The Red, White & Blue Goal of Papacy SERIES: Longing for the "patronage of the public authority"

  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4

"The constitution as it reads was made for the direct purpose of opposing Rome and to save the country from the domination of Rome. Those who made the constitution and the history of the time in which it was made, said this:
It is impossible for the magistrate to adjudge the right of preference among the various sects that profess the Christian faith without erecting a claim to infallibility which would lead us back to the church of Rome.
Leo continues:
"Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the church or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for state and church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced."

Although the church has prospered under this constitution and has

here the finest chance and prospect of any place on the earth, that is not to be taken as evidence that it is better to have the church and the state separate. 

 Oh, no, because before he gets done with this paragraph, he teaches that they shall be joined. Here are his words:
"The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His church, in virtue of which, unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself, 

--but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, 

--in addition to liberty,

--she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority." 

A.T. Jones