Essential Services

Seeing people as primarily religious animals

05/22/2020

Acts of the Apostles 18:9-18 One night while Paul was in Corinth, the Lord said to him in a vision, “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city.” He settled there for a year and a half and taught the word of God among them. But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him to the tribunal, saying, “This man is inducing people to worship God contrary to the law.” When Paul was about to reply, Gallio spoke to the Jews, “If it were a matter of some crime or malicious fraud, I should with reason hear the complaint of you Jews; but since it is a question of arguments over doctrine and titles and your own law, see to it yourselves. I do not wish to be a judge of such matters.” And he drove them away from the tribunal. They all seized Sosthenes, the synagogue official, and beat him in full view of the tribunal. But none of this was of concern to Gallio.

One of the more important innovations of the United States Constitution was the concept of the separation of church and state. You have probably heard of that. I believe it is a generally good concept but I do not believe it is an absolutely good one, that is, it admits of exceptions. Sometimes church and state should not be so separate. We find this notion of separation enshrined in the first Amendment, where we read (among other things): “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

In Acts 18 (our first reading today), though, we see this separation had its antecedents in Roman law, where you find the seeds of this separation. The Jews want Paul tried for violating religious laws, but Gallio, the Roman proconsul, states: “If it were a matter of some crime or malicious fraud, I should with reason hear the complaint of you Jews; but since it is a question of arguments over doctrine and titles and your own law, see to it yourselves. I do not wish to be judge of such matters.” That reminds me of that old television sitcom where a small town mayor dismissively told his staff: “Handle it! Handle it!” He didn’t want to be bothered with mundane matters.

In all honesty, however, Roman authorities were intensely interested in religious matters and frequently tried and executed people for failing to worship the emperor. The Romans believed in emperor worship. So, Gallio’s statement was exercising pragmatic diplomacy, not expressing political doctrine. You might remember another Roman official named Pontius Pilate who followed the same political path, washing his hands in the bowl of the separation of church and state.

But human beings are not essentially social animals, nor are they merely rational animals, nor are they primarily scientific animals. I am convinced man and woman are first and foremost “religious animals.” That is, our first task and highest vocation is to worship God. When I was a newly ordained priest I visited an eighth grade religion class at Christ the King School, where the students were discussing cloning. Scientists had just cloned “Dolly” the sheep. They asked me: “Fr. John, if scientists could clone human beings would they truly be human?” I looked at my pager and said: “Oh, sorry, I just got a call to the hospital for an emergency.” No, not really.

I answered: “Well, if that cloned human being could kneel down and pray to God, then I believe it would truly be human. Why? Well, because then it would have a soul.” In other words, what makes you and me different from a machine or a monkey is a soul, and the soul’s first job is to pray to God. Indeed, the point and purpose of all creation is to praise its Creator, as we learn in Daniel 3: “Ye sun and moon, praise the Lord!”

That brings me back to the separation of church and state, and why it is not an absolute good, but only a general good, and therefore admits of exceptions. If the role of the state is to ensure human happiness and flourishing, then it must zealously provide the opportunity and eagerly protect the obligation for man to worship God. Otherwise, the government is not guiding a nation of human beings, but a herd of animals.

And now here’s my take-home message: this is why I would argue that religious services should be defined as “essential services” during this pandemic. Of course, there are lots of good reasons for closing churches and suspending services – mostly to protect priests from infections! Still, I believe we also inadvertently overlook what makes a human being truly human, namely, worship. Arguably more urgent than food, shelter and health is our need to worship God.

The government that cannot see and safeguard man’s religious duty has lost sight of what makes man truly human. That is where the wall of separation between church and state should come down. Otherwise, we have erected a wall between heaven and earth.

Praised be Jesus Christ!