Rev. Neuhaus shares my own thoughts. However I'm afraid that he is very ineffective in his dealings with George Bush. Bush is the worst president (of the worst administration) in the history of the US.

I couldn't disagree more with Reverend Neuhaus and his neoconservative philosphy. The last thing we need here in Canada is the brand of conservatism that has dominated the American political spectrum for the past forty years or so.

I think Canada should keep up what it has been doing. We are one of the most progressive country's in the world and I would hate to see us "devolve" into what the United Stares has become. I personally find it sad that religion has become so involved in politics there. Most of the political candidates are probably just paying lip service to the religious right to secure votes.I agree that religion can not be removed completely from politics but we should make every effort to keep it as separate as possible.

Neuhaus says Canada is too Liberal for him to return. Thankfully, he may be correct. Perhaps the term "enlightened" should be explored and pondered as a more logical alternative for Neuhaus. He is free to believe as he likes, although, I think it is about time we as a species came to terms with what many are comming to discuss, -that being, god is a creation of man, and not the other way around. Erudite zealots like Mr. Neuhaus are very adept at arguing a point. It does not however mean the point is valid and true. He will never convince those who have already recovered from the opression of religion in society. Many like myself are the ones who truly feel marginalized simply because we are unable to intellectully accept what we feel is obvious to anyone capable of enough self honesty, -god is a concept, with which we measure suffering in the mind. Thankfully, looking back over the last 8 years of US history, I live in Canada. Ask Mr. Neuhaus why in a country which professes FREEDOM, is one unable to be considered a viable candidate for president while declaring himself to be a skeptic or even Atheist? His arguments for the necessity of considering the relationship between Politics and Religion would have little if any effect here.

This is never a good idea and was found out the hard way by the "Framers" of the constitution. They tried vainly to put God into government and failed utterly on several attempts prior to the drafting of the constitution. Faith is as personal as diet, and like a person's diet, is subjective, defies analysis and will always defy being put in a common box of any kind. There will always be areas where people disagree and pressures to create doctrine to answer each generation's challenge and the nature of humans to convene around less complex form s for the sake of conformity to maintain order. Human reason is imperfect and prone to motive and bias by anyone purporting to think, more so when undertaken by large groups trying to achieve consensus in a constantly changing world. Also, there is a huge and largely inaccurate presumption, based on fear, that faith currently plays no part in public life or common experience, simply because it is not openly mentioned or they are not personally consulted, again as it is by it's nature, private. Actions, however, based on honest faith are not against the law and evident for all to see.

Reverend Neuhaus' argument that there is a place for religiion in politics (in the U.S.) falls apart when we suggest that the religion be anything but Christianity and even then only specific denominations.

Rev. Neuhaus is right to say there is a culure of death but it is not promoted by liberalism it is promoted by leftism. "Liberal left" is largely an oxymoron as many leftists are not liberal. And many rightists are not conservatives but are reformers like Harper. Also there is a life cult promoted by the right and is as extreme and damaging as the death cult.

Remember Jesus said:
What is for God, is for God.
What is for Caesar, is for Caesar.
Mix'em and multiculturalism will
disappear.
What is the benefit of mixing them?
Who will benefit from mixing them?

If I were a historian, I could really site a million examples as to why Church and State should be separate. When I saw the devastation that Henry VIII brought to the priceless historical artifacts that were the churches and abbeys of Great Britain centuries ago, I still felt rage. There are many instances in which the Church held back or tried to hold back the progress of mankind by making enemies of scientists like Galileo and using political forces against them. The examples are really endless. Everywhere, horrible political things are being done in the name of religion or in the name of politics against religion. I think that this trend is dangerous in the U.S. I don't want politicians messing with religion or religious leaders messing with politics. I don't want religious leaders telling me how to vote.

