Catholic Excuses - 7 - 25

Catholic Excuses – 7 – 25
cinops be gone Wednesday, August 20, 2008
We continue with David Carlin’s book, “Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?”
49. “At first glance, an excuse that appeals to the “separation of church and state” seems to be among the silliest rationales for a Catholic’s support of the secularized Democratic Party. This separation, so we’re told, is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and it prohibits the intrusion of religion into the affairs of government.

Yet the First Amendment says nothing about keeping religion out of government; it’s concerned instead with keeping government out of religion. Its two religion “clauses” say (1) that there will be no “establishment of religion” and (2) that there will not interference with the “free exercise” of religion. That’s it: government must keep its hands off religion; nothing about religion keeping its hands off government.” 130 (THIS IS ONE OF THE BIG CATHOLIC EXCUSES)

I talked to a Catholic the other day and he repeats the line, a solid line between religion and government. We should not cross that line. Don’t you want cures from embryonic stem-cell research? We should support the government in this Endeavour. It is obvious that he is not grounded in his Catholic faith which only supports adult embryonic stem-cell research. GHK

Now here is something interesting from CINOP and pro-choice Bill Press in his book, “How the Republicans Stole Christmas.”
“In fact, tearing down the First Amendment’s historic wall of separation between church and state is the express aim of religious conservatives today, and they make no bones about it. After an October 2004 meeting with President Bush, Philadelphia’s Cardinal Justin Rigali issued a statement deploring “separation of church and state” as “A MISINTERPRETATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.” 38

In the Supreme Court’s 1985 Wallace v. Jaffree decision, which declared unconstitutional an Alabama law requiring that the school begin with a moment of “silent meditation or voluntary prayer,” then Associate Justice Rehnquist issued a blistering dissent: “The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor that has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.” 40

I recall being a substitute teacher in the Waltham, Mass. Public Elementary School System during the spring of 1962. I read short excerpts from the Bible to the children. This was a positive educational experience for them. It was not unconstitutional.
The L.A. Tidings issue, Dec. 9th, 05 p. 20, George Weigel hit the nail on the head.

The Framers’ intent to foster a robust religious life in America by preventing the Federal government from ‘establishing’ a denomination as the governmentally approved faith has now been turned inside out. Today, the first amendment is widely understood to require not simply government ‘neutrality’ between denominations, or between belief and unbelief, but government suspicion of, bordering on hostility to any public manifestation of religious conviction in the public square.
George H. Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate into Spanish and Vietnamese.