First, the events leading up to Archbishop Chaput’s Repudiation of Professor Diotallevi’s Reply

A short while ago, March 6, to be exact,  I published an article entitled John F. Kennedy’s Crime, which concerned John F. Kennedy’s a campaign speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association some 50 years prior on September 12, 1960, and Archbishop Charles Chaput’s speech before the Houston Baptist University this past March 1, wherein he addressed Kennedy’s crime, its affect on the American political process, and in particular its affect on American Christians of every stripe.

In his speech Kennedy had tried, as politicians are so often want to do, to have it both ways without offending people on either side of an issue. After all, he was trying to get as many votes from those pastors and their flocks as he could, and truth be damned. To do that, he proclaimed that he would not betray his faith as president of the United States, and it if came to it that he would have to act against his faith to remain loyal to his office as president, he would resign the office rather than betray his faith. He was sure it would not come to that however because he believed in adhering strictly to the mandate of the Constitution of the United States of complete separation of Church and state. That was his doctrine and he was going to stick to it no matter what; never mind that the First Amendment contains no such doctrine.

The First Amendment to the Constitution states:

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.

Did you see anything in there about the separation of Church and state? The First Amendment only of “religion,” stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The remainder of that amendment speaks of freedom of speech, of the press, the right of people to peaceably assemble, petition the Government for redress of grievances. There is nothing there about separation of Church and statement no matter how you slice it; it just isn’t there.

In saying he was a believer in the separation of Church and state he was proclaiming that he was a Christian first, except…except when his faith contradicted the needs of the state; in which case he would act as a member in good standing of the godless society.

The primary reason for my publishing that article was to showcase the speech by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, The Vocation of Christians in American Public Life, on March 1, 2010 at the Houston Baptist University wherein he registered his complete disagreement with John F. Kennedy concept of the separation of Church and state.

Sadly, at the time I wrote that article, which included the text of Archbishop Charles Chaput’s speech, I did not know of the existence of a video of that speech on YouTube. I am including that video here. Rather you read the archbishop’s speech earlier or not, I highly recommend you watch this video. I think you will find the presentation of the speech captured in this video will add immensely to your understanding of the proper Orthodox Catholic Christian perspective of the place of God and the Church in the United States in light of the First Amendment of the Bill of Right of the U.S. Constitution. The question and answer session that follows the archbishop’s speech included at the end of this video will add to your general understanding of the man and his positions on the matter at hand.

A reply to the good archbishop’s speech was not long in coming. The reply was from one Professor Diotallevi, a sociologist of religion, student of American society, and adviser to the Italian bishops’ conference. The professor’s reply was delivered on April 12, on www.chielsa.

Separating Church and State Isn’t Just an Option, It’s a Must

by Luca Diotallevi

The remarks by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, who asserts a connection between the famous 1960 speech by John F. Kennedy in front of an audience of Protestant pastors in Houston and the subsequent wave of “secularism” that hit American culture in the late 1960′s and 1970′s, deserve comment.

For the sake of brevity, I will limit myself to presenting two critical observations and two avenues of research. (continue reading)

Here follows the complete text of the archbishop’s reply. Or, you may read it, if you choose on www.chiesa. Should you choose to go to that website to read archbishop’s refutation of Diotallevi’s criticisms, you will also be able to see a rather good further reply to Diotallevi by James Hitchcock.

A Reply to Professor Diotallevi

By Charles J. Chaput

I’m grateful to Professor Diotallevi for his comments on my March 1 talk at Houston Baptist University. He and I clearly differ in our interpretation of John Kennedy’s 1960 Houston speech on the role of religion in American public life. We also differ on the proper understanding of the “separation of Church and state” in light of my nation’s founding documents and history. I offer here a few thoughts in response to his remarks.

First, Professor Diotallevi suggests that Jesuit John Courtney Murray‘s influence on the Kennedy speech is “easy to trace.” Regrettably, Father Murray, by his own account, had little influence on the Kennedy speech. In fact, if Murray had played the role Diotallevi suggests, it would have been a different and far better speech. It’s true that Murray, along with John Cogley and others, was consulted in the development of the Kennedy text. But as Murray himself later noted, most of his counsel was ignored. In Murray’s words, Kennedy “was far more of a separationist than I am.” Anyone steeped in Murray’s writings who reads the Kennedy speech will see why Murray distanced himself from the 1960 text. Kennedy’s view of religion as an essentially private matter, with little bearing on a leader’s public duties, differs sharply from Murray’s beliefs about the relationship of Church and state, and faith and public life.

