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R EV. MANFREDO C. PENTZKE, a fine Baptist minis ter of one of our Spanish-speaking churches, writes in part, “We of the Spanish-speaking churches know the Roman Catholic policy in regard to state af fairs, since all our countries are under Roman the ocracy.” Yes, Mr. Pentzke, your people know. I wish the members of the Supreme Court could have taken a tour of Poland, Rumania, Italy, Spain, Argentina and Mexico in the days of complete Roman Catholic dominance. I am sure they would not then have flirted wjth this principle so carelessly.” Dr. Louis D. Newton, President of the Southern Baptist Convention, who was in the courtroom, saw the decision as “a dark shadow, now no larger, it may appear, than a man’s hand, but portending a great and terrible cloud that may be drifting out over every hamlet and dale from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Gate, to darken the torch of religious liberty.” Dr. Newton, as reported in one of the Southern newspapers, said he “watched the face of Mr. Justice Black grow pale as the unanswerable arguments” of the dissent were read. What were the majority arguments? That the law authorizing such payments is basically social legisla tion for the benefits of students and their families, with benefits to the church merely incidental! Justice Black argued that no person may be denied the bene fits of such a law by reason of his religion. I am appalled! Does Justice Black not see that his admission that this help is even “incidental” makes it the first consideration? Indeed, it makes it the only consideration. If the principle of tax support for any religion is right, it becomes so regardless of the amount involved; and if it is wrong, then it is wrong regard less of the amount involved. To state it as my mother would have expressed it when I was a little boy: “It’s just as wrong to steal a penny as a florin." I knew that we could count on the ever-alert editor of the Watchman-Examiner to deal with this decision adequately. He declares in the February 20 issue: “The decision of the Supreme Court that public school funds raised by taxation may be used to pay for trans portation of children to Roman Catholic parochial schools is the stiffest blow at the great American principle of separation of church and state since the Bill of Rights became law. . . . There can be no doubt as to whether the situation will remain where it is. Page Sixteen
In 1930, the Catholics won a decision on free textbooks for their schools. In 1947, it is transportation. New York state now includes medical and social services. Step by step, the encroachment upon our American ideal of religious freedom is made.” My first indignant newsletter on this matter de clared that I would go to prison rather than pay-any taxes which would be used for such a purpose. Again I wondered if I was destined to be regarded by others as “ slightly intemperate” on this matter. But mark this militant conclusion by the worthy editor of this fine Baptist magazine: “ If . . . the encroachment on the F’ rst Amendment to the Constitution forbidding an establishment of religion is allowed to go unchallenged, we shall in time see that nothing is left of the Amend ment. The Supreme Court, however, has often shown sufficient ingenuity in the use of lawyers’ language and the shuffling of its precedents—when its decisions have met with public disfavor—to correct its own mistakes. If sufficient numbers of Americans now tell the Su preme Court and their representatives in Congress what they think of this destructive decision, a way may be found to change it. “There remains, however, the tortuous and expen sive course of correction, which is always difficult. It will require some patriotic citizen to refuse to pay his school tax on the ground that he is made to support religion in which he does not believe . . . it is incon ceivable that in this country a citizen shall be com pelled to pay taxes to build a religious sectarian privi lege which will not merely live off him, but in the end overmaster him and take away his rights.” I salute this courageous editor whom we all know and respect. Protestantism has some voices that are militant, yet graciously Christian! You will recall that in my first newsletter to you, I declared that the Roman Catholic parochial school system was an integral part of its life and growth and could not be divorced from religion. Naturally I am quite thrilled to read Justice Robert Jackson’s eloquent words, stating this same thing: “We know that such schools are parochial only in name—they, in fact, rep resent a world-wide and age-old policy of the Roman Catholic Church . . . Catholic education is the rock on which the whole structure rests, and to render tax aid to its Church school is indistinguishable to me from rendering the same aid to the Church itself.” T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
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