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Published on Thursday, December 2, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Scalia To Synagogue - Jews Are Safer With Christians In Charge
by Thom Hartmann
Antonin Scalia, the man most likely to be our next Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, turned history on its head recently when he
attended an Orthodox synagogue in New York and claimed that the
Founders intended for their Christianity to play a part in
government. Scalia then went so far as to suggest that the reason
Hitler was able to initiate the Holocaust was because of German
separation of church and state.
The Associated Press reported on November 23, 2004, "In the synagogue
that is home to America's oldest Jewish congregation, he [Scalia]
noted that in Europe, religion-neutral leaders almost never publicly
use the word 'God.'"
"Did it turn out that," Scalia asked rhetorically, "by reason of the
separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than
they were in the United States of America?" He then answered himself,
saying, "I don't think so."
Scalia has an extraordinary way of not letting facts confound his
arguments, but this time he's gone completely over the top by
suggesting that a separation of church and state facilitated the
Holocaust. If his comments had gotten wider coverage (they were only
noted in one small AP article, and one in the Jerusalem Post), they
may have brought America's largest religious communities - both
Christian and Jewish - into the streets.
Born in 1936, Scalia is old enough to remember the photographs that
came out of Germany when he was a boy - they were all over the
newspapers and news magazines at war's end. It's difficult to believe
he wasn't exposed to them as a teenager, particularly having been
raised Catholic. And if he missed all that, one would think that his
son the priest would have told him about them.
The photos that can be seen, for instance, at
www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm of the Catholic Bishops giving the
collective Nazi salute. The annual April 20th celebration, declared
by Pope Pius XII, of Hitler's birthday. The belt buckles of the
German army, which declared "Gott Mit Uns" ("God is with us"). The
pictures of the 1933 investiture of Bishop Ludwig Müller, the
official Bishop of the 1000-Years-Of-Peace Nazi Reich. That last
photo should be the most problematic for Scalia, because Hitler had
done exactly what Scalia is recommending - he merged church and
state.
Article 1 of the "Decree concerning the Constitution of the German
Protestant Church, of 14 July 1933," signed by Adolf Hitler himself,
merged the German Protestant Church into the Reich, and gave the
Reich the legal authority to ordain priests.
Article Three provides absolute assurance to the new state church
that the Reich will fund it, even if that requires going to Hitler's
cabinet. It opens: "Should the competent agencies of a State Church
refuse to include assessments of the German Protestant Church in
their budget, the appropriate State Government will cause the
expenditures to be included in the budget upon request of the Reich
Cabinet."
That new state-sponsored German church's constitution opens: "At a
time in which our German people are experiencing a great historical
new era through the grace of God," the new German state
church "federates into a solemn league all denominations that stem
from the Reformation and stand equally legitimately side by side, and
thereby bears witness to: 'One Body and One Spirit, One Lord, One
Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of All of Us, who is Above
All, and Through All, and In All.'"
Section Four, Article Five of he new constitution further established
a head for the new German state-church with the title of Reich
Bishop. Hitler quickly filled the job with a Lutheran pastor, Ludwig
Müller, who held the position until he committed suicide at the end
of the war.
Which brings up one of the main reasons - almost always overlooked by
modern-day commentators, both left and right - that the Founders and
Framers were so careful to separate church and state: They didn't
want religion to be corrupted by government.
Many of the Founders were people of faith, and even the Deists like
Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson were deeply touched by what
Franklin called "The Mystery." And they'd seen how badly religious
bodies became corrupted when churches acquired power through
affiliation with or participation in government.
The Puritans, for example, passed a law in Plymouth Colony in 1658
that said, "No Quaker Rantor or any other such