Second, Diotallevi suggests that Kennedy would never have preached a radical separation of faith and the public square to an audience of Protestant ministers accustomed to “the Christian experience manifesting itself in every aspect of public life.” But again regrettably, the professor has misread my March text. As Jesuit scholar Mark Massa notes in his own essay (which I quote at length in my talk) the 1960 Kennedy speech, in the context of the times, sounded quite congenial to Protestant ears because it neutralized worries about Kennedy’s Catholic roots. But it had a stealth content with far-reaching and drastic implications, alien to the American historical experience. The damage became clear only with the passage of time. Whether Kennedy intended the harshly secularist consequences of his speech or not, is irrelevant. The important thing is that he took the American “faith and public life” discussion in a very new direction, and he set the stage for two generations of Catholic political leaders to separate their religiously-informed moral beliefs from their political witness in a convenient but morally destructive way.

Third, in taking issue with my use of the word “Church” throughout my talk, Diotallevi unfortunately seems to have overlooked key sections of my actual remarks. Perhaps this is an issue of translation, and I have misunderstood his concern. To reprise what I actually said:

“Christianity is not mainly – or even significantly – about politics. It’s about living and sharing the love of God. And Christian political engagement, when it happens, is never mainly the task of the clergy. That work belongs to lay believers who live most intensely in the world.” Several lines later, I note that “Christians individually and the Church as a believing community engage the political order as an obligation of the Word of God.”

Contrary to what the professor seems to be saying, there is nothing “very complicated” in these ideas. They are plain and straightforward, flowing rather obviously from the Gospel. Nowhere do I suggest that the hierarchical structure of the Church is the preferred manner for Catholic interaction with the political order. In fact, I say just the opposite. Diotallevi seems to infer from my comments a kind of crypto-integralism. Given a European frame of reference, this may be understandable. But nothing in the actual text of my remarks supports that curious view, and for good reason: Like nearly every other citizen of the United States, including the late John Courtney Murray, I believe strongly in the separation of Church and state, properly understood and as the American Founders intended it.

And what do I mean by a “proper” understanding of Church-state separation? I mean exactly what the American bishops meant when speaking about our nation’s constitutional legacy in their excellent 1948 pastoral letter, “The Christian in Action.” For very shrewd pragmatic reasons, John Kennedy selectively referenced – and also selectively ignored – the content of that pastoral letter in his 1960 Houston speech. Professor Diotallevi seems unaware of it. But as a scholar, he might find it useful to complete his understanding of the American political tradition – and Kennedy’s departure from it.

Finally, the professor seems to worry that my remarks run the risk of encouraging “some of the ‘evangelical’ or neoconservative positions most widespread in the American Protestant world, but also in some fringes of the Catholic world.” Let me respond simply by noting that the pro-life and pro-family witness of American evangelicals is commendable. I only wish that it were emulated more fully by many of those American Catholics who describe themselves as “liberal” or “progressive.” Evangelicals and Catholics who (along with Eastern Orthodox Christians, Latter-day Saints, many observant Jews, and others) speak out in defense of the sanctity of life and the dignity of marriage, deserve praise, not derision. They labor in the tradition of activists for civil rights – a moral cause led by religious believers — who refused to “privatize” their faith. Their witness may be out of harmony with John Kennedy’s remarks in Houston; but they are fully in the spirit of Martin Luther King’s actions in Selma.

Of course, every political movement has its zealots and opportunists. Political engagement will sometimes be marked by excesses of enthusiasm and a lack of prudence. And some people will inevitably seek to use the Gospel and the Church for their own partisan advantage. But Christians are called to be the best of good citizens. We have a duty to work for justice and the common good. We may not excuse ourselves from that obligation by citing the foolishness, selfishness, or hypocrisy of others, or the human imperfections of the political causes that deserve our energetic support.