We live in a village of 350 people over 2 mountain pases with gravel road.
I am in comple agreement with Rev. Neuhaus. I am shocked to hear that Evan Solomon, the host of the show could be so totaly uninformed as to the reason the constitution of the U.S. found it necessary to put into effect a law regarding the separation of church and state. this was done so that the State could not force a national religion on the people of the U.S., as had happened in England when Henry the 8th changed the religion of England to Anglican,because the Catholic church would not allow him to divorce his wife.The law was made to protect religeon from the State and not the State from religion.
Christine Hendrix

The fight never ends, we need to remove the Catholic Board and enshrine the public board through the charter so we don't have them influencing our kids anymore.

I would completely agree that Canada is too Liberal to have a debate about religion and politics.

Neuhaus is a perfect example of an erudite moron, sort of like his buddy Dubya. The fact that one does not need the dogmatic man-ufactured pseudo-halo of religion to make moral or ethical decisions renders religion totally irrelevant to politics.

The question of combining/separating religion and state will always be debated. What is missing is remembering that every person -is- influenced by their religion, so their choices reflect that.

If we are to "bring religion back" into the public forum (that being politics), then we must not be Christian-centric. Not only do we have Christians (Catholic and Protestant) within our population, we also have Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Goddess-worshippers, Pantheon-worshippers, and many, many more. Decisions for our physical world must be made on what is best for -everyone-; that calls for a humanist ethos that permits all to have (or not have) the religion of their choice, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to do so.

Mixing religion into politics is more likely to bring upheaval, division, destruction, death. Let religion stay personal.

I find the notion that the religionists of Canada are somehow marginalized and belittled laughable at best. When in Canada we have RCMP allowed to wear their Turban, Seihk students allowed to wear their Kirpan, and religious charter schools propigating at an alarming rate, you are free to practice your beliefs no matter how i feel about them. If you wish to vote for a politician with religious beliefs noone will stop you.

Father Neuhaus doesn't acknowledge such privaledges, instead he bemoans that Canada is not on the fast track to fascism like the US where religion is a litmus test for public office despite what the constitution says.

There is great danger in not breaking the chain of indoctrination of young people in the ways of unreason. Civilization can not be taken for granted.

Unfortunately it seems the hosts of the show are not versed in the subject matter, as they seem to bumble over the question like it was no weighty matter at all.

I think Canadians should continue to maintain separation of church and State, and maintain a rational and democratic society that is fair to all it's citizens including unbelievers.

Which religion would it be that we would combine with Canadian politics? The Sikh religion which has overtones in the Air India
debacle that has gone on for so many years? Or include the Muslim shahira law in our courtsysten as was proposed not so long ago? Or should we enshrine the precepts of the Jewish religion whose practioners have been hounded and oppressed for centuries.

Or are we talking ethics based on universal
consensus of conducting society in a moral and just manner?

I suspect your segment referred to Christianity as the religion of inclusion, should we decide we want a firmer connection with religion and politics. Does that mean that all other believers and non-believers are excluded?

I, as most of your viewers am glad that Canada is "Too Liberal". One must sometimes be reminded that in the words of William Shrier (who was an American News Writer, during the second world war), who wrote: "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", that Adolph Hitler, and all of his top hench men, were good God Fearing Catholics, everyone of them!!
History now has proven that the Pope of the day did know about the killings of millions of people of Jewish decent,(and others), and in his way of non-confrontation, sanctioned it.
Need there be any more debate on why state and religion should never be combined??

I'll stick to the best quote I know regarding politics and religion:

"There is no freedom of religion without freedom from religion."

It doesn't get any better than that.

No one ever said Canadians couldn't practice whatever religion they wanted. I think I caught but I'm not sure, that the preist was from Pembroke, my hometown. I have relatives in the clergy, my mom is what is referred to as a bible thumper, big time, and I was born and raised Catholic. When I was younger, I could recite all the books of the bible and gave speaches about religion, it's not altogether a bad thing. I am now, however, agnostic, or atheist and believe most religion is an opiate. Religion has it's place but in a pluralistic, multi devotional society, no one sect should have direct influence in the political process. Dalton McGuinty was given a bigger mandate than any politician that I can remember to keep faith based schools out of the system. Both sides of the argument wanted fairness and the only way to bring it is to stop funding to the Catholic Board and make the senior people of the boards go to the polls every time we have a municipal election. This would give blacks in Toronto a large say in their schools and Catholics in Eastern Ontario the ability to vote in their people, let the best man/woman win. If you don't like a democratic process, you can build your own schools.

