How can the moral authority of the Catholic Church be renewed in a time of crisis? The experiences of Cardinal Vicente Enrique y Tarancón, whose leadership successfully assisted Spain in transitioning from authoritarianism to democracy, can offer lessons still relevant for the Church today. I begin with a definition of “moral authority” from the social sciences, establishing it as a tool that the Church increasingly depends on in the post-Vatican II period. From Tarancón’s writings, I derive a concept of “audacious prudence,” a Thomistic virtue he relied upon to discern the proper use of moral authority during the contentious years in which the Spanish Catholic Church sought to separate itself from the Franco regime. I end with an application of these lessons to the neo-integralism of Professor Chad Pecknold, who, in contrast to Tarancón's platform, proposes the alliance of church and state as a means for the Church to recuperate moral authority in current liberal democracies.

How can the moral authority of the Catholic Church be renewed in a time of crisis? The experiences of Cardinal Vicente Enrique y Tarancón, whose leadership successfully assisted Spain in transitioning from authoritarianism to democracy, can offer lessons still relevant for the Church today. I begin with a definition of “moral authority” from the social sciences, establishing it as a tool that the Church increasingly depends on in the post-Vatican II period. From Tarancón’s writings, I derive a concept of “audacious prudence,” a Thomistic virtue he relied upon to discern the proper use of moral authority during the contentious years in which the Spanish Catholic Church sought to separate itself from the Franco regime. I end with an application of these lessons to the neo-integralism of Professor Chad Pecknold, who, in contrast to Tarancón's platform, proposes the alliance of church and state as a means for the Church to recuperate moral authority in current liberal democracies.