This harks back to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (the French equivalent of the Bill of Rights) – “Article 6 Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes..”

This is qualified by Article 5 “Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.”

Maurice Barbier’s remarks sum up the Radical Republican position: “On the one hand, the secularism of state schools is not restricted, in the case of pupils, to respect for their freedom of conscience: it essentially consists in excluding religion from state schools and it therefore imposes a duty of restraint on pupils in their behaviour, since they find themselves in a place pertaining to the public sphere. On the other hand, pupils’ freedom of conscience, which is an internal freedom, in no way gives them ‘the right to express and manifest their religious beliefs’ in educational institutions, for that involves external acts which improperly introduce religion into the public domain of the school.”

And again, “this prohibition concerns the religious beliefs of individuals, not in order to restrict them, but in order to exclude their intervention in, or impact on, the relations between private individuals and public authorities.”

Particularly instructive is this frank acknowledgement: “this prohibition aims to oblige individuals to respect common rules in these relations that they cannot exempt themselves from them for religious reasons – which comes down to asserting the primacy of these rules over personal beliefs.”

Precisely. For those who would like to see where the Obama Administration would love to end up in Church-State relations, take a look at the various secularizing laws passed by various European countries throughout the 1800s. Organized religion is to have no influence in public life, outside of the display of useful idiots like Sr. Keehan who support the Administration’s policies.

One recalls that, during the French Revolution, one of the first acts of the Constituent Assembly was to dissolve all corporations and, in consequence, to declare Church property ownerless, and the property of the nation. In France, this hoary doctrine was reaffirmed in the 19th century laws against congrgantes and in the Law of 9 December 1905 on the Separation of Church and State which, once again, treated Church property as “les biens nationaux”

This leads to religious freedom being characterised as the individual’s “freedom of conscience,” and, emphatically, not the freedom of groups and associations (and thus of churches and religious communities).

it is deeply rooted in European political culture, going back at least to Rousseau’s suspicion of particular interests that undermined the general will.

The real issue is this: does the Constitution protect ‘freedom of religion’ or ‘freedom of worship’? This not so subtle shift has been taking place within academic circles for some time (see Professor Tribe from Harvard among others). However, the Obama administration has been touting this from the very beginning [The President has made the shift in speeches as well as Secretary of State Clinton]

Who has the right to define what a religion is, what it believes, practices etc? Is it not the religion? Is this not exactly the point of the First Amendment?

The Catholic Church has three main foci:
Word Eucharist-(sacraments)-worship- and Diakonia-Service. Right now the only one of the three that is not questioned by ‘the State’ is ‘worship’. However the other two are just as fundamental.

One may say, “wait, the State does not question ‘the Word’” However, what of the word that states ‘each human life needs to be respected and protected from the moment of conception to natural death’? OR ‘Marriage is between man and woman’? There are others as well. Are we that far away from ‘the State” saying that a statement such as ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ is hate speech?

As for the Diakonia? Two fundamental areas in which the Church has traditionally been involved are education (At all levels) and health care. Is it not obvious that there is a conscious effort to divorce these two major aspects of ‘our religion’ from ‘the Church’ and leave ‘the Church’ simply in the sanctuary?

There is another point however that is not even being touched (yet!). WHat is meant by the separation of Church and State when the lay person (at least I will speak of the Catholic laity) are considered to be the “Church in the world”-in the home, work place, voters, every level of government etc. Popes, bishops and priests are not allowed to get into political office etc [their role is to teach]. It is the laity who are ‘the Church in the world’-or is “the State’ going to demand they ‘leave their faith in the sanctuary’?