John Leo Quotes

if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled.

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

The manifest object of the men who framed the institutions of this country, was to have a State without religion and a Church without politics—that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an engine for the purposes of the other.... For that reason they built up a wall of complete and perfect partition between the two.

It is not for the pastors of the Church to intervene directly in the political construction and organization of social life.

God doesn't belong in politics.

Servants of the Church by virtue of their rank should be above and outside any political interests. They should remember the canonical rules of the Holy Church whereby she prohibits her servants from interfering in the political life of the country, joining any political parties and, what is more, from making the liturgical rites a tool of political demonstrations

Clergymen should not get involved with politics.

We should resist the temptation to identify our religious convictions with the platform of a party or the platitudes of favored politicians.

The churches must realize that when they take a position on a political event that they must accept the rules of the game.

My principles in respect of religious interest are two,--one is, that the Church shall not meddle with politics, and the government shall not meddle with religion.

Government needs to stay out of the religion business altogether.

I choose to worship not believing in God and government should not thrust a religious idea down my throat.

I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters - and the church does not speak for me.

The problem is that you can't impose the church's teachings on all Americans as a matter of law.

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.

I believe in an America where the separation of Church and State is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President, should he be a Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners how to vote.... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant or Jewish ... for while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist.

Religion has no business to formulate social laws.

I have no objections to churches so long as they do not interfere with God's work.

There is little doubt that religious liberty is best exercised within the setting of the secular state.

Religion is too important an aspect of human life to be prostituted to politics, just as politics is too important a part of human life to be enslaved to religion.

My earnest regard to preserve inviolate forever, in our new empire, the great principle of religious freedom ... which is independent of any religious doctrine and not restrained by any.

I believe in a wall between church and state so high that no one can climb over it.

[The line] cannot be too strongly drawn between church and state.

To say that religion cannot stand without a state establishment is not only contrary to fact (as has been proved already) but is a contradiction in phrase.