wm, I really think you need to re-read your history. The history of most of the medieval period in the West was marked by intractable conflict between the (supranational) church and the nation-state. It really isn't that long ago, even in America, that Catholics were widely suspected of having some sort of divided loyalty, as though their Catholic faith was not truly compatible with American citizenship. (The draft boards never seemed to regard it as any sort of disqualification, however.)
Look up concepts like "lay investiture" and the whole conflict between the King of France and the Pope, and the whole other conflict between the King of England and St. Thomas a Becket, and the whole other conflict between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor.
The so-called "reformation," especially in England, the German states, and Scandinavia, often enough consisted of the church decisively and finally losing that battle with the state. Luther was protected by "state sanction". Lutheranism was planted in Scandinavia and the German principalities by "state sanction". Anglicanism was explicitly established in England by Act of Parliament.
To paint Catholicism as a religion formed and imposed by state sanction, and Protestantism as its opposite, doesn't fit the historical record in the second millennium at all. It was often enough exactly the opposite.
It doesn't surprise me that you wouldn't follow the point I was making. It seems that any observation that is not favorable always gets that response.
It really isn't that long ago, even in America, that Catholics were widely suspected of having some sort of divided loyalty, as though their Catholic faith was not truly compatible with American citizenship.
Without realizing it you make my point. Why would that prejudice exist, if not for the historic connection between church and state.