Church-State Separation

The Church-State separation is the legal and political concept by which State and religious institutions (churches) are kept separate and churches do not intervene in public affairs nor the State in them. church affairs; each party having autonomy to deal with issues related to their spheres of influence, being in most cases part of the process of secularization of a society, or the forceful emergence of religious groups that question a state religion or official church; in the latter case, the Church-State separation is related to the extension of religious freedom to all citizens; and, the relationship between the State and the Church is conditioned from this right. It occurs above all in those States with a State or official religion that legally or informally favors one religion to the detriment of others through royal patronage or other similar actions.

The separation between Church (be it Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or any type of religious cult) and State is an idea that sinks its origins in the doctrine of the two swords of the end of the century V, enunciated by Pope Gelasius I, and manifested itself later in the fight of the Catholic Church against the caesaropapism of the Byzantine Empire that produced the schism of the East in 1053. The idea begins to reappear from humanism, during the Renaissance. It is consolidated with the Enlightenment, through the rationalist philosophical current, becoming an official policy during the French Revolution, American Independence and the liberal revolutions that seek to undo the so-called "alliance between the Throne and the Altar".

Currently, the separation between the Church and the State is embodied in many national constitutions, through the establishment of a secular State, in some cases, in others through the establishment of a non-denominational State. In fact, there has been a trend in the world since the modern age towards a secularization of the State, which has diminished with the strengthening of Protestant churches, and especially Islam.

It must be understood that the Church-State separation is a religious-governmental spectrum, where there are different degrees or levels of separation, being the atheism of the State its most radical form, and the non-denominational State the mildest form of separation Church -State; likewise in theocracies, conclusively there is no Church-State separation.

Historical models of the relationship between the state and religion

Paul Cliteur, Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Leiden, establishes in his essay Moral Esperanto (2007) five models in the relationship between the State and religion:

1. State atheism or state atheism. It is the state promotion of irreligion, it does not admit any form of religion, church or sect. It is established through the destruction of religious buildings (churchs, mosques, Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, synagogues, etc.), the burning of sacred books (Biblia, Koran and Torah), the persecution or imprisonment of religious ministers and the total prohibition of religious practice, as is the case with North Korea.
2. Lay or irreligible state. The State does not have a state religion and implies the null and void interference of any religious organization or confession in the government of a country, either in the legislative, executive or judicial branches.
3. Confessional or neutral collaborative state. The State does not have an official Church or State religion, but it does give importance to the religious expressions of its people, which not only protects them, but promotes them equally among the different religious sectors present in its territory. This is a model claimed by different religious sectors that have no status of official religion.
4. Multireligious, multi-confessional State or various official religions. The State helps and even finances several religions that recognize as state and maintains its clerics, temples and activities. Although there are cases of religious tolerance, the benefits for official religions are detrimental to other religions present in the territory.
5. State of confession or official religion. A Church or religion is prominent in government and public order tasks. The State maintains the dominant Church through the taxes of the population. Although there are cases where other Churches are also tolerated, the rights of State religion undermine the other religious sectors that make their presence among their population.
6. Theocracy or unified state with the official religion. A dominant religion is the one that occupies power in the government. It is generally established as the only tolerated religion and all others are suppressed. Laws concerning that religion are applied. It remains in Europe in the Vatican City, Mount Athos and the Order of Malta. Also in much of the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia; it has been installed in power in Iran since 1979, in Morocco the king is at the same time political and religious leader, in Pakistan it is applied shariaespecially in rural areas, as well as in Afghanistan on two occasions (the Islamic State and the first Islamic Emirate in the 1990s and the second Islamic Emirate since 2021) and in some mostly Muslim areas of Nigeria and Sudan. Although there are some secular Islamic countries such as Turkey and Indonesia, in general Islam has a strong political influence on most Muslim-majority nations.

For Cliteur, theocracy is as aggressive and rejectable as political atheism, since both suppress religious freedom.

