Tag Archives: America’s Christian Heritage

The Supreme Court and the Roman Catholic Magisterium

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Catholicism, Christianity, Founding Fathers, SCOTUS

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Last week’s Supreme Court rulings present an excellent example in the damage the Roman Catholic Magisterium can wreak on society. It will be remembered that in on case before the Court (the Burwell,or Obamacare case) the Court held that the word “State” did not really mean “State” but something else. In the second case (the gay “marriage” case) the Court said that the protections of the 14th amendment applied to those who wanted to marry the same sex – even though every State of the Union at time of the adoption of the amendment defined marriage as only occurring between opposite sex couples. How can that happen?

To understand this better, one needs to review American history.

This country was founded squarely on Protestant principles. According to one historian, “80 percent of American Christians in the colonial period…were significantly influenced by John Calvin’s teachings.” And those teaching would have included the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. In addition to proclaiming the infallibility of God’s written Word in providing moral guidance to God’s people, this doctrine elevated the importance of the written word and minimized the importance of outside interpreters. The further influence of this theology emphasized the importance of covenants, or written contracts. The Apostle Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians – “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6) – is one example of this line of thinking. This is also why the Supreme Court was given a little thought in the founding era of this country. After all, if judges who had been trained in Calvinism, Covenant theology and Sola Scriptura would surely rely on the written law and not on a “penumbra of rights” or other ephemeral things. When the Congress passed a law that says “States” that is what they meant.

Roman Catholics, on the other hand, reacting against Protestantism departed from this ancient Christian teaching. According to the Catholic Catechism, the bishops of the Catholic Church have been given“(t)he task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God”. (CCC para. 85 ff.) And while the catechism says that the Magisterium “is not superior” to the Scriptures the fact remains that the final word belongs to human beings and their subjective interpretation. That is why so much of Catholic theology is built on the teaching of men and not the teaching of the Bible.

So here’s the connection with last week’s SCOTUS opinions.

6 of 9 justices on today’s court are Roman Catholics. Having been raised in a tradition which defers to a human body that gives “authentic interpretation” to the laws, its’ only natural that they relied on their own judgment, rather that the written law. After all, Catholic theological history is littered with contradictory doctrines and topsy-turvy teachings precisely because of this.

So when a court dominated by Roman Catholics says, “States” means something else and they invoke an amendment that was passed by states that all defined marriage a heterosexual union in support of homosexual “marriage”, they are only doing what the Magisterium has been doing for time immemorial. One can think of papal pronouncements against slavery all the while Jews were enslaved in the Papal States. Or one is reminded of the Magisterium’s decree that Councils are superior to popes in 1418 which was reversed in 1870 by a Council that anathematized anyone who believed thusly! Or Pope Leo’s making “official” the teaching of Thomas Aquinas which included that a fetus is not immediately human contrasted by today’s Magiesterial hysteria about life beginning at the “moment of conception”.

The Founding Fathers were suspicious of this behavior so as to even prevent Catholics from voting in this new country. Now that Catholicism has gone mainstream, and that there are 66 million American Roman Catholics, this behavior, although shocking, is entirely understandable. America has found its Magisterium!

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Dialogue Continued – Dean Obeidallah and the 1797 Treaty with Tripoli

24 Monday Feb 2014

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I continue to be grateful to Dean Obeidallah for his persistence in the matter of America’s Christian heritage.  His latest objection is common and has to do with the 1797 Treaty between the new American federation and the Muslim nations of North Africa which were pirating U.S. merchant ships.

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Here is the text which Dean thinks is problematic, from Article XI of said treaty:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

So a plain reading of this text might be understood to buttress Dean’s case but a closer look would seem otherwise.  To wit,

  1. The text of the article is correct – the “government of the United States of America” – that is the “Federal” government – was not founded on the Christian religion, as per the First Amendment to the Constitution.  But the Federal government is only a container for the participating states which were decidedly Christian and this phrase does not mean that the social or political framework was not founded on Christian principles.
  2. The treaty was negotiated from weakness by the United States.  Without a large navy from which to despatch sufficient power to police the Straits of Gibraltar and western Mediterranean the Americans had little choice but to capitulate – in the short term.
  3. Article XI is absent any of the Arabic copies of the treaty.  So the copies of the treaties that were in the hands of the non-Christian parties to it did not have this section.  (It is fair to point out, as Dean’s side of the debate will, that the article was in the version ratified by the Senate.  True enough but that only serves to amplify the mystery.
  4. Article XI was negotiated out of the treaty after only 8 years.  The Americans decision fight the Muslims resulted in a stronger position vis-à-vis the original.  So the problem for Dean’s position here is that if America was indeed not a Christian nation in 1797 it must have become one by 1805 when this article was removed.  Not likely the country changed its core – and changed it back again – so whimsically.
  5. During this same time period, the Congress of the United States approved the printing of a “recommended Bible” (1781-82); in 1783, John Hancock declared a “religiously observed…Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer” for Massachusetts; and emigres to Maryland had to swear his “belief in the Christian religion” as required by statute. 

 In sum, the 1797 Treaty with the Barbary pirates seemingly contains language problematic to the assertion of America’s Christian underpinning.  But a closer reading of it in context and an understanding of the continuing Christian operations of the country as a whole requires a reading different than that a total dismissal of America’s Christian foundation.   And the continuing public expression of Christian devotion after the enactment of this treaty shows that America was then and remains a Christian nation.

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