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(Sorry I was having issues posting on the other thread)
Robert, I hope I can entreat you (or anyone) to read the books he (OLR creator) wrote. Betrayedcatholics has done this before where she read the Fatima book to respond to Fatima deniers. I hope you can do the same and investigate the argument yourself.
It is more straightforward and easier for me(saves me time) to have you read this. The books contain the synthesis of the arguments I am making which you cannot find in the archived website I had previously sent you. Not only was it hard to navigate but it did not contain the books. So my mistake.
This is the prelude to the Fatima book:
“The Mystery of Iniquity: A Study of Antichrist Since 1878”
https://pdfslide.tips/amp/documents/the-mystery-of-iniquity-visit-is-because-we-are-certainly-not-6-the.html“Our Lady of Fatima and The Antichrist”
https://archive.org/details/the-lady-of-fatima-and-the-antichrist
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What follows is an email response by me to Alice which hopefully clarifies some points of dispute about Leo XIII’s supposed liberal stance on the distinction between Church and State.
I do not recall in which encyclical, but Leo XIII does not posit a liberal separation of Church and State, where the state has all authority and right and the Church has none. On the contrary, though admitting that the state, being a perfect society, has its own function and rights and authority, the sphere or scope of its activity is aimed at securing material goods, whereas the rights, authority and sphere of activity of the Church is to secure eternal goods. Obviously, the material goods secured by the State must not subvert or impinged upon the activity of the Church, nor should the Church effect an unjust usurpation of the temporal order, unless the rights of the temporal order of the State are relinquished freely to the Church—as in the case of Catholic countries (now non-existent), and of course Italy when it was ruled by the Pope in the Papal States. Leo XIII likens the State to the Body and the Church to the Soul. Just as the Soul directs the body to higher ends, so the Body also has a sphere of influence and activity not proper to the Body as such, such as nutrition or growth or respiration, etc. Still, some of these, such as nutrition, require a moderation by the Church through authoritatively laying down moral norms of consumption, such as not eating too much, which is gluttony. Yet, this separation (and here is the most emphatic point of all), is not essential but accidental, not absolute but relative. There is a separation of every order of things, because there are proper powers which belong to each thing individual. To say that there does not exist this separation of Church and State is to deny the order of nature.
I would be very much inclined to look into what Pius IX meant by “The Church is to be separated from the state, and the state from the Church,” because, if taken as liberals do, then of course it is a condemnable idea. But it is not condemnable to acknowledge a separation of nature and ends or purposes between the Church and State. That is just truth.
Thought requires making distinctions. If you condemn Leo XIII for heresy, you might as well condemn Aquinas, Augustine, and all the Church Fathers who maintained this exact distinction as well. You will search in vain in the books of history to find anytime in which the world was temporally governed by the Church without the consent of the world. We individuals consent to be governed by the Church, but the Church does not coerce our wills in temporal affairs not touching upon morality, such as whether we should go to Wendy’s or McDonald’s for a hamburger. But the Church will tell us how much we should consume of each, or rather, the Church will tell us that we should moderate our appetite and not eat to gluttony. But only our own conscience can dictate that. The Church teaches our conscience how to guide us. Just so with the State, because the Church is the conscience of the State.
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