THE SEPARATION OF CATHOLICS AND STATE
From Politico:
"The decision was...notable for the way the nine justices split on the question -- 5-4, with the Court's five Catholic justices forming the majority."Never before has the court had five Catholic justices, and their joining together in a decision to limit abortion, of all hot-button issues, is likely to spark discussion about the role of religion in forming social policy."
Those who call for the extraconstitutional separation of church and state seek the separation of authentic Catholics from any position where their faith and morality could be influential. The constitution does not contain any mention of the "separation of church and state". The constitution states:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The left's call for the separation of church and state is never about the state intruding upon religion, rather, it is disguised bigotry. It is absurd to think that one's background and beliefs will not effect one's decisions and actions.
Here is an example of the bigotry we will hear in the coming months, this from the Huffington Post:
What, then, explains this decision? Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Catholic. The four justices who are either Protestant or Jewish all voted in accord with settled precedent. It is mortifying to have to point this out. But it is too obvious, and too telling, to ignore. Ultimately, the five justices in the majority all fell back on a common argument to justify their position. There is, they say, a compelling moral reason for the result in Gonzales. Because the intact D & E seems to resemble infanticide it is "immoral" and may be prohibited even without a clear statutory exception to protect the health of the woman.
The language is harsh, but it is greatly lessened by the realization that the Catholics on the court stood out--again from Politico:
"...conservatives should be pleased at the unprecedented number of Catholics on the court."With Catholics, you have this very substantial body of 'natural law' teaching, which gives them a very rich tradition to draw from when they are thinking about these sorts of issues," Masci said."Catholic social teaching is underpinned, he said, by the ideas of people like St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that there are fundamental principles -- God's law -- that provide a touchstone for navigating new issues such as stem cell research."Protestants have access to the same material, Masci said, "but Catholic thinkers spend more time working within this tradition, which gives them a foundation for building their ideas.""That foundation has made conservative Catholics a natural ally for socially conservative evangelicals on issues such as abortion. And it has helped propel Catholic thinkers to the forefront of a range of questions facing society."A large number of Catholic jurists -- more than just the five on the Supreme Court -- have become prominent doing work in areas like privacy, abortion, family and marriage," said Masci. He cited the example of Princeton professor Robert George, a member of the president's Council on Bioethics."
There is a great deal to rejoice about with this decision. Not only is "partial birth abortion"--state sanctioned infanticide--now outlawed, but this may be a shining moment for Catholicism in America.
Fr. John Hardon often repeated that the Catholic Church was the only hope to fight abortion.
"The future of the human race depends on the Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion.... I mean that the survival of the human race depends finally on the acceptance of the Catholic Church’s two thousand years’ teaching that the killing of unborn children is murder."
