[RACooper]

This issue has come up at Mass up here.... The Catholic Church has politics within itself too (much like any group) some are conservative, some are liberal... from what I have seen the conservatives favour more power for the church in politics, whereas the liberals want to maintain the seperation of church and state the way it is currently.... It'll be interesting to see what the priest up by my cottage thinks; he was a theological and ethics professor at the Vatican for a couple of decades before he "retired" to the small town of his birth. While he has had views that I don't agree with (on homosexual issue) he does encourage debate and discussion after mass... and his sermons regularly cover the history behind Church policies or the history of biblical interpretations (so far my favourite is the Eye of the Needle one...)