Giuseppe Mazzini Quotes

Although both Church and State are ordinances of God, yet they must not be commingled …. Accordingly we condemn the policy of those who would have the power of the State employed "in the interest of the Church" and who thus turn the Church into a secular dominion; as also of those who, aiming to govern the State by the Word of God, seek to turn the State into a Church.

Secularization is the process by which certain responsibilities pass from ecclesiastical to political authorities.

The church state-wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.

The Church's role should be separated from the state's role.

I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion.

We early freed ourselves from the incubus of a State Church.

The government ought to stay out of the prayer business.

All true democratic movements have been branded anti-religious.

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.

The past history of the Christian Church should be a solemn warning to us never to permit an alliance to be formed between the priesthood and the civil magistracy—between church and state powers.

[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.

It is an insult to reason and the laws to pronounce the words, 'Civil and Ecclesiastical Government.' … no regulation should be made save by the civil power.

Religious observances should never be held in a public school or introduced into the public school as part of its program.

Typical Christmas observances in schools tend towards indoctrination and degenerate into meaningless ritual; weaken the witness of the church when it surrenders its peculiar functions to any agency of the state; and puts the public school into competition with the church.

Religion organized in the Church has in times past pursued two lines of action—First, it has secluded itself from the world, gone out of the world, that is, of the State; and, secondly, it has striven to reenter the world as a conqueror, to dominate the world

Catholics and Protestants remained faithful to their religions, but stopped thinking of them in zero-sum terms and gradually embraced the separation between church and state.

That every secularization of a religious foundation, mediate or immediate, by the Protestants, subsequent to the date of the treaty, was contrary to its spirit, and must be revoked as a breach of it.

When the masses become better informed about science, they will feel less need for help form supernatural Higher Powers. The need for religion will end when man becomes sensible enough to govern himself.

American Catholics rejoice in our separation of Church and State, and I can conceive no combination of circumstances likely to arise which would make a union desirable for either Church or State.

Nor can any ecclesiastical organization be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the National Government.

We want a separation of church and state, but we also want the human and civil rights of all people. Religion is a human right.

The first requisite for the people's happiness is the abolition of religion.

Turkey alone [among the Moslem nations] has formally enacted the separation of church and the state.

We do not want an official state church. If ninety-nine percent of the population were Catholics, I would still be opposed to it. I do not want civil power combined with religious power.