If Pope Benedict XVI attended the deliberations regarding the Cranston High School West banner, what would he say? We may find a clue in his statements to date on the relation of church and state – which, not surprisingly, express the teachings of the Catholic Church.

In his first letter to his church, God is Love, he writes: “The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State.”

In asserting that church and state are separate entities, however, the Holy Father does not mean that they should be isolated ones.

“[The Church] cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice,” he continues. “She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.”

This message is one I teach to candidates for the Sacrament of Confirmation, some of whom attend Cranston High School West. These words demonstrate how the Church sees itself in relation to the world. And it exhorts the faithful to engage in matters of social justice.

Specifically, the Holy Father is speaking of the sacramental nature of the faith – how grace elevates nature without destroying or enslaving it. Put another way, the Church exists within the world, but it is not of the world. Thus, for Catholics, church and state are not thought of as the same sort of entity. They are not competing for the same turf. Rather, their relation is more akin to that of God’s grace and human nature – they are in relation, but are quite different.

This is important to remember because the Christian faith has, from the beginning, been a co-founder of the West’s worldview. For sure, many ideals that we today assume must be part of world affairs do not come from pagan antiquity or warring proto-European tribes, but from the Sermon on the Mount and the Cross of sacrifice that exemplified it – even if many preachers and people holding these views could not live up to such standards.

But some do. One need only think of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose good work for change in political arenas we celebrated last month, and who founded his vocations firmly on his faith in Jesus Christ. The successes of this civil rights leader, like so many others, in part exemplify what Pope Benedict is telling us.

“There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable. The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person – every person – needs: namely, loving personal concern.”

In other words, as history has shown, when politics and faith do not dialogue – when one seeks to outdo or repress the other – disorder results, whether in the form of a theocracy or an atheistic dictatorship. To avoid such extremes, balance and respect between the secular sphere and the world of faith must be a common goal.

This means that here in Rhode Island, for instance, there must be an acknowledgement that once upon a time, a class of public school students believed in a heavenly Father. Moreover, they proposed the idea that this Father had something to offer future public school students.

Why did they think this? Were they right? How did this influence them and their world? If their words and ideas about ethics are to be censored today because they are labeled Christian prayer, on what foundation do we as a society now seek ethical conduct?

These are all good questions, and a healthy society should be able to discuss them in a civilized, intellectually honest manner – especially Catholics, who profess discipleship of Jesus Christ, who taught us loving humility. And so I, for one, will pray to our Heavenly Father that the dialogue that Pope Benedict XVI offers, exemplifies and hopes for can take root and flourish in both our public schools and the public square.

William Patenaude, M.A., is a columnist for the Rhode Island Catholic, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, and coordinates Confirmation preparation at St. Mark’s Parish in Cranston.