Oh Lord, can't we keep religion out of politics? | Teresa Wiltz | Comment is free | theguardian.com. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
The deck for this piece says that "America's founders insisted on church-state separation." Only they didn't. Here is all the Constitution has to day on the matter: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …" What the federal government was being prohibited from doing was establishing a national church on the order of the Church of England. The reason behind that was that several states already had established churches of their own. Massachusetts did not disestablish Congregationalism until 1834.
Ms Wiltz notes toward that "when he was president, Thomas Jefferson, a fervent theist, told a group of Baptist ministers government had no business meddling in religion. Moreover, he said, there needed to be a "wall of separation between church and state."
That was Tom's opinion. It was opinion that, if shared by the founders — which is highly unlikely — was at not incorporated into the Constitution.
Today at Mass I was treated, along with the rest of the congregation, to a pinch of politics from the pulpit. I did not find it edifying. But I will have more to say about that later.
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