THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE CHURCH FROM THE NATIONAL STATE

Abstract

The relation of church and state is nowadays of current interest. The question concerns not only the position of churches and religious communities in human society, but touches also upon the legal position of churches and religious communities according to private and public civil law. In the Western-European countries, the citizens enjoy religious freedom as a civil right. Based on the French model the relation between church and state in Belgium and the Netherlands is based on the principle of laicite, i.e. the separation of church and state and the neutrality of the national state in relation to religious matters. But in Western Europe also other systems exist, like in Denmark and in Great Britain, which have established churches. Usually the reflection on the relation between church and state takes place from a civil juridical point of view. 1 In this article, tough, this matter will be reflected upon from an ecclesiastical point of view based on the Code of Canon Law and the doctrine of the Roman-Catholic Church. When one reads the Code of Canon Law, one remarks that the roman-catholic church law uses the language of public law. In this way the canon law emphasises the Catholic Church as a public institution in human society. The canon law however has no particular regulation on the relation between church and state. In the second half of the last century there has been an attempt to develop a constitutional law for the Church: the project of the Lex Ecclesiae Fundamentalis. Although a last draft of this legislation was ready to be approved; this law was not promulgated. This constitutional law contained a section