A Christian license plate in South Carolina has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal district court. The license plate showed a cross, stained glass window and the words “I Believe.”

The ruling overturned the state law known as the “I Believe” Act which gave the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) authority to issue the license plate.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie held that “such a law amounts to state endorsement not only of religion in general, but of a specific sect in particular.”

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We need to rededicate ourselves to the work of Christian charity and the Catholic soul of our insti­tutions. Charity is a duty for the whole believing community. But it is also an obligation and privilege for every individual member of the Church, flowing from our personal encounter with the mercy of Jesus Christ.

Government cannot love. It has no soul and no heart. The greatest danger of the modern secularist state is this: In the name of humanity, under the banner of serving human needs and easing human suffering, it ultimately, ironically””and too often tragically”” lacks humanity. As Benedict foresees in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est:

The state which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person””every person””needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a state that regulates and controls everything, but a state that, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces: She is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something that often is even more necessary than material support.

In the face of modern critics who would crowd out the Church’s ministry of love, American Catholics must reclaim the vision Benedict speaks of here. We need to insist on the guarantees promised by the founders at the beginning of the American proposition: autonomy and noninterference from civil authorities.

But a more important task also remains. Catholics must come to a new zeal for that proposition, a new faithfulness to their own Catholic identity as they live their citizenship, and a new dedication to renewing the great public philosophy implicit in America’s founding documents.

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The Government is being urged by a group of powerful MPs to axe references to Christianity from the constitutions of Britain’s far-flung outposts.

To the dismay of Church leaders, the Foreign Affairs Committee is pressing for the change amid claims that references to traditional Christian morality could undermine gay rights in the overseas territories.

The committee, chaired by Labour MP Mike Gapes, also objects to Christianity being singled out above other faiths.

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Dear Diocesan Family,

A panel of the Virginia Supreme Court will hear our petition for appeal on October 21 and, while it is unfortunate that these legal proceedings were necessary, I trust that this hearing will bring us one step closer to resolution.

I am proud that the Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church have chosen the path consistently to defend loyal Episcopalians, and to safeguard and to protect the Church’s legacy and the Church from unwarranted governmental and legislative interference. It is with the same determination to stand by the people, traditions and legacy of our diocese that I look toward our appeal.
For nearly 225 years, the Episcopal Church has had the freedom to govern itself according to its beliefs. But that freedom is under direct attack here in our diocese in the form of a Virginia law that allows the government to interfere with the faith, polity and structure of our Church and other hierarchical churches in the Commonwealth.

I believe that this law is unconstitutional and that there is too much at stake to let it remain in effect. The legal struggle to secure our right to organize as we choose and safeguard our churches from those seeking to seize them has not been easy. This journey has been a long one, but now more than ever we must all gather around those who need us most at this difficult time.

Loyal Episcopalians have been exiled from their Episcopal homes for too long and I ask you to keep all of them in your prayers. This includes St. Stephen’s, Heathsville; St. Margaret’s, Woodbridge; Epiphany, Oak Hill; and The Falls Church, Falls Church. These parishioners have been denied the ability to worship as they wish at the very same churches where they were married, where they baptized their children and where they buried their loved ones. I view this next hearing with great hope for the day when I will join these faith-filled Episcopalians as they return to their church homes to celebrate and worship together.

Faithfully yours,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Shannon S. Johnston, Bishop of Virginia

In California, your church likely would lose its property. In South Carolina, however, your church is safe. That’s because the California Supreme Court in January and the South Carolina Supreme Court in September chose opposing methods for their respective lower courts to use in judging church property disputes. (Declared the South Carolina court: “It is an axiomatic principle of law that a person or entity must hold title to property in order to declare that it is held in trust for the benefit of another.”)

The U.S. Supreme Court is partly to blame for the confusion. Traditionally, property matters are a state, not federal, legal matter. Many states historically allowed an exception to laws governing property. They deferred instead to rules set by certain “hierarchical” denominations in property issues of their member churches. As the 20th century deepened, scattered courts became more willing to listen to appeals of congregations deprived of their property and to apply “neutral principles” of state law in resolving disputes. In Jones v. Wolf in 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court said courts were free to use “either approach: deference to the hierarchy” or neutral principles of law.

