The Long Road To Papal Self Destruction

The legal back-and-forth over the Vatican’s position on the sexual abuse revelations seems to Americans bizarre. While certainly the Catholic Church has a large contingent, we are a traditionally Protestant nation and after ditching the Anglican’s after the Revolution, the whole question of a Church being able to deny the right of civil authority to prosecute one of its representatives for criminal acts was swallowed up in the strident secularism that, despite the current revisionist rhetoric of a very loud activist minority, characterized the first century of the Republic. Even American Catholics may be a be fuzzy on how the Vatican can try to assert diplomatic immunity for the Pope in order to block prosecutorial efforts. But the fact is, the Vatican is a State, just like Italy, Switzerland, Germany, or the United States. The Pope is the head of a political entity (technically, the Holy See, but for convenience I use the more inclusive term Vatican), with all the rights and privileges implied. The Vatican has embassies. They have not quite come out to assert that priests, being officials (and perhaps officers) of that state, have diplomatic immunity, but they have certainly acted that way for the past few decades as this scandal has percolated through the halls of St. Peter. It would be an interesting test if they did, to in fact allow that attorneys generals, D.A.s, and other law enforcement agencies have absolutely no legal grounds on which to prosecute priests. To date, the Vatican has not gone there. So what is the political relationship between, say, the Vatican and the United States? From 1797 to 1870, the United States maintained consular relations with the Papal States. We maintained diplomatic relations with the Pope as head of the Papal States from 1848 to 1868, though not at the ambassadorial level. With the loss of the Papal States in 1870, these relationships ended until 1984, although beginning in 1939 a number of presidents sent personal envoys to the Holy See for specific talks on various humanitarian issues. Diplomatic relations resumed January 10, 1984. On March 7, 1984, the Senate confirmed William A. Wilson, who had served as President Reagan’s personal envoy from 1981, as the first U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. The Holy See in turn named Archbishop Pio Laghi as the first Apostolic Nuncio (equivalent to ambassador) of the Holy See to the U.S. The Pope, as head of the governmental body—the Holy See—has the status of head of state. Arresting the Pope—even issuing a subpoena—is a problematic question under these circumstances, as he would technically enjoy immunity stemming from his position. The question, however, more to the point is the overall relationship of the global Church to the Vatican and the prerogatives the Pope and the Holy See seem to believe they possess in the matter of criminal actions and prosecutions of individual priests, bishops, even archbishops. That requires going back a long time. At one time, the Holy Roman Church held secular power and controlled its own territories, known as the Papal States. When this “country” was established is the subject of academic study, but a clear marker is the so-called Donation of Pepin. The Duchy of Rome was threatened materially by invading Lombards, which the Frankish ruler Pepin the Short ended around 751 C.E.

Continue ReadingThe Long Road To Papal Self Destruction

Talking about God is no longer religious

In the case of Newdow v. Rio Linda, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has just ruled that talking about "God" is not religious talk. The case was brought on behalf of an atheist public school student who was required to recite the current version of the Pledge of Allegiance, which includes the phrase "under God." The Majority Opinion holds that the phrase “under God” in the current version of the Pledge of Allegiance is not a personal affirmation of the speaker’s belief in God. Further, the Majority plays a shell game, pretending that is is required to analyze the entire Pledge (which it finds to be primarily patriotic) rather than having the courage to look at the offending phrase "under God," which was added by Congress in 1954, during America's McCarthyite period. Here's the Majority's shell game in action (from p. 3877):

We hold that the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the Establishment Clause because Congress’ ostensible and predominant purpose was to inspire patriotism and that the context of the Pledge—its wording as a whole, the preamble to the statute, and this nation’s history—demonstrate that it is a predominantly patriotic exercise. For these reasons, the phrase “one Nation under God” does not turn this patriotic exercise into a religious activity.
I will emphasize points raised by the Dissent because the Dissent is coherent and honest, in contrast with the disingenuous Majority opinion. The Dissent begins at page 3930 with an elaborate table of contents. Don't trust me on any of these points: read the opinion for yourself and you'll see that I'm not exaggerating in the least. What are the facts of the case? I’ll refer to the case description given by Judge Reinhardt’s Dissent (from page 3976):

