When the State Attacks the Church

The Examiner ^ | September 12 | Brian Lilley

[Paycheck]

Anyone who says that religion and politics don’t mix is a person I don’t want to have dinner with; really, these are the topics that animate life, at least life outside our own homes. Yet there are places where religion and politics should not mix and that is in one side telling the other what to do.

What we have in two cases being deal with at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario is a case of the state trying to tell a church and a religious organization what to do and that is scary. One case involves the rights tribunal examining whether a Roman Catholic bishop should be forced to reinstate a gay man as an altar server, the other a non-Catholic trying to get tribunal to rule that a Catholic school cannot favour Catholic teachers in its hiring. Both should be thrown out, neither should have even been looked at.

[Logophile]

Although the article refers to two cases in Canada, it is relevant to the United States.

Those who insist most loudly on "separation of Church and State" don't really mean it. What they mean is "dominance of State over Church (and everyone else)." They support efforts to extend the power of the state over areas that traditionally have been the concern of the Church. (Education and charity come readily to mind.)

As the domain of the State expands, that of the Church must necessarily contract. As the old saying goes, "What's mine is mine—what's yours is negotiable."

[stfassisi]

We are not to submit to anything from the state that is against the will of God and is immoral.Therefore,those who follow the Church must oppose the state even if it means martyrdom

Some excerpts from Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Libertas
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_20061888_libertas_en.html

But when anything is commanded which is plainly at variance with the will of God, there is a wide departure from this divinely constituted order, and at the same time a direct conflict with divine authority; therefore, it is right not to obey.

31. By the patrons of liberalism, however, who make the State absolute and omnipotent, and proclaim that man should live altogether independently of God, the liberty of which We speak, which goes hand in hand with virtue and religion, is not admitted; and whatever is done for its preservation is accounted an injury and an offense against the State. Indeed, if what they say were really true, there would be no tyranny, no matter how monstrous, which we should not be bound to endure and submit to.

9. But this teaching is understood in two ways. Many wish the State to be separated from the Church wholly and entirely, so that with regard to every right of human society, in institutions, customs, and laws, the offices of State, and the education of youth, they would pay no more regard to the Church than if she did not exist; and, at most, would allow the citizens individually to attend to their religion in private if so minded. Against such as these, all the arguments by which We disprove the principle of separation of Church and State are conclusive; with this super-added, that it is absurd the citizen should respect the Church, while the State may hold her in contempt.

40. Others oppose not the existence of the Church, nor indeed could they; yet they despoil her of the nature and rights of a perfect society, and maintain that it does not belong to her to legislate, to judge, or to punish, but only to exhort, to advise, and to rule her subjects in accordance with their own consent and will. By such opinion they pervert the nature of this divine society, and attenuate and narrow its authority, its office of teacher, and its whole efficiency; and at the same time they aggrandize the power of the civil government to such extent as to subject the Church of God to the empire and sway of the State, like any voluntary association of citizens. To refute completely such teaching, the arguments often used by the defenders of Christianity, and set forth by Us, especially in the encyclical letter Immortale Dei,(12) are of great avail; for by those arguments it is proved that, by a divine provision, all the rights which essentially belong to a society that is legitimate, supreme, and perfect in all its parts exist in the Church.

41. Lastly, there remain those who, while they do not approve the separation of Church and State, think nevertheless that the Church ought to adapt herself to the times and conform to what is required by the modern system of government. Such an opinion is sound, if it is to be understood of some equitable adjustment consistent with truth and justice; in so far, namely, that the Church, in the hope of some great good, may show herself indulgent, and may conform to the times in so far as her sacred office permits. But it is not so in regard to practices and doctrines which a perversion of morals and a warped judgment have unlawfully introduced. Religion, truth, and justice must ever be maintained; and, as God has intrusted these great and sacred matters to her office as to dissemble in regard to what is false or unjust, or to connive at what is hurtful to religion.

42. From what has been said it follows that it is quite unlawful to demand, to defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of speech, or writing, or of worship, as if these were so many rights given by nature to man. For, if nature had really granted them, it would be lawful to refuse obedience to God, and there would be no restraint on human liberty. It likewise follows that freedom in these things may be tolerated wherever there is just cause, but only with such moderation as will prevent its degenerating into license and excess. And, where such liberties are in use, men should employ them in doing good, and should estimate them as the Church does; for liberty is to be regarded as legitimate in so far only as it affords greater facility for doing good, but no farther.