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A Supreme Court argument on Wednesday about the fate of a cross in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve in southeastern California largely avoided the most interesting question in the case: whether the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion is violated by the display of a cross as a war memorial.

The cross in the desert was erected in the 1930s by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to honor fallen service members. Ten years ago, Frank Buono, a retired employee of the National Park Service, objected to the cross, saying it violated the establishment clause.

In the intervening decade, Congress and the courts have engaged in a legal tug of war. Congress passed measures forbidding removal of the cross, designating it as a national memorial and, finally, ordering the land under the cross to be transferred to private hands. Federal courts in California have insisted that the cross may not be displayed.

At Wednesday’s argument, only Justice Antonin Scalia appeared inclined to reach the establishment clause question.

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A white cross erected on a rock outcropping on federal land in California’s Mojave Desert is at the heart of a Supreme Court case about the government’s display of religious symbols.

Critics say the cross violates the Constitution’s ban on government establishment of religion. The case will be argued Wednesday.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Death Valley post first built the cross at Sunrise Rock in 1934 to honor Americans who died in combat in World War I. The most recent version of the cross was erected 11 years ago by a man named Henry Sandoz.

Neither the VFW nor Sandoz ever owned the land where the cross is located ”” nor did they have permission to build on the land.

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According to informants quoted in The Catholic Herald, the Queen has “grown increasingly sympathetic” to the Catholic Church over the years while being “appalled”, along with the Prince of Wales, at developments in the Church of England.

The usually well-informed newspaper adds that the Queen, who is the Supreme Governor of the C of E, is “also said to have an affinity with the Holy Father, who is of her generation”.

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…this fall, the court is poised to further limit our ability to hold elected officials accountable to this most basic provision of our Constitution. On Wednesday, the justices will hear arguments in Salazar v. Buono, a California case involving the erection of an 8-foot, free-standing Christian cross on what was previously federal park land in the Mojave National Preserve. I say “previously” because after the display was successfully challenged in court, our sly U.S. Congress simply deeded the small parcel of affected land to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who apparently share Congress’ sentiment about such public displays of religiosity. Now, the nation’s high court will decide whether Congress can get away with such shenanigans.

So what? Why should Americans care about such cases? After all, the vast majority of us are Christians of some stripe. Yes, we are, but our government isn’t. The framers of our Constitution ”” many having witnessed the dangers of mixing church and state firsthand ”” gave us a decidedly secular state. The only references to religion in our nation’s charter are to (a) forbid its establishment by the government, (b) protect its free exercise by individual citizens and (c) prohibit it as a test for public office.

Nonetheless, popular culture has taken its toll. Listen to enough politicians and televangelists complain that the United States has betrayed its godly heritage, and folks start believing them. Just two years ago, the Freedom Forum’s State of the First Amendment Survey found that 55% of Americans believe that the Constitution establishes Christianity as the national religion!

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Passage of a bill to require the owner of church property to be clearly stated in the deed or trust agreement would violate long-held principles of law and could lead the state down a “slippery slope” of becoming entangled in church affairs, religious leaders told a House panel Thursday.

The measure could result in state officials meddling in matters of congregational employment and membership, said the Rt. Rev. Edward Konieczny, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma, in a statement read by his chief of staff, the Rev. Jose McLaughlin.

Also, the measure ”” which was proposed during this year’s session until its author, Rep. Pam Peterson, pulled it ”” could result in several congregations filing lawsuits against the state, Konieczny said.

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If the court reaches the constitutional issues at hand, all sides agree it could provide clarity to the court’s blurry rules on church-and-state separations. It could also carry important implications for the fate of war memorials around the country that feature religious imagery — the Argonne Cross in Arlington National Cemetery, for instance, or the Memorial Peace Cross in Bladensburg.

The Mojave cross’s protectors, which include veterans groups and the federal government, say the symbol is a historic, secular tribute; its original plaque from the 1930s said it was erected to honor “the dead of all wars.” They argue that Congress has taken the steps to distance itself from any appearance of endorsing a religious display.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, Jewish and Muslim veterans, and others say government actions have only deepened the problem. In an effort to avoid the lower courts’ rulings that it must come down, Congress has designated the site the country’s only official national memorial to the dead of World War I, elevating it to an exclusive group of national treasures that includes the Washington Monument and Mount Rushmore.

