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The Footprints of the Jesuits (Classic Reprint)
Excerpt from The Footprints of the Jesuits
The civil institutions of the United States could not have been formed without the separation of Church and State, and could not continue to exist if they were again united. Christianity could not maintain its primitive purity if politics and religious faith were mingled together; nor could the State preserve its capacity to provide for the general welfare if subjected to the dominion of ecclesiastical authority. Our success as a nation is mainly attributable to the fact that these sentiments are deeply imbedded in the American mind.
A party pledged to restore to the pope the temporal power which the Italian people have taken away, must necessarily be politico-religious in character, because it proposes to interfere with the temporal affairs of one of the European nations. And if the attempt to do this is justified upon the ground that such restoration involves religious duty, any one can see that the obligation is the same in the United States as in Italy, for the laws of God do not shift to suit the exigencies of human affairs.
In the times before the Reformation the temporal affairs of Governments were required to conform to the commands of the ecclesiastical authority - that is, the pope - and it was held to be a necessary and essential part of religion that this union should be continued, no matter what might be the degree of popular ignorance and humiliation.
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