A number of Catholic priests have served in public office.[1] The Catholic Church discourages and restricts this practice.
Roman Catholic canon law discourages and restricts members of the clergy from holding secular civil or political office. Canon 285 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which governs the Latin Church, states that priests "are to avoid those things which, although not unbecoming, are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state" and prohibits clergy from assuming "public offices which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power."[2] [3] The same canon makes an exception for priests who have the permission of their bishop.
The constitutions of Bolivia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela prohibit members of the clergy from serving as president.[4] The Constitution of Paraguay prohibits clergy of any religion from becoming candidates for president, vice president, senator, deputy, or departmental governor.[5] The Constitution of Myanmar prohibits "members of religious orders" from serving as president or as members of the Pyithu Hluttaw, the lower house of parliament.[6] Article 130 of the Constitution of Mexico prohibits clergy from holding any public office, among other restrictions.[7]
The Bishop of Urgell is a ruling co-prince of Andorra; the bishop's ex officio role as a monarch has existed since 1278. The bishop additionally sends a personal representative to rule as a viceroy in their stead.
Ignaz Seipel, a priest, theologian and academic, served as the Foreign Minister of Austria from 1926 to 1929 and in 1930, and served as Chancellor of Austria from 1922 to 1924 and 1926 to 1929.
Theodor Innitzer, who would become a cardinal and Archbishop of Vienna, served as the Austrian Minister of Social Affairs from 1929 to 1930.
Three Catholic priests have been elected to the House of Commons of Canada.
Andrew Hogan was the first Catholic priest to serve as a Canadian Member of Parliament. First elected to represent the electoral district of Cape Breton—East Richmond, Nova Scotia, in the 1974 federal election, he was re-elected in 1979 but defeated in 1980. Hogan was a member of the New Democratic Party.
Robert Ogle was elected to the House of Commons in 1979 in the electoral district of Saskatoon East, Saskatchewan. Ogle was re-elected in 1980. He chose not to seek re-election in 1984 as a result of the new ban by the Holy See on clergy in public office. Like Hogan, Ogle was a member of the New Democratic Party.
Raymond Gravel was elected in a 2006 by-election in the electoral district of Repentigny, Quebec. He had received a dispensation from his diocesan bishop to enter politics. Gravel did not seek re-election in the 2008 federal election after Holy See authorities ordered him to choose between politics and the priesthood following controversy over his opposition to anti-abortion Bill C-484 and his support for the Order of Canada nomination of abortion rights activist Henry Morgentaler. Although he chose to leave politics, Gravel maintained that he remained, in accordance with Catholic doctrine, opposed to abortion.[8] Gravel was a member of the nationalist Bloc Québécois.
Daniel Herman is a laicized Roman Catholic priest who was Minister of Culture, representing the Christian Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party (KDU-ČSL).
Fernando Arturo de Meriño, a priest who would later become an archbishop, served as President of the Dominican Republic from 1880 to 1882.
Barthélemy Boganda, a priest from Ubangi-Shari (today the Central African Republic), was elected to the French National Assembly in 1946, serving until 1958. He left the priesthood in 1950 and married, and from 1958 to 1959 served as the first Prime Minister of the Central African Republic.
Beda Weber was a German Benedictine priest who served as a member of the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849.
Ludwig Kaas was a priest of the Weimar Republic. In 1919 he was elected to the Weimar National Assembly and in 1920 was elected to the Reichstag, where he served until 1933.
For a brief period in 2011 during the Libyan Civil War, the Nicaraguan priest Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann served as the Libyan ambassador to the United Nations.
In the 1970s and 80s, the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, appointed three priests to his cabinet: Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fernando Cardenal as Minister of Education, and his brother, Ernesto Cardenal, as Minister of Culture.
See main article: Fernando Lugo.
In 2005, Fernando Lugo, the Bishop of San Pedro, requested laicization to run for office but it was denied. In 2008, he was elected President of Paraguay, in spite of Article 235 of the Constitution prohibiting any minister of any religion from serving as president. After his election he was laicized. In 2012, he was impeached for unrelated reasons.
Hugo Kołłątaj was a Polish noble and Catholic priest who in 1786 received the office of the Referendary of Lithuania. He co-authored the Constitution of May 3, 1791 and held a variety of posts before falling out of political favor in 1802 as a result of his radical views.
Stanisław Staszic was a philosopher and political activist who served in the government of Congress Poland.
Andrej Hlinka served in the Parliament of Czechoslovakia from 1920 to 1938 and was leader of the Slovak People's Party from 1913 until his death.
From 1939 to 1945, the priest Jozef Tiso was President of the First Slovak Republic, a satellite state of Nazi Germany. Following World War II, he was convicted and hanged for treason that subsumed also war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Augustine Geve was a Catholic priest who served as a member of the National Parliament from 2001 to 2002 and was Minister of Youth, Women and Sports from 2001 to 2002. He was assassinated on 20 August 2002.
David Cairns, a laicised Catholic priest, was elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom between 2001 and 2011, following the House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Act 2001 which removed the ban on clergymen being elected as an MP.[9] Former Archbishops of Westminster Basil Hume and Cormac Murphy-O'Connor were individually offered life peerages and a seat in the House of Lords but both declined the offer.[10] [11]
Possibly the earliest known instance of a Catholic priest serving in public office in the United States was Gabriel Richard. Born in France, he founded the University of Michigan and served as a delegate from Michigan Territory from 1823 to 1825.
