Refurbishing the California Missions
In 2004 the federal government appropriated funds to assist with the refurbishment of the California Missions. Both California Senators approved. Yet the California State Attorney General’s Office opposed the assistance on the grounds that it would aid religion. The Missions—possibly the best known and most visited public monuments in the State–are designated California Historical Monuments. Because of this designation, the state monitors and controls their reconstruction.
How did the Office of the California Attorney General determine that a grant to assist the refurbishment of the Missions will aid religion? The state did not conduct any hearings on the matter nor call forth religious experts for counsel. When fourth graders make models of the Mission, is that an aid to religion? If a fire department is called to extinguish a fire in a Mission, would that be an aid to religion?
Actually, whether the Office of the Attorney General has sufficient expertise on matters of religion is beside the point. The Attorney General’s office, as with any government office, has no authority to determine what does and does not aid religion.
If judges and government officials were to conduct hearings and call expert witnesses on what aids religion, the fact that they were involving themselves in religious matters beyond their competence would become patently evident. So they avoid this dilemma by deciding things by fiat and making themselves into religious potentates responsible to nobody.
The California courts hold that they can figure out “whether the grant would have the direct, immediate and substantial effect of promoting religious purposes.” Although I have more than forty years experience as a priest, I would claim no such religious expertise.
What aids religion is a matter reserved to citizens, believers, and church members, not the officials of a secular government. That is what the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment means, i.e., religion exercised free from government interference or jurisdiction. That Amendment is a command to government to stay within its proper secular sphere and to refrain from participating in religious decisions such as what aids religion.
The proposed financial aid for the missions is the same aid afforded by the government to other historical sites to aid in their physical upkeep so that future generations may visit and learn from them. Refurbishing roofs, repairing walls and strengthening foundations are eminently secular work—something government officials can track, evaluate, and supervise. They do not have to involve themselves in any religious question or decision.
James Madison wrote in 1785:
We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.
The evaluation of what does or does not aid religion is beyond the “cognizance” of the Attorney General of California.
Government assists religion in a multitude of ways. No one argues that fire departments should not answer calls from churches because putting out fires in them helps religion enormously. No one proposes turning off traffic signals on Sunday mornings because they aid people to get to their places of religious worship. Does anyone think that officials should go through the National Gallery and remove all the pictures that propagate a religious message?
What aids religion is a useless standard for judging First Amendment questions. It only leads government officials to act in a completely arbitrary fashion by making religious decisions without examination or explanation.
Some may argue that if the government assists the missions with refurbishing it has to help every church. Not so. Other churches are generally not historical monuments, and the state does not have an interest in their preservation as it does in the Missions.
Refurbishment of Mission structures is a secular task within the power of government. Whether the government wishes to spend money to do this task involves a policy—not a constitutional—decision.