Father Michael's Column

This week I thought I might once again address the topic of religious freedom. I start with a quotation from the late Pope Francis:

“Religious freedom remains one of America's most precious possessions. And, as my brothers, the United States Bishops, have reminded us, all are called to be vigilant, precisely as good citizens, to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.” 

In six days we will be celebrating our nation’s Independence Day. In anticipation of that, each year the bishops of the U.S. declare June 22 through June 29 to be Religious Freedom Week. Although we’re almost done with that week, I still urge your prayers, because religious liberty continues to be seriously challenged within our United States. 

The original meaning of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”) should not be so reinterpreted as to suggest that we are an atheistic society, in which the practice of religion is only tolerated within the four walls of a church. Freedom OF religion has been distorted to mean Freedom FROM religion. 

A great example of this mistaken notion is to be found in the so-called “Blaine amendments” in many state constitutions that try to limit support for school choice, based on religion. Michigan, it might be noted, has the most restrictive constitution of all the States with regard to the funding of non-public schools. While there is always hope that this may change because of a Supreme Court decision in another case, I haven’t heard of any challenges to Michigan’s Constitution at this time. (Keep praying!) It was two years ago that the Court, in a 6–3 decision, overturned a Maine school voucher program that prohibited religious schools from participating. In Carson v. Makin the Court said that tuition assistance could not be withheld at religious (or “sectarian”) schools simply because they also provide religious instruction. Whether this decision will eventually impact Michigan schools is yet to be seen. 

In any event, a couple of years ago, I read a “factsheet” on the USCCB website that addressed some of the historical events affecting Catholics in our country. I found it fascinating, and I thought it might be good to share the section that applied to Catholic schools, as well as the section that applied to the U.S. relations with the Vatican:

Equal treatment of Catholic Schools: Catholicism was introduced to the English colonies with the founding of the Province of Maryland by Jesuit settlers from England in 1634. However, the 1646 defeat of the Royalists in the English Civil War led to stringent laws against Catholic education and the extradition of known Jesuits from Maryland, as well as the destruction of the school they founded. During the greater part of the Maryland colonial period, Jesuits continued to conduct Catholic schools clandestinely. The American Revolution brought historic changes, and in 1782, Catholics in Philadelphia opened St. Mary's School, considered the first parochial school in the U.S. In 1791, the ratification of the Bill of Rights, with the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom, helped Catholics further cement the establishment of Catholic schools.



Regardless, anti-Catholic sentiment in the late nineteenth century led to opposition to parochial schools. State governments opposed providing funds to aid students attending parochial schools, which Catholics founded largely in response to the requirement to pray and read from Protestant Bibles in public schools. Some Members of Congress attempted to block all government aid to religiously affiliated schools with the proposed "Blaine Amendment" in 1875. This constitutional amendment was never ratified at the federal level, but many state legislatures adopted similar legislation and amendments. Those "little Blaine" amendments are still in place in the constitutions of about thirty-seven states, and still operate to block Catholic school students from equal participation in government educational benefits.

Establishment of diplomatic relations with the Vatican: In the first years of the United States, the new Republic had contacts with the Papal States. However, in 1867, Congress prohibited the financing of any diplomatic post to the Papal authority. This began a period of over seventy years when the U.S. did not have a diplomatic representative to the Pope, coinciding with a period of strong anti-Catholicism in the U.S. In 1940, President Roosevelt sent a "personal representative" to the Pope who served for ten years. However, when President Truman nominated an ambassador to the Vatican in 1951, opposition mounted, and President Truman abandoned the effort. Presidents Nixon and Carter sent personal representatives to the Vatican. In 1984, President Reagan announced that full diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Vatican had been established, and the U.S. has continued to send ambassadors to the Vatican since then.

 In conclusion, I believe it’s important to remember and properly teach our history, lest “one of America’s most precious possessions” be lost to us. In our society today, which is blessed (or cursed) with instant communication and the rampant use (or abuse) of social media as the method by which many people get their “facts” and inform their opinions we need to be vigilant lest the shifting currents of popular ideas erode one of the foundations of our country: the right to religious freedom. 

In Jesus, Fr. Michael