Seperation of Church and State

[Fairwinds]

Hate crime shouldn’t be allowed, but you can’t force someone into conversion. How can you force someone to love God and accept the Truth? It’s something that must happen out of one’s free choice.

I recommend reading Dignitatis Humanae. It’s very helpful. It basically says that people can’t be forced to convert to a religion, but people have a right to express their religion in public life. At the same time, traditional Church teaching regarding societies and their duties in recognizing the Church remains “untouched”.

I’ve read DH.

these aren’t hate crimes in this hypothetical. the protestant evangelizers are teaching dogma contrary to Church dogma (basically, what happens in protestant churches on any sunday).

nor is this a forced conversion.

all I’m asking is whether a prudent Catholic state would allow protestants to try to convert Catholics.

F/

 

[Gricken]

It’s pretty simple. The government can not make laws favoring one religion over another, nor can they treat one religion as above others. In the same token, religious figures are not to put themselves into government affairs (a priest running for a federal office, a political party made up of only one religion etc) and the government can only impose it’s laws over a religions morals in a very limited manner.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Cross

** But this freedom given to the state doesn’t mean it can in turn use the Church for it’s own purposes or express a desire to abandon and divorce itself from the true faith. **

Some would say that is precisely what the State is presently doing as more and more freedoms are given to the libertine element of society and more and more rejection of Christian principles is apparent.

 

[RPRPsych]

Interesting…

Help me understand this…

I grew up in the 60’s/70’s in MA. Attended public school. After the Pledge of Allegiance, the class had a “moment of silence”. No prayer said, just bow your head, and have a “moment of silence.” Also no corporal punishment

Moved to the south in high school. After the Pledge of Allegiance on the PA system, a student would read the “Our Father” and/or a quote from the Bible (verse of the day). Well silly me, kept reciting the “end of the Our Father”, and of course I genuflected prior to the Our Father. I got the “funniest” looks because I kept going. I was embarrassed as that was not done up north. As the days went by, I felt like I was a church service. The “moment of silence”…allowed me to practice my faith without be lead by another. I also noted that kids got smacked by the principal. (that only happened in Catholic school up north, never public school). My mother was specific in telling the principal, if my kids are a problem, call me and I’ll take care of it. I never mentioned to my parents about the morning prayer. Needless to say I was confused. And of course the kids thought I was one weird person. So I stopped the “end of the Our Father” and said it quietly to myself.

My question is…should there be a rote prayer at the beginning of school or a moment of silence? By removing the “prayer” and the verse of the day from the public schools…why couldn’t a moment of silence be used instead, make everyone happy?

How did the my story above reflect on the separation of church and state. My thoughts were, at the time, the school made the choice to assume everyone was a Baptist/Pentacostal… and my presence kind of shook things up.

This has been haunting me for years…to be quite honest. I knew enough about the south at the time to keep my mouth shut and go along to get along and get used to the strange looks and questions.

Interesting.

I’d say that this is a good example of how things could work out in practice if separation is incomplete.

I went to a Catholic school where all the students, including the majority who were non-Christian, were required (or at least encouraged) to say the Our Father at the beginning of each day, and end the day with an invocation to our Blessed Mother, as well as to the school’s patron (St. John Bosco).

I think a school prayer works well only when a school is explicitly committed to a religious ideal, or where that particular religious ideal is sufficiently widespread in society than an “unofficial union of Church and State” can occur. Of course, when Bl. Pius IX and St. Pius X wrote on the topic, they were referring explicitly to Catholic countries; I’m not sure what the Church teaches on separation in Protestant cultures.

And, of course, this may not have been the norm in all public schools; it may have been a reflection of Southern culture in general.

 

[Portofino]

As someone mentioned, it’s not at all surprising that Church and State are separated in America, given its inception by Enlightenment enthusiasts and Deists. It has arguably worked out better for Catholics.

