The clean hands of the Church, the dirty hands of the State

How the popes let the Christian monarchs do the dirty work. But separation of church and state later came to mean something else: a secular government.

An important factor in religious intolerance in Christianity is the traditionally close relationship between church and state. That bond was a bit like yin and yang: intertwined opposites.

In the article on heresy we saw that the church fulfilled the role of prosecutor and judge, but left the executioner's work to the state. In this way the church formal…