The separation of church and state should be ended, did I hear that right? Freedom of religion also means freedom of religion and that is what the Rev wants to end. Religion will be the end of all as it requires leaps in logic that seem to affect religious peoples view of the world.

I wonder if the Rev advised Bush on his Keep on shopping as the great consumer God needs money speech, oh but he forgot to get Bush to tell people the church is needs money too. What a better way than to force all Canadians to contribute to the propagation of one single religion even if they do not subscribe to it. Wait a minute that sounds like the Catholic School Board in Ontario. We liberal Canadians, what will we support next that will hurt religion?

Would church and state together to provide better government? The idea is flawed. Citizens don’t need ideas Neuhaus proffers because we are citizens. Churches are dictatorial by nature. They include one group and exclude another for reasons espoused by centralized authority. I had to chuckle at Neuhaus' reference to the Vatican having some kind of open door policy. If you have the ear of the President W, I'd conjecture that Neuhaus’ "world phone" is fully paid by Vatican coffers, monthly. Government resembling the Catholic Church would probably include secrecy, intolerance subjectivity and more Latin. Philosophers of enlightenment wrote of expansion of thought and consciousness, with rights for all. A responsible democratic government with the ideology of the Catholic Church, or any other church, would not be a democracy, rather, a theocracy. All the neo-cons can call me evil now and label me liberal rabble if they want. Plainly, Neuhaus’ ideology represents a corruption, dilution and aberration of democracy. Power motivates pulpit politicians. Call it religious lobby-ism if you will. The activity is one-sided and subjective in nature. Please, stop all propaganda that makes people like Father Neuhaus and Americas' romance with Christianity, look at all like a reasonable substitute for proper, responsible, democratic governance. Americans may move the Vatican to Washington and attach it to the "West Wing” would be a real architectural eyesore, similar to trying to, "autocrisize" democracy. It has been done, some are doing it right now, but it doesn't look, or feel, correct. Keep in mind that we are watching a man who is using God to make a power play for the GOP to corner a voters group. A fine example of what J.R. Saul describes in his book, Votaire's Bastards. Finally, and thankfully, religion and state won't ever work for Canada; here we have provinces, eh? Maybe America will muddle through Neuhaus’ yearnings to sit at W’s right hand? Jury’s out!

Thank you, Evan Solomon, for your balanced coverage of an emotionally charged topic. As usual in this debate, the commenters above fail to state clearly what they mean by the separation of church and state. Fr. Neuhaus would be the first to agree that political rights should not depend on membership in some arbitrary state religion. This is evident from even a brief survey of his writings. But to ask that each religious politician cut himself off from his chief moral compass whenever acting in the public square is to demand hypocrisy of the majority of our public servants. Surely Fr. Neuhaus is not alone in thinking that this is a bad idea.

Wonderful spotlight on Fr. Neuhaus. Very balanced coverage.

I think it is foolish to deny the Judeo-Christian roots of the west. How those are implemented is what needs to be debated and decided through the democratic process.

I find it unfortunate that there has been much rhetorical thuggery in the comments. These insults come across as nothing more than verbal sucker punches, reminding me of Todd Bertuzzi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz9RE9RGrVY

Father Neuhaus is wrong to suggest that the "governing class" in Canada (Liberal party, CBC, mainstream media) have no religion. Of course they do -- it's called the Church of the New York Times and its doctrine is promulgated on the op-ed pages every day.

Evan Solomon should brush up on his political science. Canada has no constitutional separation of Church and State as the US does. Our Queen is in fact the head of the Church of England so our political tradition is the opposite of what he states. Many European advanced democracies have a state religion, usually Lutheran, and a portion of the citizen's taxes fund the church.

