“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
Jefferson’s words have been echoed through the generations by scholars, justices, and citizens of this great Republic alike. To be sure, politics has had a great influence on the “interpretations” of those words, as well as the 1st Amendment itself over the same time period. But with Pope Francis visiting the United States this week, and considering the state of moral decay in our nation approaching the near post Obama climate, the “separation” debate is as emotional and passionate as it has ever been. Accordingly, and as the father of a 13 year-old, I would have to say my biggest fear when it comes to the 1st Amendment (and all the amendments for that matter) is what I like to call “partial interpretation”, with interpretation being the more dangerous of those two words. This is true mainly because as generations pass into history, revisionists (like the President of the United States) have a much easier time “interpreting” what is likely the simplest of all the Amendments.
To be clear, the Christian history and origins of this great Republic are indisputable, if one is so inclined to do a little more research than just watching Lester Holt’s NBC Nightly News, or perusing the web-pages of George Soros’s MoveOn.org. Now does that mean depending on what we find we must all be unbendable in our beliefs and applications? Of course it doesn’t. In fact both the Founders and Framers embraced “the debate” as a means to vet out differences and find common ground. Moreover, the three branches of representative government perform a similar vetting function with no absolute or incontestable power being afforded to any one of them. However the problem starts when we seek to set aside the basic and foundational principles, which are those “self-evident” maxims on which all of that healthy debate is hinged, and on which those who came before us all agreed. When this happens we lose Jefferson’s (and the rest of the Founder’s and Framer’s) true hopes and intentions for their burgeoning country in a wash of 21st Century psychobabble, and our children are worse off for it.
Look folks, Pope Francis is clearly not Pope John Paul the 2nd, at least in the sense that he seems to embrace facets of the Obama Doctrine, which just so happens to also include glaringly anti-Catholic positions on things like abortion and gay marriage. Frankly, one would think for the leader of Catholics around the world those types of “issues” would be sticking points between the two. Instead the Pontiff appears ready to promote the politics of our very Liberal Progressive President with absolutely no moral strings attached. Even more striking is how this POTUS himself, a man so vehemently opposed to even the mention of Christian faith in our public schools, can then go before his teleprompter and so conveniently merge the church with the state when it suits his purposes. Now I may be wrong, but I think Jefferson might find this inconsistency just a tad troubling from a Constitutional perspective.
Nevertheless, we continue to see a now hastened erosion of the core Judeo-Christian value systems necessary for the longevity of a truly free society. Our family structure is collapsing, divorce and infidelity are in record territory, and our elected officials can’t even agree that slaughtering a living human being in the womb so the merchants of death can sell the body parts for profit is evil and wrong. So I suppose that if I have a message for Pope Francis on his historic visit to the United States it would simply be, “You might want to get your priorities in order Your Holiness, before you lecture (We the People) on anything”, least of all something like “Climate Change” for goodness sake…
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