Two priests, Robert Drinan and Robert John Cornell, have served in the United States Congress. In 1980, when Pope John Paul II decreed that priests not serve in elected office,[12] Representative Drinan withdrew from his re-election campaign, and Cornell withdrew from his bid to re-gain the seat he had lost in the 1978 Congressional election. In 1983, the prohibition on serving in governmental office was codified as section 3 of canon 285 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
This list includes priests who held public office, the country in which they held office, and the office(s) they held.
| Name | Country | Office(s) | Ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Governor of Benue State (1992–1993) | [13] | ||
| President of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015–2017) | ||||
| Governor of Benue State (2023–present) | |||
 | Governor of Chimbu (1997–1998) Member of Parliament (1997–1998; 1999–2003) | [14] | ||
 | President of Haiti (1991) | |||
 | Member of the Congress of Deputies (1977–1980) | |||
  | Member of the National Assembly of France (1946–1958) Premier of the Central African Republic (1958–1960) | |||
| Member of the Independent Electoral Commission (2014–2019) | ||||
 | Vice Chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board (2001–2006) | [15] | ||
| Member of Parliament (2001–2011) Minister of State for Scotland (2005–2008) | |||
 | Minister of Culture (1979–1987) | |||
| Minister of Education (1984–1990) | |||
 | Member of the House of Representatives (1975–1979) | |||
 | State Secretary for Primary Healthcare (2000) Member of the National Assembly (2000–2011) Speaker of the National Assembly (2004–2008) Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly (2008–2011) | |||
| Member of the National Assembly (1919) | [16] | |||
| Member of the House of Representatives (1971–1981) | |||
| Member of Parliament (2021–2024) | [17] | ||
 | Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua (1979–1990) Ambassador of Libya to the United Nations (2011) | |||
| Secretary of the Louisiana State Senate (1812–1813) Member of the Senate (1813–1819) Judge of the New Orleans Criminal Court (1821) District Judge (1821–1822) | |||
| Governor of Chimbu (2007–2012) Member of Parliament (2007–2012) | |||
 | Member of Parliament (2001–2002) Minister of Youth, Women and Sports (2001–2002) | |||
 | Member of Parliament (2006–2008) | [18] | ||
 | Member of Chamber of Deputies (2013–2017) Minister of Culture (1920–1933) | |||
| Member of the National Assembly (1920–1938) | ||||
| Member of Parliament (1974–1980) | |||
 | Minister of Social Affairs (1929–1930) | |||
 | Member of the Weimar National Assembly (1919–1920) Member of the Reichstag (1920–1933) | |||
| Vice-Chancellor of the Crown | ||||
 | President of the High Council of the Republic (1991) President of the National Assembly (1991–1994) | [19] | ||
| Governor of Western Highlands (1997–2002) Member of Parliament (1997–2002) | |||
 | Member of Parliament (2006–2021) Minister of State for Industry and Technology (2009–2011) Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity (2011–2021) Member of the Uganda Human Rights Commission (2021–2022) | [20] | ||
 | Mayor of Mabini, Davao de Oro (2022–present) | [21] | ||
 | President of Paraguay (2008–2012) Member of the Senate (2013–2023) | |||
| President of the Independent National Electoral Commission (2013–2015) | ||||
| Member of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick (1974–1992) Provincial Minister of Labour and Multiculturalism (1987–1991) Judge of the Provincial Court of New Brunswick (1992–2015) | [22] | ||
| Speechwriter and advisor to President Richard Nixon (1971–1974) | [23] [24] | ||
 | President of the Chamber of Deputies (1878–1883) President of the Dominican Republic (1880–1882) | |||
 | Member of Parliament (1994–1999) Deputy Minister of Education (1996–1999) Mayor of Tshwane (2000–2006) | [25] [26] | ||
| Member of the House of Assembly (1972–1975) Member of Parliament (1977–2005) Deputy Prime Minister (1985–1988) Governor of Bougainville (1999–2005) President of Bougainville (2010–2020) | |||
| President of the Sovereign National Conference (1991) President of the High Council of the Republic (1992–1994) Speaker of the Transitional Parliament (1994–1995) | [27] | |||
| Member of the Chamber of Deputies (1909–1913) | [28] | |||
| Member of the National Assembly (2016–2021) | [29] | |||
| Secretary to the Governor of New York (2008) | [30] | ||
| Member of Parliament (1979–1984) | |||
| Member of Parliament (2021–present) | [31] | ||
 | Justice of the High Court (2020–present) | |||
| Member of the Council of Government (1891–1892) Member of the National Assembly (1919) Member of the Senate (1921–1925) | [32] | |||
| Delegate to the House of Representatives (1823–1825) | |||
| Minister of Public Works and Social Welfare (1918) Chancellor of Austria (1922–1924; 1926–1929) Minister of the Interior (1923–1924; 1926–1929) Minister of Foreign Affairs (1926–1929; 1930) | |||
| Minister of State of the Duchy of Warsaw (1809–1810) State Councillor of the Duchy of Warsaw (1810–1815) Ministry of Industry of Poland (1816–1824) Minister of State of Poland (1824–1826) | ||||
| Mayor of Damulog (2007–2016) | |||
| Minister of Health of Czechoslovakia (1927–1929) Minister of the Interior of Slovakia Prime Minister of Slovakia (1938–1939) President of the Slovak Republic (1939–1945) | ||||
 | Mayor of Hienghène (1977–1989) Vice-President of the Government Council (1982–1984) | |||
| Member of the Frankfurt National Assembly (1848–1849) | ||||
| Mayor of Brazzaville (1956) Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo (1958–1959) Presidents of the Republic of the Congo (1960–1963) |