When the five-year-old Roe child arrived for her first day of kindergarten, her teacher, a state employee, asked the young students to stand, to place their hands on their hearts, and to pledge their allegiance to “one nation, under God.” Neither young Roe nor her mother, however, believe in God. Thus, having already learned that she should not tell a lie, young Roe simply stood silently, as her classmates recited in unison the version of the Pledge that requires its proponents to express their belief in God. Everyday thereafter, the children filed into school, and each morning they recited an oath of allegiance to “one nation, under God” — an oath that undeniably “requires affirmation of a belief and an attitude of mind” to which young Roe does not subscribe: a belief that God exists and is watching over our nation. Cf. W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 633 (1943). For eight months, the five-year-old Roe faced, every morning, the daily “dilemma of participating” in the amended Pledge, with all that implies about her religious beliefs, or of being cast as a protester for her silent refusal. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 593 (1992). On some days she quietly endured the gaze of her teacher and her classmates as she refused to say the Pledge, standing in silence as the classroom’s lone dissenter; on others she walked out of the room and stood in the hallway by herself, physically removed from the religious “adherents” — the “favored members of the [classroom] community,” Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 310 (2000), who were able to swear their fealty to the United States without simultaneously espousing a state-sponsored belief in God that was antithetical to their personal religious views. In April, 2005, Jan Roe filed this lawsuit on behalf of herself and her child. Her claim is straightforward: The Constitution of the United States, a nation founded by exiles who crossed an ocean in search of freedom from state-imposed religious beliefs, prohibits the purposefully designed, teacherled, state-sponsored daily indoctrination of her child with a religious belief that both she and her daughter reject.

The Majority Opinion also blunders by incorrectly stating that “under God” is not a religious phrase because it was not allegedly not inserted in the Pledge for religious reasons. The Majority Opinion makes the laughable claim that the phrase “under God” is simply “a reference to the historical and political underpinnings of our nation,” and that its purpose is to remind us that our government is a “limited government.” The Dissent responded to this point at page 3931:

Were this a case to be decided on the basis of the law or the Constitution, the outcome would be clear. Under no sound legal analysis adhering to binding Supreme Court precedent could this court uphold state-directed, teacher-led, daily recitation of the “under God” version of the Pledge of Allegiance by children in public schools. It is not the recitation of the Pledge as it long endured that is at issue here, but its recitation with the congressionally added two words, “under God” — words added in 1954 for the specific religious purpose, among others, of indoctrinating public schoolchildren with a religious belief. The recitations of the amended version as conducted by the Rio Linda Union and other school districts fail all three of the Court’s Establishment Clause tests.

Was the phrase "under God" added to the Pledge in 1954 for religious reasons? There is no doubt about this. The idea to insert “under God” began in the pews of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church—The Dissent provides loads of citations and details (see, for example, p. 3944). How did the phrase “under God” get into the Pledge? Congress inserted it in 1954. On page 3957 of the opinion, the Dissent presents the all-telling details. The Dissent explains starting at page 4008:

Not only was the message underlying the new Pledge clear — “true” Americans believe in God and non-believers are decisively un-American — but so too was its intended audience: America’s schoolchildren.

The legislators who set out to insert the words “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance were fully aware that in 1954 the original Pledge was a commonplace scholastic ritual. Indeed, a primary rationale for inserting the explicitly religious language into the Pledge of Allegiance, as opposed to into some other national symbol or verse, was that the Pledge was an ideal vehicle for the indoctrination of the country’s youth. The amendment’s chief proponents in Congress were not at all bashful about their intentions. Speaking from the well of the Senate, Senator Wiley endorsed the bill by saying, “What better training for our youngsters could there be than to have them, each time they pledge allegiance to Old Glory, reassert their belief, like that of their fathers and their fathers before them, in the all-present, all-knowing, all-seeing, allpowerful Creator.” Id. at 5915 (emphases added). Senator Ferguson, who authored the Senate bill, agreed that “we should remind the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and the other young people of America, who take [the] pledge of allegiance to the flag more often than do adults, that it is not only a pledge of words but also of belief.” Id. at 6348 (emphasis added). In the House, Congressman Rabaut, the original author of the first bill to amend the Pledge, declared that “from their earliest childhood our children must know the real meaning of America,” a country whose “way of life . . . sees man as a sentient being created by God and seeking to know His will.” Id. at 1700 (emphases added). His colleague, Congressman Angell, argued that “the schoolchildren of America” should understand that the Pledge of Allegiance “pledge[s] our allegiance and faith in the Almighty God.”

