In his recent article on the ecclesiology of the Ravenna Document, Ansgar Santogrossi, O.S.B., mentions four historical forms of relation between the Church (or some sort of religion) and the State. (Ansgar Santogrossi, O.S.B., “The Ecclesiology of the Ravenna Agreed Statement: Analysis and Correction,” The Thomist 73 [2009]: 437-54.) Fr. Santogrossi presents this material in [...]

I was recently in a discussion in which someone was claiming that the beatific vision was natural to unfallen man.1 He was at the same time advocating a complete separation of Church and State, and denying the notion that the State resulted from the Fall. Here I argue that those three claims are incompatible with [...]