Separation of State and Church
One of the common refrains from the left and from those not religious is the separation of church and state. The general idea is that politics gets perverted by religion. Centuries of history teach us this and in the grand tradition of our own country, the first immigrants were those escaping religious persecution.
It has been 50 years since Roe v. Wade and also nearly that amount of time since the Christian Coalition and Religious right got its start. Even without going into the origins of the movement and the potentially cynical motives behind it, we can look at what this movement has wrought.
So, I’m reversing it. We shouldn’t be worried about religion perverting our politics but about our politics perverting our religion. Let’s ignore the cynical adoption of abortion as the most important issue of the day. Let’s take most people at their word and assume they are deeply concerned about the issue and want to see it become truly rare.
History has clearly shown that deeply religious people can accomplish great things independent of the government. The Catholics have the Gabriel Project. Unfortunately, it is not as common as it used to be, but it essentially took scared mothers to be and offered counseling, financial assistance, and prayerful options that did not include abortion. Instead of making it illegal, condemning these young women, or preaching against it in the pulpit, they simply eliminated the need by helping them.
Our faith or lack of faith has a direct impact on our beliefs about how government should resolve or not resolve our problems. Jesus even said the poor would always be with us. The only possible way to remain sane is to separate those religious beliefs from our political ones. How can we best assist the poor? What standard of living should every human be guaranteed? How can we possibly mandate and make sure everyone is getting this standard of living?
These are all valuable and important political questions that should be independent of how we individually approach the problem. It is possible to be personally generous and politically selfish. It is possible to be personally pro life and politically pro choice. So, these opinions cannot be the full content of our character. We cannot allow it to define us. We must get back to a world where what we do and what we say matters much more than who we vote for in November.
It shouldn’t be boiled down to a singular issue. In the 1990s, the battle cry of the Republican party was that character matters. No matter what you think of Joe Biden politically, cognitively, or personally, there can be no doubt that he wins a character competition with Donald Trump. Even if Joe Biden isn’t a good man he still wins easily. It’s hard to imagine too many people on this planet that Trump would win a character battle with.
When you allow your fervor over one issue to blind you to the glaring gap in character you have allowed your politics to overwhelm your religion. When you allow one issue to overshadow all of the other ones your faith holds dear you have allowed politics to overwhelm your religion. When you allow your political beliefs to cause you to hate others that have opposing political beliefs then you have allowed politics to overwhelm your religion.
I will not presume to speak for God, but I am reasonably certain he will not ask me who I voted for. A wrong vote is not going to keep me out of heaven or anyone else for that matter. The bigger test is how I treated those around me. If our politics causes us to treat others worse it is time to separate ourselves from politics. So, others might say separate church and state. I say separate state and church.
It is unfortunate that you — presumably because of your background — chose to illustrate a nice, though squishy, general observation with the Catholics.
There is a reason that fascist regimes originated in Catholic countries: started in France, moved to Italy, Bavaria, Portugal, Spain . . .
Catholicism has never separated religion from politics. Never will, either.
1The Founding Fathers remembered what happened in Europe when politics and religion were not kept seprtre:
St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
(https://www.worldhistory.org/St._Bartholomew's_Day_Massacre/)
The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was a widespread slaughter of French Protestants (Huguenots) by Catholics beginning on 24 August 1572 and lasting over two months, resulting in the deaths of between 5,000 and 25,000 people. It began in Paris when the Catholic faction, fearing a Huguenot uprising, assassinated the leading Protestants who were there for a royal wedding.
Here’s another reason why the Founding Fathers wanted to keep religion and politics separate:
The Vicar of Bray – Lyrics(https://www.britainexpress.com/attraction-articles.htm?article=29)
The song tells the story of a clergyman who eagerly changed his views with every shift in the politial and religious climate, in order to maintain his position.
1. In good King Charles’ golden time, when loyalty no harm meant,
A zealous high churchman was I, and so I gained preferment.
To teach my flock, I never missed: Kings are by God appointed
And damned are those who dare resist or touch the Lord’s annointed.
(Chorus):
And this be law, that I’ll maintain until my dying day, sir
That whatsoever king may reign, Still I’ll be the Vicar of Bray, sir.
2. When royal James possessed the crown, and popery came in fashion,
2The penal laws I hooted down, and read the Declaration.
The Church of Rome, I found, did fit full well my constitution
And I had been a Jesuit, but for the Revolution.
The Catholic Church has more than enough blood on its hands.
3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade
The only reason we have separation –to the limited degree we do have it — is fearful competition among the sects.
Where one cult dominates — much of Texas will do for an example — church and state are pretty much unified.
