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September 23, 2003
Greeley on Church and State
The court decisions of the last half-century have twisted the establishment part of the clause beyond recognition and have notably interfered with the free exercise of religion. The justices have used clever little arguments that lawyers so dearly love to justify the establishment of unbelief as the official religion of America.
The underlying conviction that motivated these decisions back in the 1950s was that religion is really not a good thing and should not be permitted to interfere with the ordinary processes of American democracy.
With some exceptions, the legal theorists at the elite law schools of the country who support the "wall of separation" and their journalistic supporters are agnostics or atheists. Like any religious group, they want to establish their own religion, and they have done so.
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Via open book, an editorial by Andrew Greeley blasting [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 23, 2003 3:19:57 PM
Comments
Did Andrew W. Greeley just emerge from a coma?
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has been fighting against this for 30 years. Welcome aboard.
Posted by: Patrick Sweeney at Sep 23, 2003 8:35:05 AM
"(as we saw in the theft of the 2000 presidential election)"
Greeley is like the cow who gives a good bucket of milk and then kicks it over. Of course he's entitled to his opinion about the 2000 election, but inserting it in this column is completely gratuitous. It won't win him supporters from the liberals for his main idea and it can only alienate conservatives from his persona. Such a gifted and intelligent man so full of himself. It is a pity.
Posted by: Caroline at Sep 23, 2003 8:37:24 AM
"Like any religious group, they want to establish their own religion"
Oddly revealing statement about Catholicism in a pluralistic society.
Posted by: Wally at Sep 23, 2003 8:39:38 AM
Wally - is there any such thing as a "pluralistic society"? Well, yes, I suppose there is, but I wonder if such a thing can continue to exist indefinitely. Historically, religion creates communities, and communities, in the fullest sense of the word, are defined by their religion. Of course, you can look at a neighborhood and assume my statement isn't true, but really, are is a typical American neighborhood a community in any sense that people "share life"? Is there any committment? Even people who live in one place most of their lives easily sell out and move to Florida, or to a condo, or whatever. Certainly, religious "communities", i.e. parishes, display nothing more than that, as a rule. But that only means the trendy sign in the front proclaiming St. Modern's Catholic "Community" is a mockery. But then, much about a typical Catholic parish is a mockery of a Christian Church.
It seems to me the American experiment is not about establishing a single society, but a social in which societies can form, and in which they make space for one another. It is precisely the expansion of secularism that is crowding out faithful Christianity, as it will crowd out faithful Judaism and Islam. This is my point: that a social order eventually develops into a society devoted to one religion.
These thoughts are not complete - perhaps not coherent. But I do question whether a society can ever be religiously pluralistic in the long run.
Posted by: Ken at Sep 23, 2003 11:47:34 PM
Ken is confusing a community with a club.
Membership in a club is voluntary -- and in that sense, a religion whose members choose to join and practice it, is a club.
Membership in a community is not voluntary, in the sense that if I move into your 'community', you do not have the right to exclude me: that is the distinction between a club and a community.
For communities to function, of course, folks have to recognize that, and much of the yanking and banking that goes on in society relates to the idea that communities can exclude.
But Ken does identify something important, however inchoately: Roman Catholicism is now, and has always been profoundly disturbed by the possibility that the American experiment works, to the point of on some level being unable to understand what it even IS.
That's why Greeley (who doesn't believe there ever was an Americanist heresy), blithely expects that all religions want to 'establish' themselves.
Posted by: theAmericanist at Sep 24, 2003 6:23:44 AM
Greeley's analysis of the Supreme Court's Establishment Clause decisions is about on the same level as Protestants complaining about how Catholics worship the Pope. "Unnuanced" would be putting it lightly.
There's nothing wrong with a debate about the proper contours of the Religion Clauses. I happen to agree that the Court has gone too far in excluding religion from public life. But there are serious arguments on both sides -- not just "lawyer's arguments," but arguments from history, law, policy, and so on -- and it's just silly to claim that the courts have intentionally embarked on some sort of quest to strip America of its religiosity.
Posted by: Chris at Sep 24, 2003 10:45:54 AM
Part of the problem with analyzing the SCOTUS is that there really is no such thing as the rule of law. There is only the rule of at least five individuals, given the selective adherence to precedent. Regardless of what Greely's other points or beefs are with the American system, it is obvious that we are being forced a "religion" - the religion of no belief. This is not always coming from the SCOTUS, but from those administrators in power who make day-to-day decisions to ban, for example, a private citizen from handing out pencils that say "Jesus loves you" but who would not ban them if they said "Vote for Dean" or "Eat at Joe's". Content neutral my a--.
As for the "Amercian experiment" working, well, we seem to be moving more towards socialism every day. Not sure its "working" that well (depending on what you mean). By "working" do you mean that folks of all creeds (or no creed) get equal footing and chance to be heard? Just look at the religious test for our court appointees. Yeah, its working real well.
Posted by: c matt at Sep 24, 2003 12:24:32 PM
Oy.
There is no religious test for any public office, much less for Federal court nominations to be confirmed by the advice and consent of the Senate.
What C Matt doubtless refers to is the highly partisan debate over such nominations, in which 'the Catholic card' has been played with an astonishing lack of grace. Dozens of Democratic nominees were held up without a vote for years by the Senate, and a truly ugly backlash against the identical tactic is a result -- not good for the country, I grant you. I just wonder where folks who advocated votes for judicial nominees were five and 7 years ago.
What (I'm guessing) C Matt is referring to is the distinct unlikelihood that partisan lawyers who get nominated for lifetime judgeships based on their opposition to settled Constitutional law will be confirmed on the advice of the Senate. THAT is not a religious test at all -- particularly since a couple of the key Senators involved, e.g., Kennedy and Leahy, are Catholics.
On the other hand, I've noticed that many of the same folks who claim on the one hand, that Senate opposition to nominees who want to overturn settled law (such as Griswold, and return the regulation of sexual privacy to the states), also insist that folks like Kennedy and Leahy aren't actually Catholics.
Which is the distinction I made above, between a club, which can choose its members, and a community, which cannot.
LOL -- but an institution which (just to pick an example) flip-flopped to allow swastikas at the Communion rail in Germany in 1933 l ought to tread very lightly about making a POLITICAL test for who is, and is not a Catholic in the United States in 2003.
Posted by: theAmericanist at Sep 24, 2003 4:32:50 PM
