[metmom]

The separation of Church and State was condemned unequivocally by the Roman Pontiffs until the Second Vatican Council. The Church's teaching is that the State has an obligation to render public worship to God in accord with liturgy of the true Church, the Catholic Church, to uphold its teaching, and to aid the Church in the carrying out of her functions.

Clearly the Roman religion calling itself the *Catholic church*, doesn't want its power grabs interfered with.

[Campion]

Does objective religious truth really exist, or doesn't it? You have to admit there's a certain ... incoherence in claiming that it exists while rejecting the idea that the State, ideally, ought to be bound by it.

I don't think an authentic Christian believer can really argue that freedom of religion is an unalloyed good. Maybe it's the best of the realistically available alternatives, but that's not the same thing as an unalloyed good.

Pace Pope Francis, the diversity of religious opinions is at best permitted by God; it certainly isn't desired or ordained by Him.