Whereas, separation of Church and State is the historic American principle, BE IT RESOLVED that the NAE state its belief:

1. That discussion of the church-state separation principle along with all of its implications is legitimate and inevitable whenever public office is under consideration, and

2. That commitments to the principle of church-state separation are necessary from all political candidates for the Presidency regardless of their religious affiliation, and

3. That the commitment of a Roman Catholic candidate to the separation principle is particularly necessary because the Roman Catholic Church, both as a political and religious organization, has for many centuries fostered the policy of church establishment in various degrees, according to its own political and religious interests with in a situation, and has exerted pressures on public officials to that end, and

4. That the real source of unrest in respect to church-state separation is the total lack of any convincing commitment of the Roman Catholic Church to the principle of church-state separation, which could only come from the highest authority of that organization and could only be evidenced by the realignment of Catholic policy in those countries where Catholicism is now the established religion, and

5. That due to the political-religious nature of the Roman Catholic Church, we doubt that a Roman Catholic president could or would resist fully the pressures of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.