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Memories of John F. Kennedy and His Crime

Sen. John F. Kennedy Addressing the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Sept. 12, 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX

Some of my memories of President John F. Kennedy are so indelible it is as if they happened only yesterday. One of those memories is of Senator John Kennedy going to Houston to face a group of ministers in an effort to prove to them that his Catholic faith would not keep him from being a good President of the United States. What I, and probably most of those ministers, didn’t realize then was that Senator Kennedy committed a grievous crime that night as he stood there before them defending his ability to perform the task he aspired to without being hindered by the tenants of his Catholic faith. The crime he committed was in theorizing the most rigid separation of Church and state, in order to be acceptable as president.  It wasn’t a criminal act according to the law of the land, but it was a crime against the American people, the Roman Catholic Church, and, by extension, against all American Christians of every branch of Christianity—including the ministers before whom he spoke that fateful night. In short, it was a crime or sin, if you will, against God in his fellowman everywhere.

Here is a talk given by Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, some 50 years later, before that selfsame group of ministers which was the very scene of Kennedy’s crime. I think it reasonable to assume that, by the time the Archbishop Charles finished speaking that night, those ministers understood the crime Kennedy had committed when he spoke before them that night.

THE VOCATION OF CHRISTIANS IN AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE

by Charles J. Chaput

Charles J. Chaput, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Denver

One of the ironies in my talk tonight is this. I’m a Catholic bishop, speaking at a Baptist university in America’s Protestant heartland. But I’ve been welcomed with more warmth and friendship than I might find at a number of Catholic venues. This is a fact worth discussing. I’ll come back to it at the end of my comments. [...]

I need to offer a few caveats before I turn to the substance of our discussion.

The first caveat is this: My thoughts tonight are purely my own. I don’t speak for the Holy See, or the American Catholic bishops, or the Houston Catholic community. In the Catholic tradition, the local bishop is the chief preacher and teacher of the faith, and the shepherd of the local Church. Here in Houston you have an outstanding bishop – a man of great Christian faith and intellect – in Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. In all things Catholic tonight, I’m glad to defer to his leadership.

Here’s my second caveat: I’m here as a Catholic Christian and an American citizen – in that order. Both of these identities are important. They don’t need to conflict. They are not, however, the same thing. And they do not have the same weight. I love my country. I revere the genius of its founding documents and its public institutions. But no nation, not even the one I love, has a right to my allegiance, or my silence, in matters that belong to God or that undermine the dignity of the human persons He created.

My third caveat is this: Catholics and Protestants have different memories of American history. The historian Paul Johnson once wrote that America was “born Protestant” ¹. That’s clearly true. Whatever America is today or may become tomorrow, its origin was deeply shaped by a Protestant Christian spirit, and the fruit of that spirit has been, on the balance, a great blessing for humanity. But it’s also true that, while Catholics have always thrived in the United States, they lived through two centuries of discrimination, religious bigotry and occasional violence. Protestants of course will remember things quite differently. They will remember Catholic persecution of dissenters in Europe, the entanglements of the Roman Church and state power, and papal suspicion of democracy and religious liberty.

We can’t erase those memories. And we cannot – nor should we try to – paper over the issues that still divide us as believers in terms of doctrine, authority and our understandings of the Church. Ecumenism based on good manners instead of truth is empty. It’s also a form of lying. If we share a love of Jesus Christ and a familial bond in baptism and God’s Word, then on a fundamental level, we’re brothers and sisters. Members of a family owe each other more than surface courtesies. We owe each other the kind of fraternal respect that “speak[s] the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). We also urgently owe each other solidarity and support in dealing with a culture that increasingly derides religious faith in general, and the Christian faith in particular. And that brings me to the heart of what I want to share with you.

*

Our theme tonight is the vocation of Christians in American public life. That’s a pretty broad canvas. Broad enough that I wrote a book about it. Tonight I want to focus in a special way on the role of Christians in our country’s civic and political life. The key to our discussion will be that word “vocation.” It comes from the Latin word “vocare,” which means, “to call.” Christians believe that God calls each of us individually, and all of us as a believing community, to know, love and serve him in our daily lives.

But there’s more. He also asks us to make disciples of all nations. That means we have a duty to preach Jesus Christ. We have a mandate to share his Gospel of truth, mercy, justice and love. These are mission words; action words. They’re not optional. And they have practical consequences for the way we think, speak, make choices and live our lives, not just at home but in the public square. Real Christian faith is always personal, but it’s never private. And we need to think about that simple fact in light of an anniversary.

