Worship Times

The era of strict separation between church and state is over, according to Jeffery Rosen in an article for the Jan. 30, 2000, issue of New York Times Magazine. According to Rosen, the issue of allowing the use of state-funded vouchers to pay private and parochial school tuitions will be a watershed issue that erodes the wall between church and state. George W. Bush III, the leading Republican presidential candidate, supports school vouchers — as do most Republicans. Al Gore, his Democratic counterpart, opposes them — as do most Democrats. However, Bill Bradley, Gore’s strongest challenger for the nomination, provisionally supports them. If the issue reaches the Supreme Court, which seems likely, four justices are on record as opposing vouchers and four can be expected to support them. The swing vote, Sandra Day O’Connor, has not taken a public position on the issue.

“The Supreme Court is on the verge of replacing the principle of strict separation with a very different constitutional principle that demands equal treatment for religion,” said Rosen. “And far from threatening public life, or for that matter religious liberty, the revived cooperation between church and state may be an inevitable and perhaps even healthy result of treating religion as just another aspect of identity politics in a multicultural age.”

Rosen goes on to say that the era of strict separation, from the 1970s through the 1980s, was an outgrowth of the division of Protestant and Catholics in this country. When public schools were started in earnest after the Civil War, state legislatures — largely controlled by Protestants — sought to establish the teaching of a “common religion.” By this, they meant the King James Bible as opposed the Catholic Douay Bible. When Catholics responded by founding their own school system, state legislatures resolved that no state funds should be used for “sectarian” schools.

Confidence in the government’s ability to provide quality education waned in the 1980s and ’90s, however, and the coalitions that had provided effective support to the separation of church and state began to collapse. That, combined with the Catholic schools’ decision to open their doors to non-Catholics — especially inner-city African Americans — helped move along the forces of change.

Rosen concludes, “The new vision of equal treatment for religion might be seen as a return to a more normal vision of separationism, which insists that religious activity should be initiated and controlled by individuals rather than by the state.”

Q & A

“It may not be the answers we leave to the new millennium that will shape its soul,” writes Joan Chittister in the Jan. 28 issue of National Catholic Reporter. “It may well be the questions.” Chittister asks five questions she says are not only unanswered but “perhaps worse, unasked” that “will certainly determine the ultimate value of this age:

1. Are women fully human or not? (She cites the lack of legal rights and economic independence in most parts of the world.)

2. Has technology left us with a culture of isolates? (She wonders if the interface of machines and computers is breaking down the bonds of community.)

3. What is life? (Cloning, she says, has blurred both the beginning and ending of life.)

4. Can we really raise peaceful children in a violent society?

5. What does it mean to be a good Catholic? Does faith demand conformity in the name of unity?
 

Blessed John XXIII

Pope John XXIII is apparently still active in his ministry. Thirty-four years ago, Pope Paul VI began turning the Vatican wheels to have “Good Pope John” canonized. He needs at least one miracle attributed to him in order to make it to the first rung of the canonization ladder — beatification. On Jan. 27, Pope John Paul II recognized the healing of Italian Sister Caterina Capitani, a member of the Daughters of Charity, as being directly due to the intervention of John XXIII. That clears the way for his beatification, which is rumored to be scheduled for September of the Jubilee Year.
 

Sinfully delicious

Next time you’re in Rome, if you partake too widely of the local cuisine — or engage in any of the other seven deadly sins — you’re in luck. Last January, Cardinal Virgilio Noe, archpriest of the Vatican Basilica, inaugurated a new space exclusively dedicated to confessions, as penance is a central part of the Jubilee Year. Two rows of confessionals have been installed inside the Charlemagne Wing, a monumental corridor linking the colonnade to the atrium of St. Peter’s. 

In the new space, the sacrament of penance is administered in various languages, above all by priests of the Roman Curia who have requested to work alongside the penitentiaries of St. Peter’s who regularly administer the sacrament at confessionals within the Basilica.
 

Top religion sites

Newsweek.com has listed the following sites as the best of the best when it comes to religion.

about.com (about.com/culture/religion/index.htm). Links to world religion sites from Anglicanism to Zoroastrianism.

jewish.com. Also check out virtualjerusalem.com for a more Israel-oriented site.

Islamic Gateway (ummah.net). The Arabic word ummah means “community.” For non-Muslims seeking a better understanding of Islam, see Al-Islam.org.

catholic.org. Catholic news and message boards.

christianity.net. Web version of Christianity Today.

buddhanet.net. Dedicated to Buddhism in all its varieties.
 

Most admired list

A recent Gallup Poll lists the most admired people of the 20th century, and Mother Teresa comes out on top with 49 percent of the vote. Other Catholics in the top 10 were John F. Kennedy (third) and John Paul II (eighth). Second on the list was Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights leader. The U.S. bishops listed King as one of their recommendations to the Vatican for those to be honored as 20th-century martyrs for the faith.

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