Seperation of Church and State

I saw this video of Cris Matthews and Bishop Thomas Tobin discussing; Bishop Tobin's actions of not allowing Rep. Patrick Kennedy to get communion, because of his stance on abortion rights.



My first thought on the whole thing is; the Roman Catholics can do whatever they want with their own religion. It is the Catholic Churches, Constitutional right, of freedom of religion. So if they do not want to allow for a Representative to have communion in their church because of his beliefs, then so be it, it's their church.

My next thought was that Cris Mathews can't get a grip on the fact that the law is actually secondary to a person's religious beliefs. People follow their religious leaders over their legislators, because laws are made by man and not by God. God = perfect, Man = flawed.

Mr. Mathews often asks the Bishop (many times) what law should be in regards to abortion (the only card the left likes to bring out when in comes to religion, is abortion). The Bishop tells Mr. Mathews what he believed..."make laws that preserve and protect human life"

Mathews made the statement of: "You're instructing people how to vote, so tell Catholics now, on television, how they should vote, as members of Congress....."
Mr. Mathews you do realize that this is a representative for of government? ( Educational tip for Mr. Mathews: That is a government where our legislators are chosen to represent it's constituents).

The question to me sounds like: You're a lowly "commoner" and you are not as smart as our great and wise elected officials so why don't you write the bills. If I was Bishop Tobin, I think my answer would have been: "I may not know how to make the laws, but I can tell you what laws my parishioners are allowed to be made in order to be pleasing to our God and allowing abortion is not one of those laws. "

I keep hearing about this mysterious "separation of church and state" and this interview is yet another example. In the Constitution, it states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

OK, let me break it apart, the way I see it...

First: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" to me that essentially just says their will be no national church, much like the Church of England in 1787.

Second: "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" to me that says you can worship (or not worship) as you see fit.

So every time I see people saying there should be a separation of church and state, I wonder where the hell they are getting this, defiantly not from the Constitution, which happens to be the "Law of the Land" in the United States.

Oh, by the way Cris, when you are trying to make a point about how we should be separating church and state, and maybe you should have looked up the Bible verse you used. The verse is Matthew 22:17. The point of the original question stated there; "Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" was to trap Jesus into choosing between to bad options. If Jesus said no to the question, he would have been executed for treason. If he said yes to the question, the Pharisees would have portrayed him as disloyal to the nation.

So Mr. Mathews you made the point for the Bishop, using the Bible. Bishop Tobin was trying to tell you that he is not a legislator, yet you wanted him to "write" legislation. But he is a Bishop, and he did what God told him to do and did not allow a person blatantly disobeying God's law from partaking in communion. He did not do what "Caesar" wanted him to do in making legislation. So what are you Mr. Mathews a Heretic or a Pharisee?