'Cavanaugh makes fun of a simplistic story in which wars between Protestants and Catholics were resolved by establishing secular states in Europe. Such a story would, indeed, be a gross distortion of what actually happened. More specifically, it would contradict the well known facts: as Cavanaugh says, "the secular state did not resolve the so-called 'Wars of Religion' - the first state in which church and state were formally separated made its appearance a good century and a half after the Treaty of Westphalia."
Furthermore, the controlling principle of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, was not that of separating church and state, but, rather, the maxim cuius regio, eius religio - that is, the local religion would be that of the local ruler. Although some rights were given to Christian minorities to practise their faiths, these were limited and were a far cry from Enlightenment or contemporary ideas of secularism or religious freedom.'
Read more: Church and State: Don't mention the war!
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