christians, including state employees, have a duty to avail themselves of conscientious objection because the law of which we are speaking inflicts a deep moral wound on the Christian faith.

Cardinal Trujillo was reacting, apparently, to the impending enactment of same-sex marriage in Spain.  Herzog writes:

I don't mind if the Church instructs its priests not to perform same-sex marriages.  That, obviously, is a religious judgment it's free to make.  (If you think it should be up to the priests or parishes, you're pretending the Church is quite Protestant.)  For the same reason, I would mind very much if Spain's government tried to coerce any church into performing such ceremonies.  I don't mind if public officials who are legally required to marry gay and lesbian couples balk and resign their posts.  I don't much mind if they conscientiously refuse and then try to stay in office.  What should the government do if they refuse?  It could fire them.  Or it could blink and ignore the refusal, figuring there's no point trampling on their consciences when other officials will do their duty and no couple will be seriously inconvenienced.  But a government that looks like it's giving into bullying — even bullying of the most principled sort, from a hugely dignified Church — is in trouble. . . .

Relax, no one in Spain's government is asking my advice.  But I'd tell them that if they can't figure out a persuasive way of suggesting that permitting conscientious objection is very much their own decision, they should promptly fire every single public official who refuses to perform his allotted legal duties.  Yet the Church's posture means that Spain will almost surely look like it's climbing down under pressure if it lets the refractory mayors refuse to perform the wedding ceremonies.

This is not an argument about the overwhelming value of same-sex marriage.  It is an argument about jurisdiction, driven by my worry that the Church has just exceeded its own rightful sphere of authority. . . .  Older readers will recall that in the American presidential election of 1960, JFK had to persuade anxious audiences that he would not take his marching orders from the Vatican.  I'd like to think we're long past the time when devout Catholics running for office would trigger such anxieties.  But whether we are is in part up to the Church.

Read the whole thing.  One quick question, or doubt, comes to mind:  I am inclined to think Herzog is right to point out that Catholic public officials who refuse (in the absence of some kind of conscientious-objector provisions) to comply with the law (even a law they regard as unjust or unwise) probably cannot reasonably expect to keep their jobs.  That said, I'm not sure Herzog is right that "the Church has just exceeded its own rightful sphere of authority."  While Herzog and I agree, I'm sure, that the Church lacks authority to enact or rescind civil laws, I wonder if Herzog really thinks that the Church "exceed[s] its own rightful sphere of authority" by doing what Trujillo has done, namely, advise Catholics as to (what he regards as) the content and implications of their professed Catholic faith -- specifically, as to their "duty to avail themselves of conscientious objection."

Rick