The U.S. House of Worship

Would it be unconstitutional if the U.S. House of Representatives doubled as a church on Sundays? Not according to the men who wrote the Constitution or succeeding generations of Americans lasting until at least the 1860s.

Religious freedom is a hot topic in Washington now. Several pieces of legislation have been introduced in Congress to try to correct — or fine-tune — the notion that the Constitution prohibits public expressions of religion in government-run institutions.

The Library of Congress, reported The Washington Post June 6, has created a timely display in its lobby that shows the great extent to which religion and government worked in tandem in the days of America's founding.

“The exhibit chronicles the frequent use of federal buildings for Sunday worship services, a practice that was common from 1800, when the government moved to Washington, until after the Civil War. Services ranging from High Communion to evangelical revivals were held in the Treasury Building, the War Office and even the Supreme Court chambers.

“But the most popular worship venue was the House [of Representatives], which in its heyday in the 1860s drew 2,000 people a week to the ‘largest Protestant Sabbath audience … in the United States.’”

“That assertion was made by House Chaplain Charles Boynton, who also was pastor of First Congregational Church, which held services in the House until the members could build their own sanctuary.”

According to the report, such services in the House were frequented by Thomas Jefferson in his day — a man whose reference to a “wall of separation between Church and state” is often misunderstood as a ban of religion from state-run institutions.

Novelist Extols Catholic Schools and Faith

Catholics who see no resemblance between their own “old-style” Catholic schooling and the negative stereotypes they see in movies and on television will be sympathetic to an opinion piece by novelist Edward Sheehan in the Boston Globe June 6, occasioned by his 50-year high school reunion.

“In Newton Centre, where I grew up, I had been educated in grammar school by the Sisters of St. Joseph at Sacred Heart Parish … when a moral consensus reigned between the major religions, right and wrong were clearly defined, and the authority of the Roman Church was virtually unchallenged in Massachusetts. Moreover, the system worked: I was superbly educated in the basics of grammar, religion, and history by the veiled nuns and by the kindly [and quite learned] attentions of Cardinal Cushing.

“Transferring to Boston College High was a shock…. I was a shy, awkward, self-conscious youth. By sheer discipline, my Jesuit teachers struggled to straighten me out.”

“Ah, they were tough…. [But] by the end of our senior year, we survivors were fluent in Latin and Greek, such discipline of mind hardening us for the cruel struggles of life ahead.”

Sheehan said certain themes were a constant refrain in his Jesuit education: “Actions have consequences. Do wrong and you will be punished. Do good and you will be rewarded, if not on this earth then in heaven….

“We had fistfights on the asphalt playground, but guns in school? Unthinkable. We engaged in adolescent [and harmless] sexual humor, but … the Church's command that sex should be saved for marriage and procreation was much honored. Self-respect was drummed into us as the fruit of personal honor and achievement, but the now trendy conceit of ‘self-esteem’ had yet to be invented.”

He concluded that, “However, infecting our culture today are emotions of rancor among many sophisticated and prosperous Catholics, not least in the media, who resent the rigors of their youthful faith and have abandoned it. The Church educated them, but now they scorn it and loathe its teachings. This is a form of Catholic self-hatred that I cannot fully grasp. Let them live with their resentments. Imperfectly, I feel only gratitude.”

Why is Anti-Catholicism OK? Asks Magazine Article

Terrence McNally's play Corpus Christi, featuring a homosexual Christ figure, seems calculated to offend Christians, U.S. News and World Report columnist John Leo wrote in the June 15 issue. So why aren't secular critics of hate speech protesting it?

Pointing out that even Passion plays (and Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice) are rarely performed because they might offend Jewish people, Leo argues that “arguments about artistic freedom are not applied consistently.”

“Michelle Malkin of the Seattle Times wrote a recent column about a Seattle art show that drew no media criticism, even though the paintings featured Jesus on an obscene version of the cross, a pope apparently engaging in a lewd act, and pages of a Bible defaced with Satanic marks. What would have happened, she asked, if the art had featured a lascivious rabbi or a black slave woman in a degrading sex act?”

“‘There is no question the city's civility police would be out in full force,’ she wrote. “… Cardinal John O'Connor has been called ‘Cardinal O'Killer’ [an AIDS poster] and ‘a fat cannibal’ whose cathedral is ‘a house of walking swastikas’ [an art show catalog]; priests are ‘sociopathic’ and the celibacy vow is ‘an empty sham’ [Spin magazine]; the Pope is ‘His Silliness’ [ACT UP] and ‘a dirty old man walking around in a dress’ [K-Rock radio in New York]; Communion hosts are ‘crackers’ [The Nation] that might be replaced with ‘Triscuits’ [a Michigan talk-show host] — or perhaps sausage, for ‘a spicy body of Christ’ [a Chicago talk-show host]. In the art world, blasphemous art intended to debase Christianity, much of it coming from homosexual artists, routinely features sex acts involving Jesus, or the Pope, or priests. Colorful things are done to the Virgin Mary, too. Gay parades often feature swishy-looking Jesus figures and hairy guys dressed as nuns. It's a continuing theater of propaganda, much of it under the guise of art.”

“Question: In the current age of hypersensitivity, what other group in America has to put up with vilification like this? No religion should expect immunity from criticism. But these aren't arguments about sexual policy or dogma. They are attempts to degrade and enrage. The technical term for this is bigotry. Sensitivity mongers, please note.”