“The Bill of Rights puts limitation of government to not become involved in religion, but there is to reciprocal requirement.”
NL, I am not talking about any government limitation on The Church, nor am I suggesting such a thing. As you say, the limitation is on the government not vice versa.
“If corporations, labor unions and a host of other interests and advocacy groups can be directly involved in the political process restricting direct involvement by the Roman Catholic Church, or any other church for that matter, short changes Catholics and other religious persons and robs the process of the moral clarity and direction the Church can bring.”
Surely you don’t equate The Church with “...corporations, labor unions and a host of other interests and advocacy groups”! And again, I have not suggested that society should “restrict” the voice of The Church. I AM saying that The Church degrades itself and distorts its message to the extent that it becomes a tool of politics or something of a political party itself. Politics, left or right, will always try to hijack The Church for its own purposes. We see examples of the attempt virtually everyday on this site. But the same goes on on sites with a political pov diametrically opposed to what is espoused here. You yourself recognized precisely this in your post #20.
Political leaders draw their authority, and we our right from God. That is why I do not equate the Church with political parties, unions, and the other secular organizations I referenced earlier. I certainly do not place the Church beneath any of them. The truest respect we can show to civil authority is the witness of our Catholic faith and our moral convictions, without excuses or apologies. In representative democracies this requires acting in unison as a community of common values, which is what a Church is. Further, I do not worry about the potential hijacking or compromising of the Church if it stays true to itself and its values.