Observations on the Memorandum “The Crisis in Church-State Relationships in the U.S.A.”

Extract

The presentation of what the author calls a “grave danger” which confronts the Church in the United States in my judgment is not comprehensive. All through our history, we Catholics in the United States have had to face this same attack upon the Church from non-Catholics. The point of the attack has been the same all through the years: namely, that Catholics cannot be loyal to the Constitution of the United States and at the same time loyal to their Church. The notion of religious freedom in the non-Catholic mind in the Englishspeaking world derives from the Protestant doctrine upholding the right of the individual to interpret for himself the Sacred Scriptures.