Religion and Politics in Public Life, by Regis Martin

By Regis Martin, Crisis Magazine, Aug. 2. 2025

Regis Martin is Professor of Theology and Faculty Associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He earned a licentiate and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.  …

Long before woke, the separation of church and state was the first virtue signal.

Editor’s Note: This is the eighth in a series on Catholic culture.

We live in a country whose citizenry have been, almost from the beginning of the Republic, carefully coached to observe all the requisite protocols. What that means, as a practical matter, is, quite simply, keeping religion and politics in separate compartments. In other words, Church and State must never be seen in the same room. That being the case, the very idea of a confessional society becomes an affront to both law and custom. For all the appeal it may have in theory, the actual reality of a Christian culture tends to make people nervous and unsure. Is this really something, they ask themselves, we want to organize our lives around? The prospect appears to be an unwelcome one.

This is especially true, I think, for native-born Americans, men and women whose sensibilities have been largely formed by the framers of the U.S. Constitution and the whole elaborate mythology that has grown up around it. …

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