Do hallowed notions of church and state need to be revised?

In my opinion, in some ways yes, in some ways no. In the United States, that line has always been very, very sacred and not to be crossed. In other nations, the theocracy is the state. And of all 200 some nations worldwide, there is every variation in between. The pope recently released an encyclical straight from the vatican addressing many contemporary social issues which intersect with politics. Most notably, the encyclical contained a call to arms to address the problem of global warming. Do these desperate environmental times call for desperate measures? This will undoubtedly cause much debate and be answered in different ways by different people, but I would tend to say yes, bearing in mind some caveats. It is also interesting to note how conservatives across all cultures, East and West, seem to try to intervene in what are essentially PRIVATE matters (reproductive rights, human sexuality) and force these rights to conform to their ideas of morality. Like many people, I strongly disagree with this attempt to legislate morality. It is equally dangerous here and there. From the middle east, to India, to the United States the dangerous trend of fundamentalists attempting to infringe on individual sovereignty seems to keep popping up. No, the great and free United States is not immune (just look at the continual attacks on abortion and even contraception by right wing groups). And recently in India, in response to the growing gay communities' attempts to receive legality and respect fundamentalist Hindu and Muslim leaders attacked with a vengeance and claimed that legalizing homosexuality would be unacceptable. All very interesting food for thought. . .