of "good will" who support grave moral evils and want them enshrined in public law and promoted in the popular culture. The twin, inter-related Americanist heresies of "separation of Church and State" and "religious liberty," however, have been responsible for producing generation after generation of Catholics who view the Church through the filters of "democracy" and "egalitarianism" and "majoritarianism" rather than viewing the world through the eyes of the true Faith.

Pope Leo XIII explained to the American bishops in Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895, that the Church in the United States of America had grown because of the the grace of God, not because of "separation of Church and State." Indeed, Pope Leo XIII said that the Church int his country would grow more rapidly and would beable to influence the course of public affairs better if it enjoyed the favor and the protecion of the laws.

After praising what he could of the natural virtues of George Washington and of a constitution that was understood at the time to permit Catholics the “freedom” to practice their Faith without state hindrance, Pope Leo XIII reminded the American bishops that the growth of the Faith in the United States of America was not the result of the country’s constitutional structures but of the very fecundity of God’s graces, which could produce even more abundant fruits if the Catholic Church was accorded the favor and protection of the civil state:

The main factor, no doubt, in bringing things into this happy state were the ordinances and decrees of your