In conclusion:

An examination of that text and the plain meaning of its words clearly reveals the explicitly religious purpose motivating the amendment to the Pledge. The words “under God” are undeniably religious, and the addition to the Pledge of Allegiance of words with so plain a religious meaning cannot be said, simply because it might assist the majority in obtaining its objective, to be for a purpose that is predominantly secular. The words certainly were not inserted for the purpose of “reinforc[ing] the idea that our nation is founded upon the concept of a limited government.” As I have stated earlier in this dissent and as I reiterate here, the suggestion by the majority that the purpose of inserting the phrase “under God” into the Pledge was to remind us that we have a “limited government” finds no support in the record and is wholly without merit.

And why is it that the Majority Opinion is pretending that this case is about the effect of the entire Pledge rather than the two-word phrase that is clearly at issue? To avoid the obvious. Here's what would have followed from honest and competent jurisprudence (again, this is from the Dissent):

[The earlier U.S. Supreme Court case of Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1984)] explicitly requires us to compare the original statute to the amended form and to examine what the amendment has added. Where the addition is religious, the addition must be invalidated. Here, Wallace unquestionably requires us to strike down as unconstitutional the state-directed, teacher-led daily recitation of the “under God” language in the Pledge of Allegiance in the public schools. Omitting the two words added by the 1954 amendment and returning to the recitation of the secular version of the Pledge that was used in public schools for decades prior to the adoption of the amendment would cure the violation of the Establishment Clause at issue here.

Newdow v. Rio Linda would seem to suggest two things to those who take the logic of the Majority Opinion seriously. First of all, stare decisis is the sacred foundation of our entire legal system--except when it is not (for instance, when the Newdow Court intentionally skates around the Wallace decision), and that the principle of stare decisis can be cavalierly switched on and off by an appellate judge. Second, it’s time to revoke the tax-exempt status of all churches that talk about “God” because such talk is no longer religious. The bottom line, though, is that Newdow is simply the latest in a long line of dishonest Pledge of Allegiance decisions. For example, see this earlier post on the federal district court case of Freedom from Religion Foundation v. The Hanover School District, where the Court claimed that making the children recite the Pledge each day is for the purpose of "teaching them history."

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Hypocrisy award goes to “children advocacy” center

If you want to know about an organization's character, watch what it does; don't listen to what it says. Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood is a gutsy little organization. How little? Two employees. How gutsy? They make a lot of noise and they get a lot done. CCFC is the hero in the story I'm about to tell. Here's a post featuring one of those two employees, Josh Golin, speaking intelligently and from the heart about the disturbing trend of increased commercialization of childhood. And consider this bold stand that CCFC took when President Bush praised a fraudulent corporate scheme to make children "smarter" during his 2007 State of the Union address. Not content to simply make a lot of noise, CCFC threatened litigation against Baby Einstein (which had become part of the Disney empire). This approach resulted in Disney offering refunds for its Baby Einstein products which, alas, weren't actually able to make children smarter--in fact, there is good evidence that they hinder the development of children's brains because many of the products require plopping babies in front of televisions for extended periods. Happy ending, right? Nope. Now I'm going to tell you about children advocacy organization that refused to do the right thing. It appears that Disney wanted some revenge against CCFC, and that Disney pressured "Judge Baker Children’s Center," (CCFC's landlord) to suddenly evict CCFC from it's headquarters. It also appears that Disney attempted to gag CCFC at about the time when Disney agreed to offer those refunds (under threat of litigation by CCFC). Therefore, it appears that Disney used its power to turn a large prestigious children's center against a tiny children's advocacy group. And the more you know about JBCC, the more it is clear that this move is about far more than choice of office space--CCFC was kicked in the teeth thanks to this eviction. For the record, Disney's actions were reprehensible, but that's what I've come to expect from all big for-profit corporations (note this for the record). Maybe I'm naive, but I still assume that non-profits such as JBCC will generally do the right thing. I just sent an email to JBCC to voice my intense displeasure at its actions. In the subject field, I entered "Shame on you." Here's my email:

To: John R. Weisz – President, Judge Baker Children’s Center Stephen Schaffer - Chief Operating Officer Michele D. Urbancic - Vice President of Advancement And to everyone else it should concern at the Judge Baker Children’s Center:

I have just read in the New York Times that your prestigious Center suddenly evicted a tiny do-gooder organization that had recently exposed consumer fraud committed by the Walt Disney Company.

In case you folks haven’t done it recently, I’d recommend that you each spend about a minute to read your own mission statement.

