AT WHAT POINT SHOULD A CHURCH ENTER THE POLITICAL THICKET?

   

    The Catholic Church has sued the Obama Administration. Bishop Daniel Jenky

of Peoria explains why:

    'We all know that our religious freedom is under direct attack as articulated

    in the federal government's Health and Human Services Mandate. ... “The

    mandate forces Catholic schools, universities, hospitals, and charitable groups

    to provide insurance coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and
   
    sterilization. This is directly contrary to our Catholic mission and violates our

    religious freedom.''


    But if the Obama Administration is truly directly attacking the “religious freedom”

of Catholics and the Catholic Church, why isn’t the church calling upon its membership

to “dump” President Obama in the fall election. If killing fetuses is truly a grave moral wrong,

why “pussy foot.” Why merely suggest that Catholics should “vote their consciences?” Why not

come right out and call for the President’s defeat? I suggest there are two reason.

   
    Father Michael Schaab of St. Pius Parish in Rock Island gives the first reason:

    “People always are concerned and leery that the church doesn't get into

    situations in which it looks as if they're being told how to vote. But the Bishop

    has been clear that's not the intent,''


    But if the church really believes abortion is tantamount to murder, why isn’t that “the

intent?” What’s the purpose of having a church if it won’t forcefully speak out against

what it perceives to be the equivalent of murder?


    So why doesn’t the church come right out and say, “If you truly believe that

abortion is a grave moral wrong, you can’t vote for President Obama in the fall? Indeed,

prior to 1954 the Churches were not so circumspect.


    On the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website, you will find the following, which I

suspect is the real reason for the church “pulling its punches.”


    “In 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to

     prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes ... churches, from engaging

    in any political campaign activity. [O]ver the years, it has in fact strengthened

     the ban. The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the

    language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing

    candidates.

    “Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity ...  churches by

    defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one "which does not participate in,

    or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements),

    any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate

    or public office."

    So, the question is this: Does the church have a realistic fear that if that if it descends into

the “political thicket,” that it will lose its tax exempt status? You decide. That same web site also

states

    “For the 2006 election cycle, the IRS received 237 referrals and

    selected 100 (44 churches, 56 nonchurches) for examination. More
   
    than half of these cases are still under investigation. However, the

    IRS did substantiate improper political activity in 26 cases and issued

    written advisories. So far, there are no revocation recommendations.



   But why does the IRS’s conduct not violate the First Amendment. That amendment

states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the

free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech ...”


    If a President raised a campaign war fund of a billion dollars with the promise he would

repeal the 13th Amendment and re-enslave all blacks, wouldn’t the churches, as a free exercise

of their religion and speech, have a right to denounce him and encourage the election of his

opponent? What if the President called for the extermination of all Jews, Catholics and Baptists,

or the suppression of all religions, wouldn’t the churches have the right to compare him to

Hitler and Stalin, and call upon their congregations to make sure he was not re-elected?


    There is a Constitutional reason that the churches are not taxed. Chief Justice John

Marshall long ago said “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” In 1970, in Walz v. Tax

Commissioner, Mr. Chief Justice Burger wrote

    “The legislative purpose of a property tax exemption is neither the advancement

    nor the inhibition of religion; it is neither sponsorship nor hostility. ...


    “Granting tax exemptions to churches necessarily operates to afford an

    indirect economic benefit ..., but yet a lesser involvement than taxing them.


     The exemption creates only a minimal and remote involvement between

    church and state and far less than taxation of churches. It restricts the fiscal

    relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce

    the desired separation insulating each from the other.”


    For the 2006 election cycle, the IRS investigated 100 churches, and found 26 violations.

It revoked no tax exemptions. Why? Because the IRS has to know that to do so would violate

First Amendment (free exercise of religion and free speech) rights, and would be

unconstitutional. No rule is better settled than that the First Amendment exists first and foremost

to guarantee political speech. Where true political speech is involved, “no law” means “no law.”


    In the much maligned (by liberals) 2009 case of Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm.

the court said bluntly:

        “We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of
   
         political speech, the Government may impose restrictions
   
        on certain disfavored speakers. Both history and logic
   
        lead us to this conclusion.”


  The “disfavored speakers” who brought the Citizens United case were corporations who wished

to use their “general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech

 (“electioneering communication”) ... expressly advocating the defeat of a candidate.” The Court

stated, “the Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations.” Most

churches are corporations. And if under Citizens United, they can expend funds to advocate the

“election or defeat of a candidate, they certainly can engage in pure speech to advocate the

“defeat” of a candidate.


   But even if the churches would have to sacrifice their tax exemptions to condemn grave

moral wrongs, shouldn’t they do so?  If they fail to speak out in the face of who and what they

perceive to grave evil, who needs them?

Posted Online: July 17, 2012, 7:21 a. m.  - Quad-Cities Online

by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea