The Separation of Church & State - A Founding Principle?

Apr 09, 2009 by Fr Luke Palumbis

Due to incidents which occurred on President Barak Obama’s recent trip to Europe and the Middle East, the topic of ‘separation of church & state,’ already popular in these post-modern times, is being offered again in news forums.  Having grown up in the United States, and received a public education through High School, I am well familiar with the term ‘separation of church & state,’ as it is commonly referred to, framed, and offered as a doctrine of our country’s founding fathers—suggesting emphatically that the government may have no relationship with church.  Although this common presentation & understanding is prevalent in our society, an experience a few years ago left me questioning this understanding… and in turn has forced me to question the presentation and its sources.

On June 21, 2006, I was given the great privilege, at the request of my then Congressman, Richard Pombo, to offer the opening prayer at the United States House of Representatives, in Washington D.C..  After humbly offering the morning prayer in our Nation’s Capital, I thought back to the mentality that I had been taught on the subject of ‘separation of church & state,’ and began to see a discrepancy.  We are to have no relation between church and state, yet we begin the political day with prayer?  After offering the prayer, I was given tours in a few specific areas of our Nation’s Capital, and was astounded by the numerous references and supplications offered to God through out the Capital by the founding fathers, and generations which followed them.  Something is a amiss. 

Referencing documents, rather than individuals’ interpretations of them, the separation of church and state is an interpretive principle, turned both legal and political, derived from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”  The First Amendment, a living document in that it is to be respected in its essential message and not bastardized to correlate with an individualized agenda, establishes that Congress shall not make any laws which establish a religion, or prohibit anyone from practicing a religion—there is no rhetoric in the First Amendment which prohibits a relationship between church and state.  On the contrary, many of the established mediums of the United States; currency, anthems, pledges, artwork, architecture, political protocol, etc, etc, all relay the living experience established by our Nation’s founders, now surviving a pluralistic establishment, which reference not only an allowance, but an insistence of recognizing God in and through our Nation’s life.

This reality is further solidified by a message contained in a letter from Benjamin Franklin to George Washington, in which he develops the recognition of our nation’s dependency on God, and requests that the Continental Congress begin with prayer.  It was a delight to see that an elected official, Rep. K. Michael Conaway of Texas, referred to this letter on the open floor of Congress in recent years. 

Why is it that a mentality which removes a relationship between the church and government has now become prevalent, brainwashing past, present, and quite possibly future generations from the mindset and values of our Nation’s beginnings?  Our Nation’s first President, President George Washington spoke to this in his farewell address on September 17, 1796:

“Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

The words of this great Patriot inspire a goodness, and recognition of hope in something greater than ourselves guiding us as we forge ahead as a nation.  I lament that it has been some years, if not decades, since such wisdom, let alone rhetoric, has been witnessed from platforms of public office in the United States.

In closing, may these inspiring, and authentically unifying words of President George Washington, inspire, mold, and direct a mindset of our current President Barak Obama, and all future leaders of these United States.