Pretty balanced piece, but one which seems to have failed to communicate Fr. N's position, to judge from the comments above.

Interested viewers and readers have but to read First Things online or subscribe to it--to say nothing of Fr. N's books, none of which was mentioned--to follow what he is saying.

Merry Christmas

A good item about Fr. Neuhaus. I have been reading First Things since 2005 and it is an exceedingly well-reasoned and well-written magazine, and I would invite anyone on "either" side of the "debate" to at least check out the website for a sampling of its contents.

Believers in religion, a faith tradition, God, etc. and who hold a world view and ethical position that spring forth from those beliefs have an equal right to the public square and to the debate about public policy as anyone else. And besides, who is qualified to say whether an ethical position is peculiarly "religious" or not? Because a "religious" person holds it, does that mean they're disqualified from discussing public policy or participating in the democratic process?

By the way, the slavery-abolition movement sprang from people who would be termed religious fanatics today. Looking back at them today, the rightness of their cause and the evils of slavery are taken as a given by 100% of the populace. And, to give an example from the Left, here in Canada, the CCF/NDP was built by Christian preachers such as Tommy Douglas and Stanley Knowles who were profoundly motivated by Gospel principles. No secularists they! Would anyone dare today tell those guys to keep their "religion" private and butt out of politics?

The public square is for everyone to put forth his ideas, and to be mindful and respectful at all times of opposing views. Indeed, if something is lacking today, it is respect for that opposing view, as shown by some of the vilifying, sophomoric, and scurrilous remarks put forth by some of the posters here.

Evan Solomon disagrees that Stephen Harper is regarded as an interloper. Really? Has anyone at the CBC has ever voted Conservative in their lives?

One critic of Neuhaus in the show referred to “this polarizing rancorous rhetoric that you hear especially from the Republican Party”. I find that amusing As if the rhetoric from the secular left isn’t polarizing and rancorous!

It was interesting that most of the audience in the debate started out opposing Neuhaus’ point of view but by the end they came to agree with him. That’s because they actually listened to him, unlike the people posting here. Agnostics and atheists like to think they just want a separation of church and state, but what they really want is for scientific materialism to be the state religion. But they don’t seem to realize the debt that Western culture owes to Christianity. German secularist philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, in a "A Time of Transition” wrote : "Christianity, and nothing else is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [to Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

After reading these comments I am truly grateful that I am an American by choice and I don't live in Canada. As someone who lived under Communism and could recite Marx and Lenin by the paragraphs in first grade, and who had had the "enlightened" Marx's maxim of "religion is the opia for the masses" drilled into her head by the time she became a teenager, I find the "progressiveness" and the "enlightened" statements of these folks truly frightening. It seems to me the origin of these comments is fear and alarmism, rather than a dispassionate engagement with ideas which are different from one's own in order to uncover truth. Father Neuhaus' erudition must be another source of fear and uneasiness to the "enlightened" folks. I hope someone out there wakes up and realizes just how tired and hackneyed it has become to declare oneself as "progressive" and "enlightened" in this day of age.

Wow! Lot of big heads and big words on this thread, eh? I like this Neuhaus guy. Seems he knows his own bidnis pretty good - seems he sticks by what he says. I think that's called integrity, but the big heads can correct me if I'm wrong. We're just not used to someone who will stand by what he says, whether it's in a political punch-up or the religious ring. Remeber how Paul martin and his erstwhile boss used to squirm when a churchly issue hit the House? Foxhole Catholics I'd say. And what about our current crop of 'leaders'? Jumpin' Jack flash who'll embrace anything for a vote - yes to stem cells, no to stem cells, yes to free weed, tougher on crime, ride, baby ride...Or Dion surfin' the green wave? He's makin' that the 'new' religion! I so loathe a cardboard convert. And then there's Mr Harper...he's a sheep in wolf's fur that one. Born and bred in the Alberta bible-belt and schooled on the King Klein art of double-speak. I'll throw my penny for to good reverend. I like a mouth that carries weight...

