The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives. . . We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn’t stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.”- Senator Barry Goldwater, September 15, 1981, speech to the U.S. Senate.
In all the constitution, God is not mentioned once – either by word or by allusion. The first amendment is the cornerstone of the document. And without it this republic would not be possible. As to religion and its relationship to government, there is one simple idea. Separate them. The constitution protects religion and it’s practice from the tyranny of government. But just as importantly, it protects government and civil affairs from the tyranny of religion. By exquisitely exploiting the tension between religious freedom and freedom from religion, the founding fathers gave us a common sense, timeless approach, and nuanced guide for defining the nexus between the state and the church.
Clearly churches and parishes should be exempt from federal regulations requiring that employee insurance cover birth control if that indeeds violates its tenants and practice. The possible tyranny of forcing priests and lay clergy to obey theses rules would be a direct assault on the church and its sacred mission. However larger institutions, such as colleges and hospitals under church authority that employ and serve large segments of our citizenry regardless of their religious beliefs, should not be exempt from the laws that apply to other institutions in the nation that provide the same services.
This storm of controversy is disingenuous. The church has always understood that these institutions and activities clearly overlap in the civil affairs of the nation. Twenty-eight states have long required Catholic- run hospitals, universities and other organizations to provide prescription birth control coverage in one form or another. On occasion in the past, the Church has fought similar regulations in the courts and consistently failed to prevail. In fact, it has not won a single case. It is puzzling that the church has ultimately had no trouble “rendering unto Caesar” as long as it’s a state. God forbid, if it’s the federal government in an election year!
It also might be well to remember that these large, complex, church-affiliated institutions are extensions of the Catholic Church’s scope and mission beyond the charitable and into the civil arena that, of its own will, it chooses to do. These are often indispensable missions for which the nation and our citizens are blessed and thankful, but the Church has thus chosen to be an employer, a big business, and is thus subject to the laws governing all other such businesses. If regulations protecting workers and their healthcare are dropped, what might be the next ‘sin’ from which the church would want a legal exemption — because of a law it objects to on sometimes shifting moral grounds? It seems a slippery slope indeed to an inappropriate intrusion of religion into the civil affairs of the nation. The Church’s demand for exemption for non-clerical institutions which employ and serve many non-Catholics in non-religious fields is potentially just as tyrannical as a government forcing the churches and parishes to participate in the new regulations.
Luckily all is working well in the republic as it has for two hundred years. Thanks to the other clauses in the first amendment guaranteeing free speech, free expression and the rights to redress and petion the government, the nation has had a spirited debate on the freedom of religion clause in the first amendment. After all, few citizens are invited by the President to petion and redress the government so directly as Cardinal Dolan was several weeks ago in the oval office. So much for the trumped up war on religion.
On Friday the 1oth, President Obama decided on a course that more broadly defined religious freedom and anounced a compromise version of the regulations that exempts, not just the church, but all of its institutions, from having to provide contraceptive coverage in their insurance plans, but there will be a way for women to be covered. The exemption is a strict separation of church and state, a conservative reading and application of the religious clause of the first amendentment.
It is a wonder why Cardinal Dolan and Speaker of the House John Boehner were so tepid in their response to their victory. Beyond wonder is why they called for congress to enact special religious liberty laws after such a complete victory for their interpretation of the first amendment. Perhaps the Church and the Speaker of the House could spend Congress’s time better by working and speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute, which is a scriptural mission of the Church.
Both should move with the same vigorous energy and earnest purpose they exerted on the healthcare regulation controversy, working to solve the nation’s desperate economic problems and making sure the poor, the working poor and the hungry, who are mostly children – living in every parish in the nation — are adequately fed and looked after. Let’s move on from worrying about who might or might not be born and care for the children who have been.
