Church and State

One of the items of 'received wisdom' in our 'liberal' society is the separation of Church and State. In many ways, of course, this is a thing which is good and desirable. We need to recognise that in many - perhaps most - modern states there is no single religious belief which holds a general sway, and it is plainly not right to demand people of one religious belief to live under the sway of another. It is questionable how far a religion such as Islam recognises this truth, but nonetheless it is a truth. Those who are not Christian plainly should not be bound by laws which are made by Christians for Christians.
Of course there are those general laws, based on the concept of natural law, which are to be considered binding upon people of all faiths or none - as the current jargon has it. Prohibitions on Rape or Murder are examples of this.

Our own society, typically, takes things too far. It sees the separation of Church and State as indicating that there is no common standard of morality - and that therefore morality is not the concern of the state, but is something left to the judgement of each individual. Religious opinions, far from being seen as important, are things to be perhaps politely listened to, and then set aside as the enthusiasms of a small minority.

Because this is the 'received wisdom' it can be easy for Catholics to go along with this - not out of any wish to deny the faith, but because we do not wish to be imposing our views on others. The trouble with this view of things is that the result is the secular state ends up imposing its views on everybody. But separation of Church and State has not always been seen in this light. It has not always been seen as a denial of any common basis for morality.

In our society morality is seen as a matter for Church, not State - officially! In practice this is not alwayys the case. Increasingly the state comes to impose its own substitute morality for the morality of religious belief. But this is the opposite of what the true liberal democratic state should be doing.

Consider the words of Alexis de Tocqueville from his study 'Democracy in America' first published in the 1840s, approving the separation of Church and State, but not the isolation of one from the other:
Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the faculties of man and that the political world is a field prepared by the Creator for the efforts of mind. Free and powerful in its own sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion never more surely establishes its empire than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength.
Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its triumphs, as the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims. It considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.'