It was the politicized clergy and hostility to Republicanism by the Catholic Church that caused said Church to be hated by many American citizens for years. It was only through assimilation (and adaptation of American Republicanism) that Catholics became accepted.
Clerical-influenced governments and quasi-theocracies are as hostile toward our Republic as communism and Mohammadism. Some of us prefer Washington and Jefferson's America over Salazar's Portugal and Franco's Spain.
AMEN! By the grace of God.
The Church is silent on the question of social order. We do well under persecution, hostility, and we are happy to inform a government that wishes to be informed, no matter whar social form that has.
Of course Catholics are politicized: we have a command from God to teach all nations. A country that tells a Catholic to leave Catholicism at home as he walks into the ballot booth is no longer a free country. Likewise for Evangelicals.
Secularism of American founding Fathers is benign, because it was rooted in the non-establishment clause. The modern anti-constitutional secularism that is creeping in under the legal theories of separation of Church and state is something malignant and new, and it strikes at any Christian who takes his religion seriously. Hence the basis of cooperation and respect between the Evangelicals and the Catholics.