"Not All Sins Are Crimes"

Not all sins are crimes. We have it on the authority of Saint Paul that the greatest of the theological virtues is charity. Therefore uncharitableness is a great sin; yet lack of charity is not an offense at law. A man may be all his life snarling, sneering, contemptuous, envious, abominable in his language toward his wife, his children, and others to whom he owes obligations -- that is, perfectly uncharitable; yet he will run no risk of being haled before the bar of criminal justice. The uncharitable may be dealt with at the Last Judgment. But mundane courts of law do not touch the sinner unless his sins result in violence or fraud or substantial damage to others. The state is unconcerned with sins unless they lead to breaches of the peace, or menace the social order. This separation of function accords with the doctrine of the two swords.

Quite as the state -- that is, the constitutional state -- does not lay down religious dogmata in recent times, so the church does not decree the laws of mundane justice, as expressed through courts oflaw. When the church has endeavored to impose its doctrines through the operation of the state's criminal law, the church has erred.

--Russell Kirk

Burke, the French Revolution, and the Collapse of Communism

Read it all. (Hat tip to Rick Garnett over at the Mirror of Justice blog.)

Hadley Arkes on Political Distraction Among Catholics

Read it all.