Henry VIII Comes to San Diego
In 1534 Henry VIII declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church in England. That was a long time ago and we assume such things can no longer occur, at least not in the United States. The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty seems to provide protection against government assuming power over religion.
However, in 2006 a federal judge in San Diego, much as Henry VIII did, declared himself the supreme authority and judge of the meaning of the “beliefs, opinions, or practices” of the Catholic Church.
The case in question arose out of a 2002 California law—SB 1779—that repealed the Statute of Limitations for the duration of 2003 for civil suits arising out of the sexual abuse of minors. SB 1779 was drafted by lawyers suing the Catholic Church. The hearings in the Legislature focused on abuse by Catholic priests. The subsequent comments of the legislators who enacted the Bill and the Governor who signed it clearly indicated that they had the Catholic Church in mind. The results of the Bill are the clearest evidence that it was aimed at the Catholic Church.
The suspension of the Statute of Limitations led to about 1000 cases being filed against the Catholic dioceses in California. On the other hand, only a very small number of cases were subsequently filed against other persons and entities – so few as to make tracking them difficult.
Although there are an estimated 400,000 victims of abuse from public institutions in California, the Legislature did not extend the law to those entities, and the Supreme Court of California confirmed that action in 2007. This resulted in directing the focus of the problem of abuse of minors to the Catholic Church and ignoring the very large problem elsewhere.
The Federal Court in San Diego confirmed that the State targeted the Catholic Church.
The oral argument and opinion in the case (Melanie H. v. Defendant Doe) includes the following:
The Court: …what if the law targets a Church, but the result of the law is that it doesn’t burden the religious practices of the Church, what happens then?
Thus the secular Court set up a religious standard for judging the case, and it followed with a decision that issued multiple religious judgments. The Court stated that the law that targeted the Catholic Church could stand.
In a breathtaking usurpation of power to judge religious matters the Court declared:
- SB 1779 [the law repealing the statute of limitations] in no way targets inherently religious or religiously motivated conduct….
- SB 1779 does not impermissibly regulate the free exercise of religion because the legislation does not interfere with religious beliefs, opinions, or practices.
- counseling is not a “religious practice”
- SB 1779 does not burden the choice, supervision, or retention of priests.
- The Court concludes that financial burden in defending lawsuits is not a burden on religious belief or practice.
- However, the Court finds that the dispositive question is whether the statute infringes on a religious exercise, meaning a belief or practice.
- the Court need not address the arguments of the parties regarding the neutrality and general applicability of SB 1779.
The judge made all of these religious decisions without any testimony from expert witnesses and without examining the beliefs, doctrines, or practices of the Catholic Church. Of course, if witnesses had been called and the beliefs, doctrines, or practices of the Catholic Church had been examined, it would have been startlingly clear that a secular court was interfering in religious matters.
Instead, the judge set himself up as a religious potentate after the manner of Henry VIII and decided these religious questions by fiat.
The Court rightly recognized that a religious objection to a law does not exempt one from obeying it. The judge should have asked if SB 1779 was a valid secular law even if the Catholic Church argued that it impacted the Church’s religious beliefs, opinions and practices. However, he did not do that. Instead of focusing on secular matters, he concentrated on religious issues and asserted that he knew the meaning of Catholic beliefs, doctrines and practices better than Catholics themselves did.
Having decided the case on the basis of religion, the judge concluded that he did not need to address the secular standard of “neutrality and general applicability.”
According to this decision, a state could target a religious group to punish it for a problem that affected the whole of society. Even if the targeting bankrupted the religious group and destroyed its ability to provide places for worship and religious teaching that would not, according to the court, affect the religious “beliefs, opinions, or practices” of the group in question.
The First Amendment is a statement that the government is confined to secular matters within its specified power and has no jurisdiction in religious matters. The judge in San Diego decided that the First Amendment was a grant of jurisdiction to him to determine and evaluate Catholic beliefs, doctrines and practices.
In a notable book Separation of Church and State, published in 2002, Philip Hamburger argued that during the 19th Century, anti-Catholic nativists redefined American religious liberty to mean the separation of Church and State so that they could isolate and target Catholics. In Church and State matters as in life, the power to separate is the power to control. Anyone who as a youth was ever involved in picking teams knows that the one who separates those who play from those who do not exercises power. The redefinition of American religious liberty as the separation of Church and State giving the State power over the Church reached its summit in the San Diego case.
Child abuse is a terrible crime, and it is a deep source of shame and embarrassment that there should be so many allegations of abuse against priests. The John Jay Report shows that the Catholic Church in America has been far more proactive in addressing this problem than the rest of society. Despite this fact, the Church has been targeted to bear the burden, shame, and cost of this societal problem. That report is available at http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/index.htm.
One could hope that a federal judge would know that a law targeting any group is ipso facto a violation of due process, equal protection and the most basic of American liberties. One could also hope that instead of asking “what if a law targets a Church” the judge had asked: what if a law targets a group to punish it for a problem that affects all of society? One could wish that a judge would know that he has no jurisdiction to decide religious matters. However, the federal judge in San Diego dashed all those hopes.
Government targeting of groups has resulted in some of the greatest violations of
American civil and religious liberties against groups including African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Jehovah Witnesses, and, once again, Catholics.
Americans assume that the days of Henry VIII, when rulers declared themselves authorities in religious matters, are long gone in America. For Catholics, unfortunately, that is far from the reality.