Support from a religious point of view

Diverse authors have interpreted that the origin of the separation between Church and State is found in the words of Jesus Christ (Matthew 22:21) when he says: "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's".

Since the Protestant Reformation there were multiple Christian groups (especially Anabaptists or groups of independent Christians) who advocated the complete separation of Church and State. Notable groups included George Fox's Society of Friends and the Swiss and German ancestors of the Amish. Separation is also a distinctive feature of the tradition's theological foundations. baptist.

Church-State relationship by dominant religion

Islamic Republics

The separation of religion and state occurred very early in Islamic history. Muslim scholars were gifted and separate from the state, of which they became highly critical. The state needed the scholars to legitimize its rule, while the scholars did not need the state. Therefore, scholars were generally independent, with some bumps in the story like the mihna being the exception rather than the rule. Richard Bulliet writes that during the colonial and post-colonial periods of the Muslim world, a primary goal of political tyrants was to remove the independence of academics by removing their economic and social independence. The result is the opening of the gates of tyranny, which is still visible today in many parts of the Muslim world.

In some countries with an Islamic culture, such a separation is not recognized and the legislation or sharia emanates directly from the Koran and the Sunna (sum of traditions on the acts and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), which is a source of law, as well as the State or politics, which are frequently associated with faith with indivisible ties by some fundamentalist theocratic governments, especially in the Shiite version of these beliefs.

Catholic Church

The consolidation of absolutism in Catholic countries and the assumption of royalist ideas gave rise to the maximum development of the theories defending the divine Right of kings, which meant that the monarch attributed a series of iura maiestatica circa sacra that empowered him to intervene in ecclesiastical affairs, such as in Spain and its Empire, where the Royal Patronage, the Royal Pass or the Recurso de fuerza existed. However, the monarch never became the spiritual leader of his subjects, since he recognized the Pope as the highest religious authority; unlike those Protestant countries where national Churches were created. In addition, the divine right of the monarch was incompatible with the doctrine of the Catholic Church, even when it was defended by Catholic princes such as Louis XIV or some Spanish Bourbons, as well as by first Catholic ministers like the Marquis de Pombal in Portugal or Catholic intellectuals like Jean Bodin. This was because it denied the role of the Church as a spiritual intermediary between the common man and God, giving this attribute to the monarch, moreover, in the Catholic conception of politics and the rule of law, the monarch (and any head of government) is always subject to natural and divine law, which are considered superior to the monarch. The possibility that the monarchy degenerated morally, annulled natural law and degenerated into a tyranny oppressive of the general welfare was answered theologically with the Catholic concept of extralegal tyrannicide, ideally ratified by the Pope, since such a monarch would lose the legitimacy of exercising his power. government. By order of the Pope, Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine published a rebuttal, under the pseudonym Mateus Torti.

Despite this, it should be added that, from the middle of the 16th century to the 19th century, there were 2 currents of thought to legally explain the origins of the royal patronage in the natural law of the Thomistic scholastic tradition. The first school was that of the "regalistas", who argued that the right of patronage was of secular-secular origin, thus being an inherent and integral part of the temporal sovereignty of states and civil power (later, this school would be condemned as part of the Gallican heresy). The second school, the "canonists" or "ultramontanistas", who demonstrated that the royal patronage was not originally secular, but of spiritual origin, and was based solely on the pontifical concessions that Leo X, Julius II, Alexander VI, Julius II and their successors granted to European monarchs.

In the controversy with the republics of Spanish America, the papacy, in order to reaffirm its legitimate authority over the church in America, and based on the Doctrine of the two swords of political Augustinism, considered the ultramontane theory correct, that is, that the patronage of the Indies was originally a concession, therefore not inherent to sovereignty, and consequently, not inheritable by the republics.