Fifty years ago this fall, in September 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president, spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He had one purpose. He needed to convince 300 uneasy Protestant ministers, and the country at large, that a Catholic like himself could serve loyally as our nation’s chief executive. Kennedy convinced the country, if not the ministers, and went on to be elected. And his speech left a lasting mark on American politics. It was sincere, compelling, articulate – and wrong. Not wrong about the patriotism of Catholics, but wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation’s life. And he wasn’t merely “wrong.” His Houston remarks profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, but of all religious believers, in America’s public life and political conversation. Today, half a century later, we’re paying for the damage.

Now those are strong statements. So I’ll try to explain them by doing three things. First, I want to look at the problems in what Kennedy actually said. Second, I want to reflect on what a proper Christian approach to politics and public service might look like. And last, I want to examine where Kennedy’s speech has led us – in other words, the realities we face today, and what Christians need to do about those realities.

*
John Kennedy was a great speaker. Ted Sorensen, who helped craft the Houston speech, was a gifted writer. As a result, it’s easy to speed-read Kennedy’s Houston remarks as a passionate appeal for tolerance. But the text has at least two big flaws ². The first is political and historical. The second is religious.

Early in his remarks, Kennedy said: “I believe in an America where the separation of Church and state is absolute.” Given the distrust historically shown to Catholics in this country, his words were shrewdly chosen. The trouble is, the Constitution doesn’t say that. The Founders and Framers didn’t believe that. And the history of the United States contradicts that. Unlike revolutionary leaders in Europe, the American Founders looked quite favorably on religion. Many were believers themselves. In fact, one of the main reasons for writing the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause – the clause that bars any federally-endorsed Church – was that several of the Constitution’s Framers wanted to protect the publicly funded Protestant Churches they already had in their own states. John Adams actually preferred a “mild and equitable establishment of religion” and helped draft that into the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution ³.

America’s Founders encouraged mutual support between religion and government. Their reasons were practical. In their view, a republic like the United States needs a virtuous people to survive. Religious faith, rightly lived, forms virtuous people. Thus, the modern, drastic sense of the “separation of Church and state” had little force in American consciousness until Justice Hugo Black excavated it from a private letter President Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association ⁴. Justice Black then used Jefferson’s phrase in the Supreme Court’s Everson v. Board of Education decision in 1947.

The date of that Court decision is important, because America’s Catholic bishops wrote a wonderful pastoral letter one year later – in 1948 – called “The Christian in Action.” It’s worth reading. In that letter, the bishops did two things. They strongly endorsed American democracy and religious freedom. They also strongly challenged Justice Black’s logic in Everson.

The bishops wrote that “it would be an utter distortion of American history and law” to force the nation’s public institutions into an “indifference to religion and the exclusion of cooperation between religion and government.” They rejected Justice Black’s harsh new sense of the separation of Church and state as a “shibboleth of doctrinaire secularism” ⁵. And the bishops argued their case from the facts of American history.

The value of remembering that pastoral statement tonight is this: Kennedy referenced the 1948 bishops’ letter in his Houston comments. He wanted to prove the deep Catholic support for American democracy. And rightly so. But he neglected to mention that the same bishops, in the same letter, repudiated the new and radical kind of separation doctrine he was preaching.

The Houston remarks also created a religious problem. To his credit, Kennedy said that if his duties as President should “ever require me to violate my conscience or violate the national interest, I would resign the office.” He also warned that he would not “disavow my views or my church in order to win this election.” But in its effect, the Houston speech did exactly that. It began the project of walling religion away from the process of governance in a new and aggressive way. It also divided a person’s private beliefs from his or her public duties. And it set “the national interest” over and against “outside religious pressures or dictates.”

For his audience of Protestant ministers, Kennedy’s stress on personal conscience may have sounded familiar and reassuring. But what Kennedy actually did, according to Jesuit scholar Mark Massa, was something quite alien and new. He “‘secularize[d] the American presidency in order to win it.” In other words, “[P]recisely because Kennedy was not an adherent of that mainstream Protestant religiosity that had created and buttressed the ‘plausibility structures’ of [American] political culture at least since Lincoln, he had to ‘privatize’ presidential religious belief – including and especially his own – in order to win that office” ⁶.

In Massa’s view, the kind of secularity pushed by the Houston speech “represented a near total privatization of religious belief – so much a privatization that religious observers from both sides of the Catholic/Protestant fence commented on its remarkable atheistic implications for public life and discourse.” And the irony – again as told by Massa – is that some of the same people who worried publicly about Kennedy’s Catholic faith got a result very different from the one they expected. In effect, “the raising of the [Catholic] issue itself went a considerable way toward ‘secularizing’ the American public square by privatizing personal belief. The very effort to ‘safeguard’ the [essentially Protestant] religious aura of the presidency… contributed in significant ways to its secularization.”