The Church can’t favor the separation of Church and State, because the informing of policy by Church teaching is obviously preferable to the opposite, from the perspective of the Church. But I think the Church has to work with what it has to work with: there is no feasible way in which the United States could cease separation of Church and State. It might be ideal if they could be harmonized, but the country is just not wholly Catholic. It couldn’t happen.

My understanding is that Deists and liberal Protestants (Quakers, Unitarians, Anabaptists) wanted church/state separation because they saw clearly that it favored liberty of worship for religious minorities. Ironically, church/state separation was originally a concept promulgated by religious believers, not by secularists. From what I understand, the 16th century Anabaptists – a persecuted religious minority in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland – were the first to promulgate it.

It was then taken up by liberal Protestants – a would-be rationalist Unitarian – such as Jefferson, as a way not only of preventing the persecution of religious minorities, but also of trying to prevent a reiteration of the wars of religion, Old World conflicts played out on New World soil. The wars of religion in France were essentially a struggle between Huguenots and Catholics for political dominance, based on the understanding that only the prevailing camp would be granted freedom of worship.

A basic concept of separation of Church and State is to the advantage of today’s American Catholics, so long as they are a “religious minority” of sorts, in American society (at least as regards political influence). This especially must have been true in the 19th century, when Catholic Irish and Italian immigrants arrived from Europe; things would been even more difficult for them, if the official state religion were Episcopalian or Lutheran.

Of course, separation of church and state ought not to mean the persecution of churches by the state, which would negate the very thing that church/state separation had been intended to safeguard (or, rather, it had been intended to prevent one church from becoming dominant and persecuting another church, through the conduit of the state).

 

[RPRPsych]

Of course, separation of church and state ought not to mean the persecution of churches by the state, which would negate the very thing that church/state separation had been intended to safeguard (or, rather, it had been intended to prevent one church from becoming dominant and persecuting another church, through the conduit of the state).

An excellent point, thanks for highlighting this.

However, the key word here is “Church and State”. In today’s multi-cultural societies, the conflict arises not only with the Church, but with other religions vs the State, and they are often far more dangerous.

 

[Portofino]

An excellent point, thanks for highlighting this.

However, the key word here is “Church and State”. In today’s multi-cultural societies, the conflict arises not only with the Church, but with other religions vs the State, and they are often far more dangerous.

You’re welcome – I did think it fair to point out

State persecution of Christianity had already occurred during the Reign of Terror in France. Instead of separation of church and state, as occurred in America, there was simply suppression of the church part of the equation.

Ironically, though, Robespierre was no atheist. In fact, I’ve read that, “The Cult of Reason was a creed based on atheism devised during the French Revolution. It was stopped by Maximilien Robespierre, a Deist, who instituted the Cult of the Supreme Being.” So you could say that Robespierre was, if you’ll pardon the comparison, the “Torquemada” of Deism.

You could say that the militantly anti-religious stance of Soviet Russia was really patterned, historically and “psychologically”, on the heritage of hostility towards religion that was exemplified by the French Revolution. As you may know, French radicals had even changed their calendar (the days of the week and the months of the year) to expunge any reference to Christianity.

I think it’s important to acknowledge, in general, that the Soviet communists did not look primarily to the American Revolution for inspiration, but to the French Revolution (both in terms of their attitude towards religion, and their conception of social justice). The French Jacobins were militantly anti-religion; the American Founding Fathers were not.

 

[Portofino]

p.s. I confess that I can, in part, understand how the anti-religion mentality of the French radicals had arisen, and why it made sense to them.