After the bourgeois revolutions of the XIX century, the relations of the States with the Catholic Church were regulated through concordats, which regulated, for example, private education, church financing, or those areas in which the church acted in civil life (marriages, divorces, charity, burials, teaching, ceremonial, etc.).

The doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding the relationship between the State and the Church is currently contained in numerals 2104-2109 of the current catechism of the Catholic Church. The document affirms that the Church works so that men can "inform with the Christian spirit the thought and customs, the laws and the structures of the community in which each one lives", having notions of a confessional state in line with the doctrine of the social Reign of Jesus Christ.Even so, the document Dignitatis humanae comes to appreciate religious Freedom, within the limits of the social Doctrine of the Church.

National Christian Churches

In Europe there are currently some Churches or religious denominations dependent on the State, such as the Church of Norway, the Church of England, the Church of Greenland, the Church of Sweden, the Church of the Danish People, the Turkish Orthodox Church or the Greek Orthodox Church.

In Great Britain there are some laws related to the monarch's religion: the Act of Settlement and the Royal Marriages Act, which among other things prohibit the sovereign from marrying a Catholic person; or the Coronation Oath, which obliges to preserve the Protestant religion.

Countries with stable separation

Chile

With the approval of the 1925 Constitution in Chile, the Church was officially separated from the State. Article 10, second numeral established that:

Article 10: The Constitution assures all inhabitants of the Republic:

2.o. The manifestation of all beliefs, the freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all cults that are not opposed to morals, to good customs or to public order, and thus the respective religious denominations can erect and preserve temples and their dependencies with the conditions of safety and hygiene set by laws and ordinances.

Churches, confessions and religious institutions of any religion shall have the rights which they grant and recognize, with respect to property, the laws currently in force; but they shall, within the guarantees of this Constitution, be subject to the common right to exercise the dominion of their future property.

The temples and their dependencies, destined to the service of a cult, will be exempt from contributions [... ]

TRANSITORY PROVISIONS. FIRST. (...) For five years the State will hand over to Mr. Archbishop of Santiago the amount of two million five hundred thousand pesos a year to invest in the country in the needs of the cult of the Catholic Church.

Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile of 1925

By completely separating both institutions, the long dispute between the Church and the State in Chile ended. The controversy began at the dawn of the Republic, but in the mid-XIX century the exercise by the Chilean authorities of prerogatives regarding the Church —such as the right of patronage that the State claimed to propose to the Holy See the candidates for bishops and other ecclesiastical offices— gave rise to an increasing opposition from the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Subsequently, the divisions deepened with the so-called Question of the Sacristán (1856-1857), in which force was used against a decision of the Archbishop of Santiago; an interpretative law of article 5 of the Constitution of 1833, which established a relative freedom of worship (1865); and the approval of the so-called secular laws (1883-1884), which established secular cemeteries, civil marriage and civil registration. The separation was finally agreed with the Holy See in 1925, which put an end to the disputes. For its part, the 1980 Constitution ratified such separation, establishing:

Article 19: The Constitution assures everyone:

6.o.- Freedom of conscience, manifestation of all beliefs and free exercise of all cults that do not oppose morals, good customs or public order. Religious denominations may erect and conserve temples and their dependencies under the conditions of safety and hygiene set by laws and ordinances.

Churches, confessions and religious institutions of any religion shall have the rights which they grant and recognize, with respect to property, the laws currently in force. The temples and their dependencies, intended exclusively for worship, shall be exempt from all kinds of contributions;

Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile of 1980

However, until 2011, sessions of Congress began "in the name of God". Since 2012, they open "in the name of God and the Fatherland".

Cuba

Since the promulgation of the Cuban Constitution of 1901, it was established in its Article 26 The Church will be separated from the State, which will not be able to subsidize in any case, any cult”, and later, “The profession is free of all religions as well as all cults with no other limitation than respect for Christian morality, which has been reaffirmed by successive constitutional texts. The Cuban Constitution of 1940

Article 35: The profession of all religions, as well as the exercise of all cults, is free, with no other limitation than respect for Christian morals and public order. The church shall be separated from the State, which shall not subsidize any cult.

