There's a difference between what parties call themselves and what they do. For example, if you ask the leader of the Christian Democratic Union in Germany (who is also currently the chancellor) whether he supports Germany to be solely Christian nation, declaring the Bible as the ultimate source of state morality and legal philosophy, and impose Christian religious law on the population, he will ask whether you're out of your mind and what asylum you just escaped from. But ask the same to the leaders of the "secular" US Republican Party and you may receive a vastly different answer.

"Separation of church and state" means little to people who think along the lines of the Imperium and think it's a great template for your real world government. I'm not even catholic, but the backlash tells me this new pope seems rather a swell choice if he's going to keep on with what the last guy was into. (Catholic coverups aside, there really isn't a perfect choice on that though so Swiss cheese solutions it is.)