I would imagine Neuhaus would be thrilled to see a country embrace his own ideals fully but this would be true of anyone with their own ideals for society (atheists included). This does not indicate a desire for the walls between church and state to be broken down so that the church dictates to the state. It is a desire that ideas be allowed to inhabit the public square whether the origin of those ideas are deemed 'religious' or not.

I often fear in such debates that all of us who are Christian get painted with the same political brush as the Catholic priest. I'm left of centre in my politics and United Church in my faith. Are the two connected? Yes, of course they are. I do believe Canadian multiculturalism is a good thing, it is the reality of our history. I do not believe in ending the seperation of church and state be it constitutionaly sanctioned (such as in the US) or a matter of convention (in the case of Canada, the Queen issue mentioned earlier non-withstanding). My faith guides me and if I were a politician it would continue to, so that I could make the right choices in serving all Canadians regardless of whether they were atheist or practing member of any faith. I would never impose its tenents on others and on the public sphere. Thank you.

As a Canadian living in the US, I read these responses from other Canadians and am dumbfounded as to the staggering level of ignorance and bigotry (diguised as enlightened progressive thinking, of course) that appears on this web-page. I am not a Catholic, nor am I some kind of right-wing "Bible-thumper", but these responses from people are demonstrating that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing (emphasis on "little"). For people who pride themselves on their vaunted tolerance, I can see that many of my fellow countrymen are, in fact, caught up in their own sense of self-regard and have become "tolerant" in the Orwellian sense of the word. So many of you have clearly not done your homework (because that requires effort), and many have instead chosen to go for the withc-hunt types of straw-dog arguments, and hurl epithets at anyone who does not fall into your line of thinking which pretends to promote diversity of thought. If this is the type of society that Canada has become, then all I can say is "Congratulations" - you got what you wanted. Welcome to the Dark Enlightenment.

It gives me hope for the world knowing that an intelligent man like Father Neuhaus is helping out with world politics. We should be thankful that someone like him is willing to make the time in his busy schedule to do something. I have read some many of his writings over the years but never knew he was Canadian.
His getting involved in politics has nothing to do with separation of Church and State. Father Neuhaus is not planning to become president, he is providing useful dialogue and using his talents in the proper way as a citizen. That fact that he is a priest does not take away his rights to be involved in the political sphere and discussions. It is great to know someone like him is there for us all.

One commentator speaks for many who cites Jesus words: "What is for God, is for God.
What is for Caesar, is for Caesar." The problem is that this reference is usually taken to suggest two independent spheres, such that Caesar's sphere is independent of God's as though God had no claim on his creatures. Alarmists point out historical cases of theocratic abuse. But as the saying goes, abusus non tollit usus.

The commentator, speaking for the opposition, asks: "What is the benefit of mixing them? Who will benefit from mixing them?"

I will tell you: (1) The benefit is having a court of appeal higher than a tyrannical Caesar. (2) Those subjected to a tyrannical Caesar will benefit by having a standard of justice higher than the arbitrary whim of Caesar's will.

I've been reading Fr. Neuhaus' First Things website for many years-- how lovely to see and hear the man himself speak. Thank you, CBC, for this segment. It only confirms that he is the man of integrity that his writing indicates.

A balanced piece. Thank you CBC. Too bad Evan Solomon made those inane comments about the separation of Church and State in our system and other advanced democracies. As far as our heritage is concerned, our Queen is head of the Church of England! Most Nordic countries have a state religion (Lutheran) funded by a portion of the income tax. It is a lack of religiosity, not constitutional makeup, that keeps religion out of the public square in those countries.

If you separate out any cosmology and "mythology" from religion, and translate the word "religion" as "lifestyle," and the whole debate about the role of religion in the world becomes simpler.

A religion of a certain people, is the lifestyle of the people. Everybody has a different lifestyle, and every lifestyle has consequences for the environment, spread of diseases, and resiliency in the face of disaster. Religious people are simply trying to retrofit the lifestyle of several hundred years ago onto the modern world.

Religion should have a place in public debate, since the defacto lifestyle of some Canadians is governed by that.