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the "Church of England" included an oath of political allegiance to the King in their "religion" and their clergy were not only required to take that oath, but also required to lead the congregation in the same oath at all church services.

Our founding fathers would have none of that and the Church of England congregations that would not change their religion to reflect republican values (becoming the Episcopal Church) were forced to flee the country.

I agree. China thinks the same about the Catholic church. They see the Vatican as a nation state, and so adherants to Catholicism have mixed allegiences. Some might disagree, but it's not a point they can dismiss out of hand.

But over time, Catholics have shown the way they live their lives to be generally concordant with America, and the mixed allegience has not generally mattered. Certainly it's not like Islam, which is 180 degrees opposed to America.

But from time to time it does matter. For example the Vatican has an open borders policy for the US, because most Mexicans are Catholic, they see more Mexicans coming to the US as good for their power.

Catholics on FR, in general, appear to oppose this policy. Which is great! But certainly the bulk of the Catholic infrastructure in the US supports it. Shouldn't one ask why we ignore that?

China's objection to the Catholic Church is that it wants the Chinese state to appoint the clergy and control the religion. Unlike in some Muslim countries the Catholic Church does not make appointments to political positions and reciprocally will not allow political states to make appointments to their clerical positions.

As for the Border issue, the Catholic Church is far from the only church advancing the wrongheaded open borders position.

When the Catholic church or any other religion starts strapping on C-4 vests to their kids and blowing up people for 25k a kid at open air markets it will be time to take a close look at their religious status as well.