And I suppose a lot must depend on where one draws the line of Caesar's ambit, too, and the whole Church-State separation question.

Actually, a related but verging slightly OT supplementary - between the extremes of Dawkins on one hand, and Navaros on the other what is the truth of the impact of religious movements on US politics? The extremes seeming to be Dawkins saying that you get nowhere in US politics if you do not "profess faith", specifically Christian, to such a degree it may as well be a theocracy, and Navaros who always portrays the Govt as a Godless bunch of rampaging secularists. They can't both be right in their depiction of the current administration, surely? Of course under Navaros' version, cool relations between the administration and the Holy See would be nothing remarkable. Still, the oft-quoted & denied "God told me to do it" justification just would not have played at all in a truly secularist society. I guess at root I'm as uneasy about theocracy in the west as in the (middle)east. I appreciate that the most vocal Christian community in the US are the evangelicals, who don't arise from the Catholic tradition, and I can't imagine the president telling, say Billy Graham to hop it, or vice versa.

So for some reason I get a gut feeling this little diplomatic dispute is significant, but can't put my finger on why. At the back of my mind there is the infamous "How many divisions does the Pope command?" comment. And of course the Catholic community is (appears to be..) way more diverse than the others I guess, with strong Italian, Irish and Latin components, and probably presents a less monolithic constituency in political terms.

But to be flippant: already one Crusade underway, can't launch another marker til that's finished