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This post is part of a series: Applying the Principles of Catholic Social Justice to Contemporary Issues.

President Trump signing declaration establishing the Religious Liberty Commission to Safeguard Faith Rights,

Some political and religious leaders now claim that 鈥渟eparation of church and state鈥� is a lie. That claim has recently surfaced in connection with President Donald Trump鈥檚 Religious Liberty Commission, whose chair, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, reportedly called for a federal hotline with the message: 鈥淭here is no separation of church and state鈥� (). Others associated with the religious right, including pastors such as Robert Jeffress, have made similar arguments. The phrase itself does not appear in the Constitution, they point out, and on that narrow point, they are correct. But their conclusion does not follow. The constitutional principle is real, deeply rooted, and essential to religious liberty.

The First Amendment says that 鈥淐ongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.鈥� Those two clauses belong together. The government may not establish religion, and it may not prohibit its free exercise. Religious communities are protected precisely because government is denied the power to define, sponsor, manage, or privilege religion.

Thomas Jefferson gave this principle its most memorable image in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, when he described the First Amendment as building 鈥渁 wall of separation between church and State.鈥� Jefferson was not writing to atheists who wanted religion removed from public life. He was writing to Baptists, a religious minority concerned about government interference in religious conscience. The wall was not intended to destroy religion. It was intended to protect religion from the state.

That distinction matters. When leaders say that separation of church and state is a lie, they often present themselves as defending religion against secularism. But if the federal government claims authority to identify the U.S. as a Christian nation, the unavoidable question becomes: whose Christianity?

Christianity in the U.S. is not one uniform body. It includes Catholics, evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Pentecostals, Black church traditions, Anabaptists, progressive Christians, and many others. These communities differ on scripture, authority, sacraments, moral teaching, education, immigration, poverty, war, race, and the role of government. Once the state identifies the nation as Christian, some version of Christianity will become the preferred version. Others will become secondary, suspect, or insufficiently American.

Catholics should recognize this danger. For much of American history, public Christianity often meant Protestant Christianity. Catholics were viewed with suspicion, accused of loyalty to Rome, and treated as foreign to American democratic life. The old language of 鈥淐hristian America鈥� did not always include Catholics as equal partners.

The history of American education makes this point clear. The Catholic school system did not emerge simply because Catholics wanted to withdraw from public life. It emerged partly because nineteenth-century public schools were often Protestant in practice. They commonly used the King James Bible, Protestant prayers, Protestant hymns, and Protestant moral assumptions. These schools called themselves 鈥渘onsectarian,鈥� but 鈥渘onsectarian鈥� often meant broadly Protestant and not Catholic.

Catholic parents and bishops objected because Catholic children were being formed in a Protestant religious environment without being allowed comparable Catholic instruction.听When Catholics built their own schools and sought public support, they were often told that Catholic schools were 鈥渟ectarian,鈥� even though the public schools themselves carried Protestant assumptions. That history should make Catholics very cautious when political leaders claim that America should recover its identity as a Christian nation.

This concern reaches back even further, to Europe after the Reformation. Once Western Christianity divided into competing confessions, the political question became deadly: which church would the state support? Which doctrine would the government enforce? Which Christians would be tolerated, and which would be punished? The wars of religion showed the destructive consequences of joining state power to religious rivalry. Christians fought Christians, and societies were torn apart.

The political development of the West slowly learned a hard lesson: civil peace requires limits on the religious power of the state. The point was not that religion was unimportant. The point was that religion was so important, so closely tied to conscience, that government should not be allowed to control it or turn one religious faction against another. In places such as Holland, a practical principle emerged: government would preserve public order, but it would not allow religious disagreement to become civil war.

Catholic Social Teaching helps clarify why this matters. The Church鈥檚 social tradition begins with the dignity of the human person, including the dignity of conscience. Religious freedom is not merely a privilege granted by government; it is rooted in the human person鈥檚 responsibility to seek truth and live according to conscience. The common good also requires a public order in which people of different religious communities can live together without fear that one group will capture the state and use it against others. Solidarity calls Catholics to defend not only their own religious freedom, but also the freedom of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Protestants, the nonreligious, and all whose conscience must be protected. Rights and responsibilities require both the right to practice one鈥檚 faith and the responsibility not to use political power to coerce the faith of others.

That is why separation of church and state is not a lie. It is a safeguard. It protects religious communities from government interference. It protects citizens from religious coercion. It protects the public order from sectarian domination. It also protects the Church鈥檚 freedom to preach, teach, worship, serve the poor, defend immigrants, care for the vulnerable, and challenge the state when justice requires it.

The U.S. has been deeply shaped by Christianity. That is historically true. But it was not constitutionally founded as a Christian state. In a pluralistic society, religious liberty is not protected by giving government the power to declare the U.S. a Christian nation. It is protected by ensuring that no government has the authority to decide whose Christianity counts.

If you would like to make a comment or ask a question, I can be reached at dtheroux@smcvt.edu.听 Let鈥檚 talk!