Iowa and Separation: Response to Eduardo

I agree completely with Eduardo (posting at the Commonweal blog) that "the dubious origins of the discourse of 'separation' do[] not mean that, as a substantive matter, the consequences of separation of Church and State" -- properly understood -- "are not as good for Church as they are for the State."  And, I agree entirely with him that we would do well to think long and hard before endorsing a program that involved "straight-up state funding for a program in which Catholic inmates can be browbeaten by evangelicals in order to receive more comfortable cells."  As I suggested in my earlier post, though, I remain skeptical that this statement fairly describes the operation and aims of the program.

Reading the comments to Eduardo's post over at Commonweal, I am struck by the antipathy that many smart, progressive Catholics seem to have toward the "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" movement.  My own experiences with thoughtful Evangelicals -- and, to be clear, I have had lots of experience with hard-core anti-Catholic Protestants -- makes it hard for me to join some of those commenters in dismissing the movement as merely involving a convenient political alliance relating to abortion and culture-wars issues. Of course it is true that Catholics and Evangelicals differ, on important things and in important ways -- even those of us born after the Council know this.  Still, I think it is a mistake to turn too quickly, perhaps because one just doesn't like Fr. Neuhaus's politics, against a movement that, perhaps, holds real ecumenical and evangelical promise.