Fifty years after Kennedy’s Houston speech, we have more Catholics in national public office than ever before. But I wonder if we’ve ever had fewer of them who can coherently explain how their faith informs their work, or who even feel obligated to try. The life of our country is no more “Catholic” or “Christian” than it was 100 years ago. In fact it’s arguably less so. And at least one of the reasons for it is this: Too many Catholics confuse their personal opinions with a real Christian conscience. Too many live their faith as if it were a private idiosyncrasy – the kind that they’ll never allow to become a public nuisance. And too many just don’t really believe. Maybe it’s different in Protestant circles. But I hope you’ll forgive me if I say, “I doubt it.”

*

John Kennedy didn’t create the trends in American life that I’ve described. But at least for Catholics, his Houston speech clearly fed them. Which brings me to the second point of my talk: What would a proper Christian approach to politics look like? John Courtney Murray, the Jesuit scholar who spoke so forcefully about the dignity of American democracy and religious freedom, once wrote: “The Holy Spirit does not descend into the City of Man in the form of a dove. He comes only in the endlessly energetic spirit of justice and love that dwells in the man of the City, the layman” ⁷.

Here’s what that means. Christianity is not mainly – or even significantly –- about politics. It’s about living and sharing the love of God. And Christian political engagement, when it happens, is never mainly the task of the clergy. That work belongs to lay believers who live most intensely in the world. Christian faith is not a set of ethics or doctrines. It’s not a group of theories about social and economic justice. All these things have their place. All of them can be important. But a Christian life begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ; and it bears fruit in the justice, mercy and love we show to others because of that relationship.

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (Mt 22:37-40). That’s the test of our faith, and without a passion for Jesus Christ in our hearts that reshapes our lives, Christianity is just a word game and a legend. Relationships have consequences. A married man will commit himself to certain actions and behaviors, no matter what the cost, out of the love he bears for his wife. Our relationship with God is the same. We need to live and prove our love by our actions, not just in our personal and family lives, but also in the public square. Therefore Christians individually and the Church as a believing community engage the political order as an obligation of the Word of God. Human law teaches and forms as well as regulates; and human politics is the exercise of power – which means both have moral implications that the Christian cannot ignore and still remain faithful to his vocation as a light to the world (Mt 5:14-16).

Robert Dodaro, the Augustinian priest and scholar, wrote a wonderful book a few years ago called “Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine”. In his book and elsewhere, Dodaro makes four key points about Augustine’s view of Christianity and politics ⁸.

First, Augustine never really offers a political theory, and there’s a reason. He doesn’t believe human beings can know or create perfect justice in this world. Our judgment is always flawed by our sinfulness. Therefore, the right starting point for any Christian politics is humility, modesty and a very sober realism.

Second, no political order, no matter how seemingly good, can ever constitute a just society. Errors in moral judgment can’t be avoided. These errors also grow exponentially in their complexity as they move from lower to higher levels of society and governance. Therefore the Christian needs to be loyal to his nation and obedient to its legitimate rulers. But he also needs to cultivate a critical vigilance about both.

Third, despite these concerns, Christians still have a duty to take part in public life according to their God-given abilities, even when their faith brings them into conflict with public authority. We can’t simply ignore or withdraw from civic affairs. The reason is simple. The classic civic virtues named by Cicero – prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance – can be renewed and elevated, to the benefit of all citizens, by the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity. Therefore, political engagement is a worthy Christian task, and public office is an honorable Christian vocation.

Fourth, in governing as best they can, while conforming their lives and their judgment to the content of the Gospel, Christian leaders in public life can accomplish real good, and they can make a difference. Their success will always be limited and mixed. It will never be ideal. But with the help of God they can improve the moral quality of society, which makes the effort invaluable.

What Augustine believes about Christian leaders, we can reasonably extend to the vocation of all Christian citizens. The skills of the Christian citizen are finally very simple: a zeal for Jesus Christ and his Church; a conscience formed in humility and rooted in Scripture and the believing community; the prudence to see which issues in public life are vital and foundational to human dignity, and which ones are not; and the courage to work for what’s right. We don’t cultivate these skills alone. We develop them together as Christians, in prayer, on our knees, in the presence of Jesus Christ – and also in discussions like tonight.

