The Papal States were created as a country in the Post-Napoleonic age. A monarchy rather than a theocracy, the pope’s civil authority over non-Catholics within the Papal States was kept distinct from his ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Catholics everywhere. (For much the same reason, the Jewish state of Israel created in 1948 is not a theocracy.)

The Papal States were surrounded by hostile enemies: anti-clerical liberals in the north and anti-religious anarchists on the south. Suicide bombers and terrorist assassins constantly threatened the stability of the country.

During such uprisings, churches were burned, nuns were raped and priests were slaughtered, and in 1849 the pope fled Rome in fear of his life. Like Israel today, this 19th-century Catholic state was ringed by forces bent on its destruction.

Defenders of the Papal States considered questions about its right to survival to constitute anti-Catholicism. Meanwhile blind support for the civil government was expected from the faithful. Catholics in Italy were expected to tightly wrap Catholicism with nationalism and seek unification of the country under the pope rather than look either to Victor Emmanuel or Garibaldi.

Deeper perhaps than these ideological matters was how support for the Catholic state required accepting the Papal States’ policies. The civil affairs of the Papal States became dead weight dragging down Catholics in other countries.

In the 1840s, for instance, U.S. Catholics were accused of being unfaithful Americans because they gave allegiance to a “foreign potentate” whose ideas were inimical to civil rights.

Divorce was not permitted in the Papal States, Catholic rules against interfaith marriage formed the law of the land, publication of dissent was regulated when not also prohibited, and non-Catholics -- especially Jews -- were denied certain civil rights, particularly in educational and professional orbits.

In disputes over who was Catholic and who was Jewish, the Catholic definition prevailed. Legal decisions favored Catholics, such as in cases when wealthy Jews were taken to court because their hired Catholic help, were forbidden to wear religious medals and crosses.

(The display of Christian symbols within a Jewish household seems to be a particularly vexing practice, since I have been told that in Borough Park, Brooklyn today some live-in Eastern European Christian nannies are forbidden by Jewish employers to wear a crucifix.)

It is not surprising that Israelis encounter similar conflicts with the Christian and Muslim minorities of their country.

Official holidays follow the mandates of Jewish religious practice. Reform Jews find that the state prefers Orthodox rulings: Jews baptized into Catholicism do not have the legal right of immigration return; Muslims are regularly denied access to areas of Israeli educational and political life.

While some of the sharp edges of Papal States’ policies against minorities have been softened in today’s Israel, others have been hardened. For example, the 19th-century Roman Jewish ghetto seems a milder form of segregation than the Israeli containment of Palestinians.

Whatever one’s judgment, blind support for a Jewish state today imposes many of the same challenges as did Catholic support for the policies of the Papal States. In fact, even if one is critical of policies in the religious homeland, there is always a fear that public protest will unleash new waves of bigotry from outsiders.

The Papal States were eventually invaded and destroyed, to be replaced by today’s postage stamp-size Vatican City. Some would argue that this was a good result, replacing an awkward pro-Catholic state with a modern Italian nation, pledged to equality and freedom of religion for all citizens.

Would abandonment of status as “Jewish” similarly represent a “good thing” for Israel?

Before answering, remember that the Vatican’s residual sovereignty protected it from the Nazi plot to assassinate Pope Pius XII because he was a “Jew Lover” -- as Hitler put it -- using Catholic resources to save Jews from the camps. Similarly, is there any guarantee that the religious shrines of three faiths would be better protected by secularity than they have been in a religious Israel?

I really don’t know the answer to some of these questions, but I think moral clarity is preferable to self-serving political expediency. Moral judgment rests on principles which transcend the exigencies of the moment and are applicable not only to today’s Israel, but also to the 19th-century’s Papal States.

In my opinion, both situations with attendant issues of bigotry should be measured with the same criteria, even if history eventually delivers a different future for the Jewish State of Israel than for the Catholic Papal States.

Then, if we feel good about the verdict, we will have a formula to answering whether hostility towards the Iranian state constitutes bigotry against Shiite Muslims or betrayal of Islam.