Congress’s actions ensures that “the cross necessarily will reflect continued government association with the preeminent symbol of Christianity,” the ACLU said.

It seems an improbable importance for this piece of desert land, where temperatures regularly hit three digits, an hour can go by without a passing car and somewhere nearby is likely to be a Mojave Green, the desert’s own highly lethal variety of rattlesnake.

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I have now to affirm once again my opposition to schism as a method of affording protection to those whose beliefs and ideals were normal in the recent past. The unwillingness of our church to adopt unusual methods to afford safe haven to a disenfranchised and impotent minority, because TEC is governed by a “winner take all” form of governance is in itself a scandal. A simple expedient of the English “flying bishops” idea, adopted by a church which has a real claim to historic and unique territorial diocesan integrity, a system adopted to preserve unity, in that it was rejected by our “denominational” church, only underlines the stubborn and “conservative” policy of our majoritarian leadership. The simple adoption of protective measures to afford a safe haven for those who cannot in conscience submit to current TEC policies would have trumped schismatic schemes which have led to our present divisions. Our church would be lauded for its tolerance and comprehension while free to pursue the ideals of the majority. What would have emerged would have been “comprehension” tailored to years of conflict.

Instead TEC has asked the secular State by its courts to adjudicate not only property disputes but explicitly in is pleadings the doctrinal and structural ethos of what it means to be an Anglican in America.

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As city officials mull a new law to protect Catholic churches that are scheduled to be closed, officials in suburban Lakewood, Ohio, may also try to keep church leaders from razing or gutting a threatened parish.

The Diocese of Cleveland, which has ordered Lakewood’s St. James Catholic Church and dozens of other churches closed by next summer as part of a downsizing plan, is not saying what it will do with St. James’ building once it’s locked up.

But the proposed ordinance by the Lakewood City Council, which would protect any structure that the city designated a historical or cultural landmark, could draw a constitutional battle over private property rights and separation of church and state.

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A failed state also has a huge impact on everyday religious experience and practice. Of necessity, religious organizations have to take over most of the responsibilities and activities that a Westerner might expect to fall to government. Churches and mosques supply social services and, in many instances, take over legal and justice functions as well, providing arbitration of disputes and performing community policing. It is scarcely surprising that Islamic courts thrive in Somalia, Sudan and parts of Pakistan where secular justice is only a vague rumor.

Among both Christians and Muslims, many dream, however fancifully, of full-fledged religious states that could suppress the anarchy and misery. Religious fundamentalism will not diminish until those societies develop strong states that can guarantee the supply of food, water, electricity and sanitation.

Only when we in the global North witness what happens when the state is taken out of the picture do we realize how much of what we regard as natural and in evitable in our religious traditions depends on the continued strength of political order and security.

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The culture wars may not have ended, but on some fronts the combat has gotten rather quiet. For instance, family values.

True, David Letterman’s awkward joke about a daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska prompted denunciations of the “media elite” (though it also boosted Mr. Letterman’s ratings).

But the admissions of extramarital adventures by two Republican stalwarts, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina on Wednesday and Senator John Ensign of Nevada the week before, did not help their party’s cause and stood in dim contrast to President Obama’s recent success in co-opting parts of the conservatives’ cultural agenda ”” whether voicing his opposition to gay marriage, or delivering Father’s Day homilies on parenting.

Still another instance of what may be an emerging politics of accommodation, with both parties seeing the benefits of the center, came earlier this month when Mr. Obama announced his selection of Jim Leach, a former congressman, to head the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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It now seems a different age, but in fact it is less than two years since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. When he did so, he declared: “Now let the work of change begin.” Luckily, perhaps, the work of change was quickly snarled up. Today, Mr Brown barely has the authority to change a light bulb (an action, this newspaper has recently revealed, that MPs can charge to the taxpayer).

But one obscure, sudden change that the Prime Minister did institute was to remove his own role in appointing bishops in the Church of England.

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The first openly gay Episcopal bishop told a Los Angeles gathering yesterday that the church should begin mending divisions over the issue of same-sex marriage by getting out of the civil marriage business altogether.