*

Now before ending, I want to turn briefly to the third point I mentioned earlier in my talk: the realities we face today, and what Christians need to do about them. As I was preparing these comments for tonight, I listed all the urgent issues that demand our attention as believers: abortion; immigration; our obligations to the poor, the elderly and the disabled; questions of war and peace; our national confusion about sexual identity and human nature, and the attacks on marriage and family life that flow from this confusion; the growing disconnection of our science and technology from real moral reflection; the erosion of freedom of conscience in our national health-care debates; the content and quality of the schools that form our children.

The list is long. I believe abortion is the foundational human rights issue of our lifetime. We need to do everything we can to support women in their pregnancies and to end the legal killing of unborn children. We may want to remember that the Romans had a visceral hatred for Carthage not because Carthage was a commercial rival, or because its people had a different language and customs. The Romans hated Carthage above all because its people sacrificed their infants to Ba’al. For the Romans, who themselves were a hard people, that was a unique kind of wickedness and barbarism. As a nation, we might profitably ask ourselves whom and what we’ve really been worshipping in our 40 million “legal” abortions since 1973.

All of these issues that I’ve listed above divide our country and our Churches in a way Augustine would have found quite understandable. The City of God and the City of Man overlap in this world. Only God knows who finally belongs to which. But in the meantime, in seeking to live the Gospel we claim to believe, we find friends and brothers in unforeseen places, unlikely places; and when that happens, even a foreign place can seem like one’s home.

The vocation of Christians in American public life does not have a Baptist or Catholic or Greek Orthodox or any other brand-specific label. John 14:6 – “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me” – which is so key to the identity of Houston Baptist University, burns just as hot in this heart, and the heart of every Catholic who truly understands his faith. Our job is to love God, preach Jesus Christ, serve and defend God’s people, and sanctify the world as his agents. To do that work, we need to be one. Not “one” in pious words or good intentions, but really one, perfectly one, in mind and heart and action, as Christ intended. This is what Jesus meant when he said: “I do not pray for these only, but also those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (Jn 17:20-21).

We live in a country that was once – despite its sins and flaws – deeply shaped by Christian faith. It can be so again. But we will do that together, or we won’t do it at all. We need to remember the words of St. Hilary from so long ago: “Unum sunt, qui invicem sunt”, they are one, who are wholly for each other ⁹. May God grant us the grace to love each other, support each other and live wholly for each other in Jesus Christ – so that we might work together in renewing the nation that has served human freedom so well.

__________

The complete text of the speech given by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1960, to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association:

> “While the so called religious issue…”

__________

On the book “Render Unto Caesar” by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput:

> How to Conduct Politics as Catholics. The Denver Memorandum (13.8.2008)

__________

On a recent appeal from representatives of various Christian confessions of the United States:

> The “Manhattan Declaration”: The Manifesto That’s Shaking America (25.11.2009)

__________

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3. In Celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, the Winter Pascha

The Manhattan Declaration represents a turning point in the ongoing battle for the soul of America. It is first time in my lifetime where so many Christian church leaders have come together and declared themselves open combatants against all earthly powers that oppose one of the primary tenants of the Christian faith: the right to natural life.

Heretofore, with the exception of the Roman Catholic episcopacy, whose opposition was sometimes aggressive, but too often tepid and confusing, the Christian leaders that America looks to for moral guidance, stood idly by while their faithful looked more and more to societal forces for moral guidance while their self-aggrandizing, weak-kneed Christian leaders stood idly by; overcome with bewildered amazement at how their people were deserting them.

Now of a sudden, by the grace of God, these same weak-kneed leaders have declared war, by signing this document, on all the societal forces and earthly powers that opposed this most basic tenant of the Christian faith, the God-given human right to natural life

These two statements clearly show how profound the newfound strength is of our nation’s Christian leadership:
“We will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.”

and

“We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

Now it is time for us to stand up and be counted with our Christian leaders.

Read the excellent essay by Sandro Magister that explains the Manhattan Declaration very well. Please let the rest of the world know if you agree or disagree with what he writes or the little bit that I have just written.

