Separation of Church and State

Separation of Church and State
by Carlos T Mock, MD
December 12, 2009

The Bible states that hostile questioners tried to trap Jesus into taking an explicit and dangerous stand on whether Jews should or should not pay taxes to the Roman occupation. They anticipated that Jesus would oppose the tax, for Luke’s Gospels explains their purpose was “to hand him over to the power and authority of the governor.” The governor was Pilate, and he was the man responsible for the collecting of Rome's taxes in Judea. At first the questioners flattered Jesus by praising his integrity, impartiality and devotion to truth. Then they asked him whether or not it was right for Jews to pay the taxes demanded by Caesar. Jesus first called them hypocrites, and then asked one of them to produce a Roman coin that would be suitable for paying Caesar’s tax. One of them showed him a Roman coin, and he asked them whose name and inscription were on it. They answered, “Caesar’s,” and he responded “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.” His interrogators were flummoxed by this authoritative answer and left disappointed.

Jesus can be interpreted to be saying that his religious teachings were separate from earthly political activity. This reading finds support in John 18:36, where Jesus responds to Pontius Pilate about the nature of his kingdom, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” This reflects a traditional division in Christian thought by which state and church have separate spheres of influence.

Our forefathers were keen to protect religious freedom as stated in the First Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. “

However, The United States has recently gone from a State in which the balance of separation of Church and State has tipped to a State where religious groups are trying to impose their views on the government. A recent example is the rift between Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island with Thomas J. Tobin, the Roman Catholic bishop of Providence. His eminence proceeded to ask the congressman to refrain from taking communion for his views on reproductive choice.

Now, our President has been hijacked by the U. S. Conference of Bishops who are meddling in the reproductive rights of women in the fight over a universal health-care bill.

The acrimonious debate that surrounded this legislation on the floor of the House, coupled with shortsighted acceptance of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, set the stage for the further erosion of a woman's access to abortion for whatever the reason—rape, incest, poverty, illness—even beyond the limits of the current Hyde Amendment.

Catholic bishops have every right to speak their mind and preach the church's teaching. But they are engaging in outright political lobbying. Helping to write legislation that turns Catholic doctrine into law. Violating the separation of church and state—and Jesus’ own teachings on the subject. The bishops, in accepting vast federal funding for Catholic hospitals and charities, "never question their own ability to lawfully manage funds from separate sources to ensure that tax dollars don't finance religious practices. Yet they reject the idea that others could do the same. This is the very definition of hypocrisy."

Hypocrisy compounded by what the bishops are doing in Washington, D.C., when it comes to the issue of same-sex marriage, their other primary fixation. There, the local archdiocese has threatened to shut down its extensive social service programs for the needy if the city legalizes same-sex marriage.

So much for the stated mission of protecting the vulnerable. Now, the vulnerable are to be used as dice in a political gamble.

The pending bill appropriately exempts religious institutions from having to marry same-sex couples, promote same-sex marriage or rent church property to them for receptions or other affairs. But this bill rightly requires that employers providing spousal benefits to employees extend those same benefits to same-sex partners who marry. This law, which deals with the civic institution of marriage and not religious doctrine, would cover Catholic Charities, an organization that receives public funds and that does extraordinary work feeding and housing the poor in Washington and elsewhere in the country.

Critics of the archdiocese’s position rightly point out that other Catholic leaders have found a way to accommodate same-sex partnerships without compromising their values.

As has been noted by some members of the City Council, Georgetown University, a Catholic university, has written eligibility for its staff and faculty benefits program broadly, so that employees can extend benefits to other eligible adults with whom they may or may not be romantically involved. Lawmakers point to a similar arrangement in San Francisco, where church officials reached an agreement with the city in the late 1990s under which church-related employers allowed employees to designate a member of the household as a “spousal equivalent.” These agreements preserved the beliefs of the church and the legal rights of the employees, without compelling the church to explicitly recognize gay marriages or domestic partnerships.

Another case in point is Maine. The Catholic Church Spent $550,000 to Repeal Gay Marriage Law in Maine—where the Catholic Church actually organized a second collection to raise money to prevent gay people from having civil rights, the situation shifts again. Using a tax-exempt church to raise money to defeat the civil rights of fellow citizens is shocking if one believes in a separation of politics and religion, and if one believes that the Church of Jesus should stand in solidarity with the marginalized, rather than seeking to marginalize and demonize them still further.

It is time to acknowledge that the Catholic Church hierarchy can no longer pretend that it isn’t the active enemy of women, gay people and our families. That this church hierarchy—especially in its more conservative wing—is disproportionately gay itself and waging war against their fellow gays through the cowardly veil of the closet.

It is time to demand that gay priests who are actively fighting against the dignity of gay people own their enmeshment in injustice, stigmatization and cruelty. It is time to reveal them in this respect as the enemies of the Gospels, not the champions.

It is time to tell the Church that we are Gay, Catholic and fed up with The Church's efforts to quash the same-sex marriage movement. It is time to join forces with Phil Attey who has come up with a controversial strategy: outing gay priests who speak out against homosexuality: http://churchouting.com.

And it is time to force the Bishops in the Catholic Church to protect the innocent from pedophile priests. When the Roman Catholic archdiocese in Seattle, WA, declared bankruptcy this week, it began a new phase in the church's effort to put the sexual abuse scandal behind it. Other dioceses—finding themselves with not enough financial assets to settle the legal claims of the victims—will follow suit.

It is time to get the federal government involved in opening the church to greater scrutiny of its finances, facilities, and programs around the country—they need to enforce the important separation of church-state issues.

It is time for The Catholic Church to do an honest evaluation of itself as well as the abuse of authority of centuries-old canon law.