The Judge Baker Children's Center promotes the best possible mental health of children through the integration of research, intervention, training and advocacy . . . Through advocacy we use scientific knowledge to expand public awareness and inform public policy.

[Emphasis added]. Truly, your Center has just demonstrated a lack of class so momentous that it deserves some sort of special public recognition above and beyond the recent NYT article. At least now we know that your mission statement is for sale. And PLEASE don’t blame it on your board. No one forced any of you to sit there in silence while your Center betrayed Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. You were free to call the NYT and criticize your own Center; of course, that would have taken courage and scruples. And no one forced any of you individuals to acquiesce when your Center tried to gag a bona fide children’s advocacy organization.

The rank hypocrisy of what you did (and tried to do) to CCFC reeks all the way to my hometown of St. Louis. Here’s a suggestion to avoid this kind of scolding in the future: try to remember that your mission is “improving the lives of children.” Your mission (and your “shifting focus”) should not be to serve as the enforcement arm for corporate wrong-doing.

For your punishment, you should each go look in a mirror and contemplate who it is that you are seeing.

I’ll leave you with a quote:

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Erich Vieth St. Louis, Missouri http://dangerousintersection.org/

Continue ReadingHypocrisy award goes to “children advocacy” center

The consequences of de-sensitizing ourselves to torture

I wonder about those who argue that waterboarding is not torture-- can they really believe it? I suppose so. Otherwise, how could this happen? Joshua Tabor, a U.S. soldier based in Tacoma, Washington, allegedly waterboarded his 4 year-old daughter because she refused to recite the alphabet. He chose the CIA-approved technique because he knew that his daughter was afraid of water, a phobia that will surely be an ongoing issue for the poor girl. If Christopher Hitchens is to be believed, she'll wake up with nightmares for quite some time. Hitchens was a supporter of the torture technique, at least until he underwent it. His column at Vanity Fair following the experience is titled, "Believe me, it's torture." See for yourself, if you've got a sadistic streak: There seems to be little doubt that Mr. Tabor has some other issues, as neighbors reported seeing him wandering the neighborhood wearing a kevlar helmet and threatening to break windows. But I can't help but think that our collectively cavalier attitude towards the use of torture, even on innocent women and children, has had a de-sensitizing effect on us. Note this paragraph from Fox News:

"Joshua did not act as though he felt there was anything wrong with this form of punishment," the police report said.
And why would he? We, as a people, have not felt that there's anything wrong with it. If it's good enough for innocent Muslim women and children, why not use it on our own children? My heart hurts to think about the shock, the pain, and the terror that was inflicted on this poor girl at the hands of her own father. It's painful to me to think about all of the people that we have tortured, and I can only hope that this incident brings us closer to the point where we can unequivocally say, "Torture is wrong".

Continue ReadingThe consequences of de-sensitizing ourselves to torture

Temple of Disinformation

In America's heartland there is a modern temple to the denial of five nines (99.999%) of what we've learned about the universe in the last couple of centuries. The Creation Museum is a sleek, elegant, well presented indoor theme park almost entirely lacking in actual knowledge. It is derided worldwide, and is a source of shame for our once forward thinking nation. It is also, I grant, an edifice to the principle of free speech. The ham, showman and charlatan who created this institution in Kentucky after he was laughed out of his Australian homeland seems to be quite sincere about the project. Ken Ham is actually his name. And he has been raking in major profits for nearly three years from this place, well beyond even his early hopes. Apparently there is more than one born again every minute. Busloads of young Christians long to go on pilgrimages to shore up their Young Earth ideology. The younger ones (under 12) can even get their picture taken on the back of a dinosaur, just like those that people rode. That is, before the old west cowboys killed the last of them off. That's why all those T-Rexes are found out on the great plains. You don't have to take this from me on faith, follow the links from the Wikipedia article on the Creation Museum. See actual video tours. So, why am I venting my bile right now? Wasn't this already adequately covered on this site? I just learned that a young collateral relative, a bright young man, is looking forward to his trip there this weekend! Half a dozen years ago, he was in public schools, in every advanced program they offered. Advanced science and math and lead cello in the district orchestra. Then his parents removed him from all that intellectual wealth to put him in a small Christian school. He still excelled, eventually garnering college board scores that got him invitations to Harvard and Yale and such. But he wants to go to a small school with an influential chapter of the Campus Crusade. Sigh. Most of this is re-posted from this FaceBook note.

Continue ReadingTemple of Disinformation