Yours truly

The “Manhattan Declaration”: The Manifesto That’s Shaking America

It’s been endorsed by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox leaders, united in defending life and the family. With the White House in the crosshairs. In Europe, they would’ve branded it political “interference” by the Church

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, November 25, 2009 – On the other side of the Atlantic, the news passed almost without notice: the news about a strong public appeal in defense of life, of marriage, of religious freedom and objection of conscience, launched jointly – a rarity – by top-level representatives of the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Evangelical communities of the United States.

Among the religious leaders who presented the appeal to the public on Friday, November 20, at the National Press Club in Washington (in the photo), were the archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, and the bishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput.

And among the 52 first signatories of the appeal were 11 other Catholic archbishops and bishops of the United States: Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit, Timothy Dolan of New York, John J. Myers of Newark, John Nienstedt of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix, Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs, Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland, Richard J. Malone of Portland, and David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh.

The 4700-word appeal is entitled “Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” and takes its name from the area of New York in which its publication was discussed and decided last September.

The final drafting of the text was entrusted to Robert P. George, a Catholic professor of law at Princeton University, and to Evangelical Protestants Chuck Colson and Timothy George, the latter a professor at the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.

The other signers include Metropolitan Jonah Paffhausen, primate of the Orthodox Church in America, archpriest Chad Hatfield of the Orthodox seminary of Saint Vladimir, Reverend William Owens, president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, and two leading figures of the Anglican Communion: Robert Wm. Duncan, primate of the Anglican Church in North America, and Peter J. Akinola, primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria.

Apart from the bishops, the other Catholics who signed the appeal include Jesuit Fr. Joseph D. Fessio, a disciple of Joseph Ratzinger and founder of the publisher Ignatius Press, William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, Jody Bottum, editor of the magazine “First Things,” and George Weigel, a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The “Manhattan Declaration” has not emerged in a vacuum, but at a critical moment for American society and politics: precisely while the administration of Barack Obama is pushing hard for passage of a health care reform plan in the United States.

Defending life from the moment of conception and the right to objections of conscience, the appeal contests two of the points endangered by the reform project currently under discussion in the Senate.

In Congress, the danger was averted thanks in part to aggressive lobbying conducted openly by the Catholic episcopate. After the final vote had guaranteed both the right to objections of conscience and the blocking of any public financing for abortion, the bishops’ conference hailed this result as a “success.” But now the battle has started all over again in the Senate, on a working document that the Church again considers unacceptable. The bishops’ conference has already sent the senators a letter indicating the changes it would like to see made to all of the points in dispute.

But now there is also the ecumenical “Manhattan Declaration,” the last chapter of which, entitled “Unjust Laws,” ends with this solemn statement:

“We will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.”

And immediately afterward:

“We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

In an initial passage, the appeal also says this:

“While public opinion has moved in a pro-life direction, powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.”

And it is true. According to the most recent surveys, public opinion in the United States is shifting noticeably toward greater defense of the life of the unborn child.

From 1995 to 2008, all of the research had shown that more people were pro-choice than pro-life, with a significant margin between them: the former at 49 percent, the latter at 42.

Now, instead, the positions have been reversed. The pro-choice have fallen to 46 percent, and the pro-life have risen to 47 percent, overtaking them.

The religious leaders who are pressuring Obama on the minefield of abortion, of homosexual marriage, of euthanasia, therefore know that they have with them a large and growing segment of American society.

The issuing of the “Manhattan Declaration” has received extensive coverage in the media in the United States, without anyone protesting against this political “interference” by the Churches.

But that’s just the way it is in the United States. There has always been a rigorous separation between religion and the state there. There are no concordats, and they’re not even conceivable. But this is exactly why the Churches are seen as having the freedom to speak and act in the public sphere.

In Europe, the landscape is very different. Here “secularism” is understood and applied in conflict, either latent or explicit, with the Churches.

This may be another reason for the silence that in Europe, in Italy, in Rome, greeted the “Manhattan Declaration.” It is held to be a typically American phenomenon, foreign to the European way of thinking.

A similar difference in approach concerns the denial of Eucharistic communion for pro-abortion Catholic politicians. In the United States, this controversy is extremely heated, while on the other side of the Atlantic it isn’t. This difference in sensibilities also divides the hierarchy of the Catholic Church: in Europe and in Rome the question is practically ignored, left to the individual conscience.

But it most be noted out that something is changing on this point, even on the Old Continent. And not only because there is a pope like Benedict XVI, who has stated that he prefers the American model of relations between Church and state.

