- Feb 5, 2002
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CNN trotted out a pet priest, Father Edward L. Beck, to denounce President Trump asking Governors to respect freedom of religion. I thought the name sounded familiar. Back in 2010 he was calling for a Vatican III to give the heave ho to celibacy. I gave his statement a fisking. Go here to read it. He also, predictably, joined in the media lynch mob against the Covington students. Go here to read about it. From his latest screed:
I don’t see the logic there. No one is prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
When you tell churches they can’t be open, or mandate how they are operated, that is directly contrary to the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment and all state constitutions. Such a violation may be temporarily allowed by courts in the face of a dire public emergency, but it is always a violation.
Though we are in the teeth of a pandemic, in which a very dangerous coronavirus can be transmitted by, among other things, close physical proximity, people can and do continue to worship, albeit in temporarily altered circumstances and in novel ways. To use the “freedom of religion” argument to demand carte blanche the opening of religious venues is to proffer a fallacious argument that can potentially lead to physical harm and, in the worst case, death.
By that light Christians were free in Stalinist Russia to “worship”. Note the verbal slight of hand going from “freedom of religion” which many leftists view with suspicion, to freedom of “worship” which most leftists grudgingly concede, for now. Freedom of religion is always a public act. Freedom of worship grants a Christian freedom only in his mind or the privacy of his house. His beliefs are to be kept purely private and to himself, while the State carefully controls all public manifestations of that faith.
We all want to be able to open churches and places of worship fully so that those who wish to gather in physical communion again can do so. However, this must be done incrementally and with utmost care. Physicians and health experts should be our primary guides here, and religious leaders should follow their guidance with strict and humble adherence.
I have never seen the “guys in the white coats” exception to the First Amendment. In the past churches have voluntarily closed when quarantines have been imposed by public authorities, always in limited areas, in a city for example, and for a limited time. The closings this time have been so dramatically greater in scope and time as to represent a difference in type rather than a mere difference in degree. The attempts by some state governments to harass, fine and threaten with arrest in order to support such mandated closings is also different, and extremely ominous, especially since the very same governments have also allowed certain businesses, like abortion clinics and pot stores, to function during the same time period. Little science and much politics seems to have been involved in the widespread closing of the churches.
Continued below
Familiar Name, Usual Suspect
I don’t see the logic there. No one is prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
When you tell churches they can’t be open, or mandate how they are operated, that is directly contrary to the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment and all state constitutions. Such a violation may be temporarily allowed by courts in the face of a dire public emergency, but it is always a violation.
Though we are in the teeth of a pandemic, in which a very dangerous coronavirus can be transmitted by, among other things, close physical proximity, people can and do continue to worship, albeit in temporarily altered circumstances and in novel ways. To use the “freedom of religion” argument to demand carte blanche the opening of religious venues is to proffer a fallacious argument that can potentially lead to physical harm and, in the worst case, death.
By that light Christians were free in Stalinist Russia to “worship”. Note the verbal slight of hand going from “freedom of religion” which many leftists view with suspicion, to freedom of “worship” which most leftists grudgingly concede, for now. Freedom of religion is always a public act. Freedom of worship grants a Christian freedom only in his mind or the privacy of his house. His beliefs are to be kept purely private and to himself, while the State carefully controls all public manifestations of that faith.
We all want to be able to open churches and places of worship fully so that those who wish to gather in physical communion again can do so. However, this must be done incrementally and with utmost care. Physicians and health experts should be our primary guides here, and religious leaders should follow their guidance with strict and humble adherence.
I have never seen the “guys in the white coats” exception to the First Amendment. In the past churches have voluntarily closed when quarantines have been imposed by public authorities, always in limited areas, in a city for example, and for a limited time. The closings this time have been so dramatically greater in scope and time as to represent a difference in type rather than a mere difference in degree. The attempts by some state governments to harass, fine and threaten with arrest in order to support such mandated closings is also different, and extremely ominous, especially since the very same governments have also allowed certain businesses, like abortion clinics and pot stores, to function during the same time period. Little science and much politics seems to have been involved in the widespread closing of the churches.
Continued below
Familiar Name, Usual Suspect