As a Catholic growing up in the Deep South, I observed that Baptism and local government were nearly indistinguishable. Imagine my surprise when I learned that for the first 75 years or more of US history, it was the Baptists who were the persecuted minority and who spoke out for freedom of religion.
They did not mean it, of course.
Today, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are more reliably for separation of churchstate than most secular liberals.
4Nick Carraway, you continue to struggle with your feelings about the Catholic Church. My hope for you is that at some point you manage to make your decision.
5The GOP led by the likes of Mike Johnson want to formally declare the US a christian nationalist country. That would formally impose their beliefs into public policy, schools, legislation, public symbols, etc. Call it institutional discrimination. So, Nick, I’m not sure whether we should seperate state from church or church from state. I say both.
6Nick, there’s a lot in your piece I could argue with, but I can’t let the part about the Catholic “Gabriel Project” slide.
You say “Instead of making [abortion] illegal, condemning these young women, or preaching against it in the pulpit, they simply eliminated the need by helping them.”
Excuse me? If a girl or woman is pregnant by rape, incest, an abusive mate, failed contraception or no access to contraception, or she has medical or personal reasons to not continue a pregnancy, her NEED for an abortion is NOT “simply eliminated” by counseling, financial assistance, and prayerful options!
7The conundrum is like this: there are 3 powerful forces abroad that can hit any one any time – Religion, Government and Family. All 3 have an authoritarian streak. Any one of them can at some time ruin your life if not controlled.
8TX Expat,
Having a little bit of experience with the Gabriel Project, I will just tell you my own experience. Women that seek abortions seek them for any number of reasons, but the ones who come to the Gabriel Project are normally scared because they are unsure if they can emotionally or physically care for a child.
The volunteers are usually non-judgmental and simply try to find practical solutions to help alleviate some of those concerns. There is no catch all but the organization helps a lot of women that seek their help. Unfortunately, many Catholic churches have chosen to shutter the program in favor of a more strident message at the pulpit.
My personal and political feelings on abortion are complicated. I personally do not agree with it in most circumstances but fully acknowledge that its not my decision. I also acknowledge that no agency can help when the health of the mother or the child is at stake. We are unfortunately practicing an all or nothing mindset. Help as many as you can.
9So Nick, you seem to be on the Good Deeds side of the Salvation Equation, not the Evangelical side where getting the Go to Heaven Card only requires the acceptance of the Lord Jesus as you personal savior.
While I have considered myself as a non-Theist for the vast majority of my long life, if I had to choose between the two salvation alternatives, I really would prefer the ‘good deeds’ crowd. They seem to exhibit the What Would Jesus Do philosophy far better than those on the other side of the salvation equation.
10I had not heard of Gabriel before. It sounds like emotional bullying of vulnerable people. It’s what the Catholic Church does best.
Then there’s this: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/world/africa/gambia-female-genital-cutting.html
One thing’s sure: universalizing salvationist monotheism is the worst idea humans ever had.
11Hi Nick, I read your columns with interest. Here I feel I must express my sadness that my husband, a cradle Catholic, was told at Mass that if he voted for Obama, he was going to Hell. Except for funerals, he has almost never gone back to church since then, although he still considers himself a Catholic and does charity work for the church. I have never understood why the priest told his congregation such a thing. The Church is poorer for my husband’s absence.
12I don’t think so Harry. Of course, this is just my perspective and can be taken with a grain of salt. I think the difference in my mind is that people come to the Gabriel Project for help. They don’t stand outside clinics or browbeat people. Obviously, I can’t personally guarantee that everyone is treated in a loving and nonjudgmental way, but that is the idea behind the GP. The idea is to help provide the things needed to help make it easier to either keep the baby or facilitate the adoption process.
13It’s a big church. For every Dorothy Day, a hundred Magdalene Laundries.
Or, since I live in Maryland, diocese of Baltimore, spending millions to blacken the names of children it raped.
14An aspect of the abortion ban which seems to be lost in the scramble to pass the most severe, no exceptions legislation, is the fact that the life of a pregnant woman is at risk every second of that pregnancy. Thousands of women, with planned pregnancies, will die or suffer organ damage due to complications of miscarriages unless every hospital ER is able to end the pregnancy in order to stop severe blood loss. The
15priority should be saving the life of the mother. Most men and women who have not experienced this, religious or not, have
no idea that a ban will mean sentencing young mothers-to-be to death.
That’s an issue that has split the Roman church for a long time.
When I was in high school, our religion teacher was in the save-the-mother camp. I don’t know of any reliable survey of the Church as a whole, but, notoriously, the Vienna Lying-in Hospital in the 1th c. was in the kill-the-mother camp. (We happen to know this because of the Semmelweis affair.
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