A sign of this came a few days ago from Spain, where the Catholic Church is grappling with an ideologically hostile government, that of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which is preparing a law that would liberalize abortion even more than it is now.

According to reports from sources including “L’Osservatore Romano,” the secretary general of the Spanish bishops’ conference, Bishop Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, did not hesitate to advise Catholic politicians that, if they vote in favor of the law, they will not be admitted to Eucharistic communion, because they will have placed themselves in an objective situation of “public sin.”

Not only that. Bishop Martínez Camino added that those who maintain that it is morally legitimate to kill an unborn child put themselves in contradiction with the Catholic Church, and thus risk falling into heresy and into “latae sententiae,’ or automatic, excommunication.

It is the first time that words so “American” have been heard from the leadership of a bishops’ conference in Europe.

But let’s get back to the “Manhattan Declaration.” The complete text, with a list of the first 152 signers, is on this web page:

> Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience

The following is the abbreviated text, released together with the complete text of the “Declaration”:

Manhattan Declaration Executive Summary

November 20, 2009

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are (1) the sanctity of human life, (2) the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and (3) the rights of conscience and religious liberty. Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Human Life

The lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are ever more threatened. While public opinion has moved in a pro-life direction, powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Although the protection of the weak and vulnerable is the first obligation of government, the power of government is today often enlisted in the cause of promoting what Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death.” We pledge to work unceasingly for the equal protection of every innocent human being at every stage of development and in every condition. We will refuse to permit ourselves or our institutions to be implicated in the taking of human life and we will support in every possible way those who, in conscience, take the same stand.

Marriage

The institution of marriage, already wounded by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is at risk of being redefined and thus subverted. Marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all. Where marriage erodes, social pathologies rise. The impulse to redefine marriage is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil law as well as our religious traditions. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. Marriage is not a “social construction,” but is rather an objective reality – the covenantal union of husband and wife – that it is the duty of the law to recognize, honor, and protect.

Religious Liberty

Freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized. The threat to these fundamental principles of justice is evident in efforts to weaken or eliminate conscience protections for healthcare institutions and professionals, and in anti-discrimination statutes that are used as weapons to force religious institutions, charities, businesses, and service providers either to accept (and even facilitate) activities and relationships they judge to be immoral, or go out of business. Attacks on religious liberty are dire threats not only to individuals, but also to the institutions of civil society including families, charities, and religious communities. The health and well-being of such institutions provide an indispensable buffer against the overweening power of government and is essential to the flourishing of every other institution – including government itself – on which society depends.

Unjust Laws

As Christians, we believe in law and we respect the authority of earthly rulers. We count it as a special privilege to live in a democratic society where the moral claims of the law on us are even stronger in virtue of the rights of all citizens to participate in the political process. Yet even in a democratic regime, laws can be unjust. And from the beginning, our faith has taught that civil disobedience is required in the face of gravely unjust laws or laws that purport to require us to do what is unjust or otherwise immoral. Such laws lack the power to bind in conscience because they can claim no authority beyond that of sheer human will.

Therefore, let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that violates the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family.

Further, let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality, marriage, and the family.

Further, let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.

We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.

__________

The official website of the “Manhattan Declaration,” with the possibility of signing it:

> manhattandeclaration.org

__________

The letter of November 20, 2009, from the United States bishops’ conference to the senators, on the health system reform bill:

> “Dear Senator…”

Accompanied by a reminder on the previous discussion in Congress:

> “What does the Stupak amendment really do?”

__________

The Gallup/USA Today study on pro-life attitudes, which in 2009 have overtaken the pro-choice:

> U.S. Abortion Attitudes Closely Divided

__________

On the criticisms of the Obama administration from the American Catholic hierarchy, and divergences with the curia of Rome:

> The Bishop’s Ax Falls on Obama. And on the Vatican Curia (8.10.2009)

__________

On the granting or withholding of communion for pro-abortion Catholic politicians, and on the comment in this regard written in 2004 by then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger:

> Obama’s Pick for Vice President Is Catholic. But the Bishops Deny Him Communion (27.8.2008)

> An American Dispute: Should Communion Be Given to Pro-abortion Catholic Politicians? (2.5.2008)

> The Kerry Affair: What Ratzinger Wanted from the American Bishops (3.7.2004)

> Ratzinger-Kerry, Act II. The Well-Tempered Controversy (13.7.2004)

__________

English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.

__________
25.11.2009

Source: www.chiesa

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