thumb|[[Pope Francis with the then-US president Barack Obama in 2015]]
The Catholic Church and politics concerns the interplay of Catholicism with religious, and later secular, politics.
The Catholic Church's views and teachings have evolved over its history and have at times been significant political influences within nations.
Overview
Historically, the Church followed the policy of strict neutrality, with Catholic thinkers such as Eusebius of Caesarea believing that the Church should not concern itself with political matters. However, Saint Augustine, one of the Doctors of the Church, influenced the Church with his theory of minimal involvement in politics, according to which the Church "accepted the legitimacy of even pagan governments that maintained a social order useful to Christians as well, and to the extent that the freedom of the Church to carry out its evangelical task was allowed." The Church's doctrine considered Christian communities to be the "recipients of divine grace and inspiration", along with the clergy. Paul E. Sigmund argues that democratic thinking was already present in the early Church, as early Catholics "acted as communities to make decisions about common affairs, becoming almost independent self-governing entities in periods of persecution".
thumb|Pope Leo XIII
Despite its struggle against democratic and liberal anti-clericalism, the Church's commitment to a communitarian and Christian type of democracy was officially established by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclicals Au milieu des sollicitudes and Graves de communi re. In terms of political development, Catholic social teaching endorsed democracy on the condition that it constitutes a protection of human dignity and the moral law, and valued common good over individualism. He also affirmed the need for an "authentic democracy" to follow communitarian and Catholic values: