May 18, 2014 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Former CLR Forum guest Perry Dane has a typically thoughtful post about the legislative prayer decision. The post offers a distinctively Brennan-esque, separationist perspective, with two moving parts: legislative prayer should be unconstitutional for separationist reasons; but if it is to be constitutional, legislative prayer should not be policed by the Court for ecumenical sufficiency. A bit from the second half of the argument:

To forcefully strip legislative prayer of its rootedness in particular faith traditions or to demand a compulsive even-handedness in rotations of chaplains would only further trivialize and politicize the act.

That’s not to say that public prayers should be “sectarian.” Quite the contrary. Religious (and even sympathetic non-religious) folk can find ways to pray together. And the wisest religious traditions demand sensitivity to other faiths (and persons of no faith) in the public arena. But if the Constitution is to allow official public prayer (which, as I’ve said, it shouldn’t), then it has no business demanding such wisdom as the price of admission to the halls of government.

The inimitable Peter Berger has this column on Town of Greece v. Galloway. Here’s the cleverly charming beginning:

In a Benedictine monastery there is a chain smoker. He smokes all the time. He smokes during work, during meals, even during communal prayers. He says that he would become seriously ill if he stopped. The abbot is solicitous about the smoker’s addiction, but this has become such a scandal that he feels constrained to consult the relevant authorities in Rome. He asks, “May one smoke while one prays?” Rome doesn’t act quickly, but after a few months the answer comes back –“No, one may not.” It so happens that a Jesuit is visiting on the day the reply from Rome arrives and the abbot tells him the story. The Jesuit thinks for a moment, and says: “You asked Rome the wrong question. What you should have asked—May one pray while one smokes?”

One could say that, in a decision of May 5, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States was guided by Jesuit logic.