Power and Precedent

I suspect some of my regular readers might not be pleased with this post, but that's fine. We can always agree to disagree. But I thought this had to be said, given some of the comments I've received during the past few weeks.

COVID-19, this microscopic virus, has apparently generated so much fear in the hearts of so many that they're willing to stop working, avoid public worship, and hide in their homes, unconcerned that doing so may well bring about a future far worse than the present. So many brush aside any concern for the abdication of their freedoms, that they willingly allow government officials at all levels to control the minutia of their lives. They have apparently concluded that our Constitution applies only when things go well. Once faced with a societal hiccup, they toss aside those God-given rights, all for the sake of safety.

Now don't get me wrong. I understand the need for precautions when dealing with such a nasty disease as the coronavirus. But to use it as an excuse to shred the Bill of Rights is a very dangerous precedent. Things might well return to some version of normal once the pandemic has passed -- although I doubt it -- but the die has been cast. The American people, at least a good number of them, have demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice freedom for safety. By doing so they display more than ignorance of their constitutional rights; they also display ignorance of human nature. 

People to whom we delegate power -- and since in this nation "we the people" are sovereign, the government has only the power we give it -- will almost always tend to abuse that power. James Madison recognized this when, in the Federalist Papers, he wrote:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary" [The Federalist, 51].

Men, of course, are not angelic, so we need the controls Madison mentions. The internal controls on government are found in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, while the controls external to the government are most evident when people petition the government or protest its abuse of power. And we've certainly seen much of the latter in recent weeks.

James Madison (1751-1836)

It's the violations of the First Amendment that most trouble me. Have you read the Bill of Rights lately? Just check out the language of the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

How does forcing us to close our churches and prohibiting the public celebration of the Mass and other sacraments not violate the prohibition of the free exercise of religion? 

Churches, like citizens, can adapt to the needs of safety without giving up their most basic rights. Believe me, once we allow government to ignore its foundational documents for the sake of a viral pandemic, it will find other reasons to do so in the future. When I encounter such corruption in government, I cannot help but recall the famous words of another of my heroes, Lord Acton:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Lord Acton (1834-1902)

According to Acton power "tends" to corrupt. In other words, if it isn't resisted, it will lead to corruption. But when it comes to absolute power, Lord Acton believed it is simply too great a temptation to resist. Several of our nation's governors and mayors have apparently fallen prey to this desire for absolute power. One can only hope that "we the people" reward them the next time they're up for reelection.

What's the solution in the face of a pandemic? I don't know. I'm not smart enough. But I do know there are enough intelligent, honest, and humble folks out there who can offer us reasonable means to achieve an acceptable degree of safety while still protecting our rights from those who would abuse them.

My biggest concern, though, is that too many folks seem to be afraid for their lives, while so few are afraid for their eternal life. Faith over fear!

A Word from the Persecuted

If you're a Christian, and especially if you're a Catholic, you're being persecuted. Maybe you didn't know this, but it's true. Even here in the good ol' freedom-loving USA, we are undergoing all kinds of persecution, some subtle and some not so subtle. We're not being killed or imprisoned, at least not yet, but there are other forms of persecution, some already in place and others planned.

Ironically, those responsible for much of this persecution justify it based on a very strange interpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It's really remarkable how those plain words written by our nation's founding fathers have in the minds of many of today's supposedly educated intelligentsia come to mean exactly the opposite of their original intent.

If it's been a while since you last read those first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, I suggest you take a few minutes to read them again. Here's a link: Bill of Rights, and here are those plain words of the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I'm certain it's no accident that the first right, the first freedom, addressed by the founders was freedom of religion. Note that the words clearly are not intended to protect us from religion, but to protect us from the government, to ensure the free practice of religion without government interference.

Yes, religion was the number one freedom in the minds of the founders. Only after guaranteeing our religious freedom did they go on to enumerate freedom of speech and the press, of the right to assemble peaceably, and the right to petition the government.

James Madison clearly believed that freedom of conscience was a right that no government could viloate:

"More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact."

It was a belief upheld as well by Abraham Lincoln who stated:

"That the guarantee of the rights of conscience, as found in our Constitution, is most sacred and inviolable, and one that belongs no less to the Catholic than to the Protestant; and that all attempts to abridge or interfere with these rights, either of Catholic or Protestant, directly or indirectly...shall ever have our most effective opposition."

And yet today, Catholic charities have been forced by state governments to cease running adoption agencies that, in many instances, have have operated for over a century because they will not place children with homosexual "parents". This, of course, is a direct abridgement of the rights of conscience and religious belief of Catholics and violates the Constitution in both letter and spirit. This, folks, is religious persecution, plain and simple. Yes, "Conscience in the most sacred of all property..."

In the same way, across the country politicians are floating legislation and/or executive orders to demand that all physicians and other medical personnel be forced to refer patients for abortions or contraceptive services even when such actions would violate the religious beliefs (i.e., the rights of conscience) of the physician involved. I can think of no more direct violation of one's conscience. Can you imagine the uproar if the state tried to force a physician to perform an execution? Well, for the believing Catholic who accepts the Church's magisterial teaching on the inherent evil of abortion, forcing a doctor to participate even peripherally in an abortion is really no different. And again, "the guarantee of the rights of conscience...is most sacred and inviolable."

As an ordained permanent deacon in the Catholic Church I have witnessed many marriages over the years, but always between a man and a woman. The Catholic Church does not accept same-sex marriages and never will, and yet homosexual activists are strongly lobbying state and local governments to demand that all those who are permitted by the state to"perform" marriages -- and that would include Catholic priests and deacons -- also perform same-sex marriages. As one deacon friend said to me recently, "I'll be damned if I'll ever do that." He expected his words to be taken literally.

Contrary to the clear intent of the Constitution, students have been prohibited from the free exercise of their religion in school for 50 years, despite the fact that prior to the Supreme Court's June 1963 decision prayer had been an active part of schooling throughout the country for almost 200 years. Suddenly it becomes illegal to pray in school because a group of robed ideologues decide the people have been wrong for two centuries.

I'm afraid that very few of today's politicians or judges still believe, if they ever believed, that in the United States the people are sovereign, that the government  "derives their just powers from the consent of the governed",  and that they are part of a "government of the people, by the people, for the people."  

Political correctness has already run amok in Western Europe and Canada, and led to far more severe persecution of Christians, including fines and prison sentences, than we have yet to encounter here. But I have little doubt we will soon see similar things in this country. Keep your eyes and eras open, folks. And when you see such acts of religious persecution, raise your voices, let those elected to represent you know that they won't represent you for very long unless they fight against these overt and subtle violations of our Constitution.

Jesus didn't tell us to sit on our hands. We are to "Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God." And we should certainly not allow Caesar to lay claim to what is God's. Over the past twenty centuries, millions of Christian martyrs have given their lives to prevent that from happening.


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Location:The Great State of Florida