Church and state: Don’t let religion become policy

Pope Francis may as well have walked on water from Cuba to the United States’ shores last week, rather than on the Boeing 777 decked out with Vatican flags.

That’s the impression, anyway, that seemingly every pundit and politician along the spectrum gave off in anticipation of the pontiff’s American tour. What other public figure of the pope’s stature, after all, could possibly claim the praise and endorsement of people as opposite as Rick Santorum and Bernie Sanders?

There’s much to revere about the Roman Catholic Church’s striking leader. But when that reverence, regardless of how well-placed it is, bleeds into American politics — especially at a federal level — it’s no longer positive.

Apparently, the temptation to apply Pope Francis’ charismatic teaching to public policy exerts an equally strong pull on both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. And while it’s usually the GOP’s evangelical wing that uses the holier-than-thou, moralizing bit to promote its retrogressive social policies, Democrats finally seem to be embracing the chance to use Christianity as a tool in their own crusades.

As a Catholic, I can very much appreciate the strides Pope Francis has made toward moving the church back to its original purposes: loving and including the excluded and marginalized of the world. His “insistence on the primacy of compassion over judgment,” as described by CNN’s senior Vatican analyst John L. Allen, is irresistible and a rousing call for every member of society.

Nevertheless, Pope Francis’ message should come across as just that: meant for individuals, not governments. The principle, at least in the United States, is separation of church and state. Just because some Democrats want to impose religious compassion — rather than religious judgment — through the government doesn’t mean that the principle has changed at all. At best, it’s inconsistent — at worst, hypocritical.

Granted, it’s conceivable the left is more interested in critiquing religiously-based right-wing assertions than in actually holding economic beliefs based on Christian principles. Although, that argument neglects the tangibly real revival of interest in “liberal Christianity” that Pope Francis has sparked in our country.

It’s more than a little harmful when our representatives not only make nominal reference to feel-good religious sentiments to defend policies, but actually use the tenets of a religion — in this case, Christianity — as the substance and sole rationale for a plan of action, good or bad.

Of course, members of the so-called religious right are far better known for their over-the-top appeals to Christian principles in regard to public policy. However, the left isn’t innocent of theocratic tendencies.

Given a religious leader with teachings that mesh easily with their agenda, Democrats are no less likely to declare their political enemies the enemies of Christ than any opportunistic social conservative.

Take, for example, the scenario of the pope’s recent endorsement of the nuclear deal with Iran. While the question of the Iranian deal is its own issue, it’s fair to say that Democrats and others who support the deal have more than a few good arguments to bolster their side. Yet several on the left, including columnist Stephen Seufert at progressive Christian magazine Sojourners, could not help but make the issue a religious one, asking: If Pope Francis supported the deal, then “why do these Catholic candidates oppose it?”

John F. Kennedy, our nation’s first and only Catholic president to date, famously addressed the “religious question” of the 1960 election. That is, in Kennedy’s words, whether a “Catholic prelate would tell the president — should he be Catholic — how to act.”

Kennedy’s response of belief “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” was only prompted by the question of whether a Catholic American could think and act distinctly from the moral teachings of the church’s clerical hierarchy, especially the pope.

It’s beyond ironic that presidential candidates in 2015 — a great deal of whom aren’t Catholic — feel the need to emphasize and advertise just how unduly influenced they are by the pope’s teachings. Even those who aren’t Christian, such as Jewish Democratic presidential candidate Sanders, have attempted to draw comparisons between the pope’s philosophy and their own.

“People think my economic views are radical,” Sanders said at a July rally in Phoenix. “You should hear what this guy is saying.”

Ben Carson, a Seventh-day Adventist currently polling second in the GOP’s national primary field, according to a Real Clear Politics aggregate, was one of the pope’s countless well-wishers in Washington D.C. Carson took a pause in his frenetic campaigning schedule to attend the papal address to Congress and praised Pope Francis as someone who “should be encouraging for all of us.”

These comments come in the wake of his much-publicized remarks to the effect that he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this country.” Later, in an interview with Jake Tapper for CNN’s State of the Union, he amended his position to say he’d be fine with a Muslim as president as long as “you … reject the tenets of Islam.”

Faith, in Carson’s world, is only fine if it’s faith in the right god.

Carson exemplifies the problems with members of the political class placing religious leaders like Pope Francis and religious doctrines on a pedestal.

Yes, Pope Francis has reached out to non-Catholics and non-Christians like no other pope in the modern era. Yet, allowing a religious leader from any tradition to influence the way government is run leads to injustices and inconsistencies — like Carson’s dichotomy of which faiths are preferred and which are unacceptable in the public sphere. Not to mention there’s no constitutional provision to suspend the separation of church and state when it makes us feel good about ourselves.

Both the American left and right have something to learn from Pope Francis, but it isn’t how to conduct the business of government. Instead, it’s the realization that a religious leader’s status should be off-limits for political exploitation.

“Religion,” in the famous words of Thomas Jefferson, “is a matter which lies solely between man and his god.” To listen to the pundits, you’d think it was a matter that lies between man and his public.

Henry primarily writes on government and domestic policy for The Pitt News.

Write Henry at hgg7@pitt.edu.