This rejectionism had, over time, crystallized — some would say, fossilized — into the view that the legal establishment of the Catholic Church as the official religion of the state was the desired arrangement (the «thesis,» in the theological jargon of the day), while
other arrangements (like the American constitutional order) were mere «hypotheses» that could,
under certain historical
circumstances, be «
tolerated» — even as Catholics in countries governed by the «hypothesis» worked for the day when the «thesis» of Catholic establishment could be....