It is not the union of church and state--that is, the
union, or identity rather, of religious and political
principles--that it is desirable to get rid of, but the disunion
or antagonism of church and state. But this is nowhere possible
out of the United States; for nowhere else is the state organized
on catholic principles, or capable of acting, when acting from
its own constitution, in harmony with a really catholic church,
or the religious order really existing, in relation to which all
things are created and governed. Nowhere else is it practicable,
at present, to maintain between the two powers their normal
relations.
But what is not practicable in the Old World is perfectly
practicable in the New. The state here being organized in
accordance with catholic principles, there can be no antagonism
between it and the church. Though operating in different
spheres, both are, in their respective spheres, developing and
applying to practical life the one and the same Divine Idea. The
church can trust the state, and the state can trust the church.
Both act from the same principle to one and the same end. Each
by its own constitution co-operates with, aids, and completes the
other. It is true the church is not formally established as the
civil law of the land, nor is it necessary that she should be;
because there is nothing in the state that conflicts with her
freedom and independence, with her dogmas or her irreformable
canons.
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