Seperation of Church and State

Today I was perusing the The Library of Congress website. If you haven't been there yet I recommend it. It is rich, extensive and endlessly facinating. Currently they have a special web exhibit entitled "Religion and The Founding of The American Republic."

There was much to learn there that I didn't know. For instance, church services were held in both the House of Representatives and in the Old Supreme Court Chamber from the time of the Capitol's construction until well after the Civil War. Among the Presidents who regularly attended those services were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams.

Perhaps the library staff is sensitive to the religious opinions of the current adminstration, and that accounts for the presence of this particular exhibit. Still, it seems obvious that the constitutional seperation between church and state was less rigorously understood back then. Can you imagine church services being held in government buildings today? Even the most conservative among us might find that practice problematical.

However, those arguing for airtight seperation between church and state won't find much support in the practices of the people who founded our republican government.

Also of interest was mention of the very first Catholic clergyman to preach at these services on capitol hill. That clergyman's name was Bishop John England and his sermon was delivered on January 8, 1826. In part his remarks were a rebuttal of one passage in John Quincy Adams' oft quoted speech of July 4, 1821 that called the bonds between American government and Christianity "indisoluable." Those words would warm the heart of most Christian clerics, however, the section that caused Bishop England's distress was Adams' claim that the Roman Church's intollerance made it incompatable with republican government. As it happend Adams was in attendance that day to hear Bishop England say...

"we do not believe that God gave to the church any power to interfere with our civil rights, or our civil concerns. I would not allow to the Pope, or to any bishop of our church, the smallest interference with the humblest vote at our most insignificant balloting box."

Those are very republican sentiments indeed, yet in light of the role that many Catholic Bishops played in opposing the candidacy of John Kerry, I wonder if Bishop England spoke in error and Adams was right all along?