engleski

The state's authority in religious rights

Legal analysis of church-state relations in European countries presupposes a concept or at least a notion of the state. The concept is largely avoided in contemporary legal and political theory. Nonetheless, Western and Central European Continental legal systems, including the Croatian Draft Law on the Legal Position of Religious Communities of April 2002, tacitly presuppose the idea that the state is omnipotent in regulation of religious matters. The idea and its implementation can be seen as an expression of some further assumptions. The first underlies the maxim "The wrong can have no right". While the maxim has gained notoriety as a ground of religious discrimination, it is still operational as a justification of privilegies accorded to established sciences. The second is the belief that the essential mission of the state is to coerce citizens to become good. Most European still take it for granted that the state has the authority to educate and discipline their children. The third is the idea of papal sovereignty. Whenever the Catholic Church acts as the sovereign power that educates the universal truth, the Church needs an equally omnipotent counterpart who can implement the Church's teaching by coercion. Contemporary Western and Central European states still eagerly play the role expected by the Church and its Protestant offspring. And the rationale of the continuing marriage of the Church and the State is the fact that they are both political and quasi-religious institutions. An adequate analysis of a Central European ex-communist social system will probably find within it the following four layers of social interaction: the state, society, civil society and various communities ranging from families to religious communities. The state, far from being omnipotent, has by its nature very limited powers to regulate religious matters. When the state is dealing with religious rights it is not dealing with Truth and Transcendence ; rather is it allocating its own terrestrial resources that include money, i.e. public assistance to religious communities, and access of religious communities to channels of public influence such as public schools and public media.

the state; church; legal system; religious community; religious rights; Croatia; Catholic Church; sovereignty; constitution

nije evidentirano