THE CARDINAL WAS OUT OF LINE

I saw this article by Ellen Goodman the other day and could not believe my eyes.  Has the religious divisiveness in this country become such that we have lost all sense of propriety?  Are the secular humanists the only ones we can count on to be decent and civil toward all men.

Ellen Goodman

BOSTON -- It was one of those small shocks that come unexpectedly in the wake of a death. Just days after the country had buried Ted Kennedy, Cardinal Sean O'Malley took to his blog to defend himself from critics attacking him for presiding over the funeral of a pro-choice senator.


The cardinal called for civility and then went on to explain how he'd used the occasion to lobby one of the mourners: the president of the United States. He told Barack Obama that, yes, the Catholic bishops wanted universal health care but "we will not support a plan that will include a provision for abortion or could open the way to abortions in the future."


Is there an etiquette for lobbying at a funeral? Unseemly is too mild a word. This politicking during a national outpouring of loss for the last of the Kennedy brothers, a time when tens of thousands of Americans of every religion lined up to say their farewells, was a warning sign.


I have only included the first few paragraphs of Goodman's article, but you can get the gist of the article.  "The cardinal called for civility and then went on to explain how he'd used the occasion to lobby one of the mourners: the president of the United States."  The cardinal called for civility?  There is no civility in using a funeral to lobby anyone for any reason.  There is no explanation.

I thought we had gotten rid of the mean-spirited religious fanatics of the 1990s who thought they could say and do anything as long as defended it with their narrow religious views.  If it was all right with god -- in their opinion -- then it was all right.

Such religious fanatics, folks, are the stuff from which terrorists are made.  Those who would blow up themselves along with countless people in a crowded bazaar are cut from the same cloth as those who will blow up an abortion clinic.  Yes, it's that simple, and that scary.

Oh, I know what you're thinking, Muslim fanatics are the problem, not Christian fanatics.  Nonsense.  Religious fanatics of all stripes march to their own drummer.  They feel they can do what they want because it is in God's cause.  God commands them.  They cannot refuse.  They cannot be denied. 

I must ask the question: Can an all powerful God only promote His agenda by killing innocent people?  I have a problem with that, if true.

Zealots, fanatics for any cause should concern us all.

Fanatics would overturn the Constitution.  Zealots will have you believe that this country was created as a Christian country.  Not so.  Check the Declaration of Independence.


When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...

No reference to the Christian church or any church there.  I've taken the liberty of highlighting some phrases you might focus on. 


The Declaration states that we may assume the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's god entitle us.  Not the Puritan god, not the Christian god, not the Muslim god, but nature's god, however you choose to interpret that.

God's laws (your god, my god, anyone's god) has equal station with the laws of nature, which, I must point out seldom differ from one country or culture to another.  The sun comes up in the east, apples fall, water freezes, hot air rises, and so forth.  It's only the "laws of god" that give us trouble because there seems to be a multitude of gods and, in this country at least, a multitude of ways to recognize, worship or secure the blessings of god.

The framers of the Declaration had it right.  Let the governments secured among men derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, period.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley has the same right as any ordinary citizen to lobby the president or any member of our government with his views on abortion or any other strongly held view, at the appropriate time and place.  But to do so, he needs to remove his cardinal's hat and assume the posture of an ordinary citizen.  With his cardinal's hat firmly affixed at the Kennedy funeral, he was not an ordinary citizen, and we acknowledge and honor him accordingly.

As much as it rankles some people to admit it, we are a secular nation founded on the belief that men can govern themselves.  We do not need a king, real world or other world. How men arrive at their individual judgments about who to vote for is up to them, but it is their collective judgment that we rely on to determine those who will lead the government.

That government may not use our church services or other religious ceremonies to promote its agenda.  Likewise, church leaders like Cardinal O'Malley should refrain from using church ceremonies to promote a religious or private agenda.