During a visit to St. Michael and All Angels Church, the Rev. Gene Robinson said he favored the system used in France and other parts of Europe in which civil marriage – performed by government officials – is completely separate from religious vows. In the United States, the civil and religious ceremonies often are combined by the cleric signing the government marriage license.

“In this country, it has become very confusing about where the civil action begins and ends and where the religious action begins and ends, because we have asked clergy to be agents of the state,” said Robinson, bishop of New Hampshire.

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It is a tall order, but the Supreme Court needs to bring clarity to its murky doctrines relating to government speech and religious symbols. It should free its own focus from disputes about park decorations. Religious liberty is, as has often been observed, our “first freedom,”and it faces many pressing challenges. In Connecticut, for example, several legislators recently proposed ”” but then put on hold for now ”” a bill that purported to regulate the internal affairs and restructure the governance of the Catholic Church. Such a law would be about as unconstitutional as a law can be, and it is hard to imagine a more glaring affront to religious freedom. Clearly, we cannot afford distractions, but too often, that is what the court’s Ten Commandments and Nativity scene cases have become.

The point is not that the line between a government’s choice about its own message and official discrimination against unpopular private messages is easy to draw, or unimportant. We should be concerned that officials’ decisions about what the government will, and will not, say can be used, as Justice Alito recognized, “as a subterfuge for favoring certain private speakers over others.” More generally, it is important to appreciate the weaknesses, as well as the strengths, of the “fortress” image, and to be sensitive to the fact that the government shapes ”” sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously ”” the marketplace of ideas by its own speech as well as by regulation.

At the same time, we should, in these and similar cases, keep our eye on the religious-freedom ball. The separation of church and state, correctly understood, is a powerful, crucial protection for genuine diversity and liberty of religious conscience. Its proper goal is not to put religion in its place but to keep the state in its place.

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President Barack Obama, signaling early in his administration that religion belongs in the public discourse, has promised to open a big tent to voices from across the spectrum of belief without crossing boundaries separating church and state.

The Democrat’s inaugural pomp was steeped in prayer, and one of his first proclamations included a shout out to “an awesome God.” Last week, Obama used the platform of the National Prayer Breakfast to unveil a new-look White House Office on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that features a team of policy advisers from both religious and secular social service circles. Most are ideological allies, but not all.

The question is whether such moves will amount to symbolic window dressing or progress finding common ground on moral issues without stepping on traditional culture-war land mines.

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The Macías Picavea primary school hardly looks like the seat of revolution. But this unassuming brick building in a sleepy industrial town has become a battleground in an intensifying war between church and state in Spain.

In an unprecedented decision here, a judge ruled in November that the public school must remove the crucifixes from classroom walls, saying they violated the “nonconfessional” nature of the Spanish state.

Although the Roman Catholic Church was not named in the suit, it criticized the ruling as an “unjust” attack on a historical and cultural symbol ”” and a sign of the Spanish state’s increasingly militant secularism.

If the judge’s ruling was the latest blow to the Catholic Church’s once mighty grip on Spain, the church’s response showed Spain to be a crucible for the future of church-state relations in Europe.

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[BOB] ABERNETHY: And John, what do you see of particular interest to the Vatican and to U.S. Catholics?

JOHN ALLEN (Vatican Correspondent, National Catholic Reporter): Well, I think in many ways, you know, the mega story of ’09 is going to be church-state relations under Obama ”” both the promise and the peril of that relationship. I think that the peril is maybe a little easier to get our hands around. It would focus on the traditional life issues. The new president has indicated he intends to sign an executive order liberalizing embryonic stem ”” federally funding for ””embryonic stem cell research right out of the gate as part of that first 100-days package. That certainly will produce some backlash in some religious circles. I think the deeper danger is if the Democratic-controlled Congress and the Obama people were to move forward with the Freedom of Choice Act, which is this piece of legislation that’s been around a long time, and you get different readings on how realistic it is, but in effect it would eliminate existing federal and state restrictions on abortion. The U.S. Catholic bishops have certainly made clear that if that were to gain momentum we would, in some ways, be back to a very serious cultural war in this country.

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