Nowadays, there is a lot of talk about “Crusades and Inquisitions”, but neither of these were on the minds of the French thinkers of the time. Instead, you had:

–the French Wars of Religion, essentially a civil war between Catholics and Protestants (which lasted, on and off, for approximately 35 years, from 1562 to 1598)

–the Church-State alliance of the Old Regime, and the Divine Right of Kings, whereby social injustice (the dominance of the poor by the rich) was enshrined and maintained through a political and ideological alliance between the monarchy and the clergy

The philosophers of the French Enlightenment reacted against the two “evils” mentioned above. It’s what Voltaire meant when he cried “Crush the Infamy” and what Diderot meant when, in a presumed moment of vehemence and pique, he wrote, “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

Ironically, this fighting between Catholics and Protestants – no less destructive and divisive, in its way, than the American Civil War – and this church-state alliance, which had become identified with the Old Regime, is what largely “inspired” such a strong reaction from the Enlightenment philosophes, and then an even more radicalized reaction during the Reign of Terror.

The American Founding Fathers were much more judicious, and also had a very different perspective, since many of the colonies (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts) had of course been established by religious minorities seeking to escape persecution. The Founding Fathers perceived a way out of violent religious conflict, through this notion of a “religious Switzerland” of sorts, with no official religion in the same way that there was no official language.

In a way, though, I can well understand the vehemence of a Voltaire and a Diderot, given that the latter was locked up in the Bastille because his writings were deemed subversive to both state and religion. In that sense, there was a climate of much greater “cultural unrest” in France than there was in the American colonies. It probably helps explain the almost militant secularism that exists in France, even today.

 

[CrossofChrist]

Cross

** But this freedom given to the state doesn’t mean it can in turn use the Church for it’s own purposes or express a desire to abandon and divorce itself from the true faith. **

Some would say that is precisely what the State is presently doing as more and more freedoms are given to the libertine element of society and more and more rejection of Christian principles is apparent.

So would I.

 

[CrossofChrist]

I’ve read DH.

these aren’t hate crimes in this hypothetical. the protestant evangelizers are teaching dogma contrary to Church dogma (basically, what happens in protestant churches on any sunday).

nor is this a forced conversion.

all I’m asking is whether a prudent Catholic state would allow protestants to try to convert Catholics.

F/

I don’t see why not in this day and age when believers have information to defend the faith themselves. It can be an opportunity for evangelization by Catholics as well. We don’t live in the 16th century when most of society is not educated and can’t effectively defend the faith.

 

[RPRPsych]

p.s. I confess that I can, in part, understand how the anti-religion mentality of the French radicals had arisen, and why it made sense to them.

Nowadays, there is a lot of talk about “Crusades and Inquisitions”, but neither of these were on the minds of the French thinkers of the time. Instead, you had:

–the French Wars of Religion, essentially a civil war between Catholics and Protestants (which lasted, on and off, for approximately 35 years, from 1562 to 1598)

–the Church-State alliance of the Old Regime, and the Divine Right of Kings, whereby social injustice (the dominance of the poor by the rich) was enshrined and maintained through a political and ideological alliance between the monarchy and the clergy

The philosophers of the French Enlightenment reacted against the two “evils” mentioned above. It’s what Voltaire meant when he cried “Crush the Infamy” and what Diderot meant when, in a presumed moment of vehemence and pique, he wrote, “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

Ironically, this fighting between Catholics and Protestants – no less destructive and divisive, in its way, than the American Civil War – and this church-state alliance, which had become identified with the Old Regime, is what largely “inspired” such a strong reaction from the Enlightenment philosophes, and then an even more radicalized reaction during the Reign of Terror.

In a way, though, I can well understand the vehemence of a Voltaire and a Diderot, given that the latter was locked up in the Bastille because his writings were deemed subversive to both state and religion. In that sense, there was a climate of much greater “cultural unrest” in France than there was in the American colonies. It probably helps explain the almost militant secularism that exists in France, even today.

True. Militant secularism didn’t arise out of thin air, it was born out of the history that preceded it.

The alliance between the temporal powers and the Church eventually weakened and fragmented the latter, and we are still paying the price for this.

Having said that, I wonder how Church-State union would work, in principle, in a modern country, if the State were a republic / democracy and the Church were Catholic. (In practice, this isn’t quite going to happen in the near future, but it would be an interesting discussion.)