Richard Thompson Quotes

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

I think the founding fathers believed religion shouldn't interact directly with government.

The Roman Catholics must know as well as we do that 'Popery' when encouraged by government has always been dangerous to the liberties of the people.

Under the law, the government, whether it's state, local or federal, cannot give the Catholic Church or any religious institution money directly.

But separation of church and state was never meant to separate God and government.

I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church.

The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.

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.

T]he prevailing opinion in Europe, England not excepted, has been that religion could not be preserved without the support of government nor government be supported without an established religion that there must be at least an alliance of some sort between them. It remained for North America to bring the great and interesting subject to a fair, and finally a decisive test

I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together

[T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government. . . . and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence.

Much mischief and grief will come from any alliances, holy or otherwise, between organized religious groups and the state.

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

The Government of the United States possesses no power whatever over the question of religion.

I do not believe that any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.

When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes.

Personal religious convictions have no place in political campaigns or in dictating public policy.

[The line] cannot be too strongly drawn between church and state.

Let the national legislature once perform an act which involves the decision of a religious controversy, and it will have passed its legitimate bounds.

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.

[The U.S. Church] 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.

It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in foreign annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.

There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion

In Europe liberty meant a struggle against the church. Freedom meant freedom from religion whereas in America freedom meant freedom for religion.

What is crucial is that a government practice not have the effect of communicating a message of governmental endorsement or disapproval of religion.