Blase J. Cupich Quotes
Once a bishop is appointed, in terms of governance, we are semi-autonomous. It's not like we are branch managers of a bank or something.
Cupich, Blase J. Press Conference and Interviews on his Appointment as Archbishop. Archdiocese of Chicago, 20 Sept. 2014.
This concept is not terribly different from the concept of the theocracy of the Islamic government of Iran in the 21st century. There is a civil government but it serves and is “under the direction of the spiritual power.”
i.e., a clergyman representing a congregation The theory of this particular expulsion applied not to clergy in general, but to clergy who represented a Congregation. In the absence of strict separation of church and state, clergy representing congregations had representative and legal roles in other aspects of the government and therefore represented a problem of separation of powers within the government. The same logic, for example prohibited Sheriffs and Tax Officials from the House of Commons as well as Judges sitting in the Lords. With strict separation of church and state however, the separation of powers argument does not hold, and hence there is no such current prohibition. However, at the end of the 20th century, the Roman Catholic and some other religious institutions had reached the conclusion that clerics serving as elected representatives to various civil legislative bodies potentially had an inherent conflict of interest and divided loyalty and banned the practice from the religious end although the civil laws did not preclude it.
Some politicians then and later were not as religious as the leading clerics would prefer. The quotation shows that priests commonly married at that time even though the church had forbidden it.
Carroll was writing to Troy during the time of the question of Catholic emancipation in England. Here he is clearly alluding to the British form of government. Carroll never missed the opportunity to champion religious freedom as manifested in the U.S. Constitution. For an earlier example of his praise for religious freedom, see {596933}.
Blase Joseph Cupich is an American prelate of the Catholic Church, a cardinal who serves as ninth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