The Cuban Constitution of 1976

Article 8: The State recognizes, respects and guarantees religious freedom. In the Republic of Cuba, religious institutions are separated from the State. Different beliefs and religions enjoy equal consideration.

Mexico

Since the Constitution of 1857, Mexico proclaimed itself as a secular state, complemented by the Reform laws, and in the same way in the current Constitution of 1917: Article 130 of the Constitution establishes that both the Church and the State must remain separate in the following aspects:

• Congress cannot dictate laws by establishing or prohibiting any religion.
• All Churches, Associations and Religious Groups must be registered.
• It limits the participation of religious priests or ministers in political affairs and prohibits them from taking positions of popular choice.

On September 21, 1992, diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Holy See were resumed, allowing for closer collaboration between the two.

Uruguay

As of the Constitution of Uruguay of 1918, the Church was officially separated from the State.

Article 5 (Constitution of 1918): All religious cults are free in Uruguay. The State has no religion. It recognizes the Catholic Church the dominion of all the temples that have been, totally or partially, built with funds of the National Erarium, except only the chapels for the service of asylums, hospitals, prisons or other public establishments. He also states that he is exempt from all kinds of taxes on the temples currently devoted to the worship of the various religions.

The successive constitutions of 1934, 1942, 1952 and 1967 maintain the same wording of article 5.

The 1997 Constitution, the one currently in force, establishes:

All religious cults are free in Uruguay. The State has no religion. It recognizes the Catholic Church the dominion of all the temples that have been totally or partially built with funds of the National Erarium, except only the chapels for the service of asylums, hospitals, prisons or other public establishments. He also states that he is exempt from all kinds of taxes on temples devoted to the worship of the various religions.

Ambiguous cases

Spain

Article 16 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of worship as well as Church-State separation, but also indicates that:

(...) The public authorities will take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish society and will maintain the consequent relationships of cooperation with the Catholic Church and the other faiths.

Relations between the Spanish State and the Holy See are regulated by four agreements signed on January 3, 1979, which replace the 1953 concordat.

The Catholic Church is exempt from paying income taxes (as are non-profit entities). Until 2006, it was exempt from paying VAT (on objects of worship), among others. Likewise, the conservation of its buildings (those that are considered cultural heritage) is guaranteed by the State, which finances it with public funds.

There is controversy regarding the treatment that should be given to the subject of Religion in school. It is mandatory that primary and secondary schools offer the subject of Religion (Catholic or others in exceptional cases), although students can choose to take an alternative subject.

An issue that is also controversial is that of subsidized schools, mostly linked to the Catholic Church in one way or another, and which receive public funding in which (those linked to the Church) religion is taught "compulsorily".

Lay and secularist individuals and organizations oppose the influence of the Catholic Church in the State. Likewise, from Catholic media, actions of the State that they consider “anti-Church” rather than secular are criticized.

Part of the funding for the Catholic Church comes from taxes. Citizens can request that a percentage of their taxes go to the Church or to other matters of social interest. It creates controversy that those who decide to finance the Church can also finance other social issues, with which they have twice as much voluntary contribution as those who do not support it, creating a certain discrimination among citizens.

Argentina

Naranja handkerchief, symbol of the campaign for greater separation between Church and State in Argentina

Freedom of worship is guaranteed by article 14 of the National Constitution, although the State recognizes a pre-eminent character to the Catholic Church, which has a different legal status compared to other Churches and confessions. According to the Argentine Constitution (article 2), the National State must support it and according to the Civil Code, it is legally assimilable to a non-state public law entity. This differentiated regime, however, does not imply raising Catholicism to the status of the official religion of the Republic. The Holy See and Argentina have signed a concordat that regulates relations between the State and the Catholic Church.