House chaplaincy tiff doesn't reflect America
Pilgrims, once again we have a huge controversy in the House
of Representatives in our nation's capital, and this time it is
not about the president of the United States. No, this time the honorable representatives are scrapping about
who should become the chaplain of that august body. The chaplain
of the House of Representative is a low-profile post and mostly
the person who occupies the office leads the morning prayers and
helps congressmen or congresswomen when they have a moral problem. Of course, over the past few years these elected officials
have had many moral problems, so the chaplain's work has become
very stressful. Therefore it is important that the person appointed
to this office be someone who can counsel all of the representatives
- people from every state. The current fight pits Catholics against Protestants, an odd
conflict in this country where the two expressions of Christianity
have been friendly for 40 years. After all, this is not Northern
Ireland, where Catholic and Protestant forces have been trying
to destroy each other for decades. But in this scrimmage, the Catholics want a priest and the
Protestants want a minister. The Protestants are apparently not
willing to listen to the morning prayers of a Catholic priest
and vice versa. The wise fathers sitting in the House of Representatives
cannot bring themselves to compromise. The truth is, there has never been a Catholic chaplain in the
House of Representatives. The Senate had a Catholic chaplain in
1832, but he only lasted a year. So, the Catholics are saying
the time has come to appoint a Catholic priest to the post. Seems
like a reasonable proposal. But the Protestants want a minister, and they got the Rev.
Billy Graham to call the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert,
and make a suggestion. Actually, Hastert already had a Presbyterian
minister in mind, a fellow by the name of The Rev. Charles Wright,
and Billy Graham simply endorsed the candidate. But the candidacy of Wright infuriated the Catholics, and they
are still insisting on their man, the Rev. Timothy O'Brien. Now ordinarily I do not pretend to give advice to my congressional
representatives. But it appears they need some help and I am always
willing to step into a fray. So, first I have to ask our representatives if they have noticed
that the United States has become very diverse in terms of religion.
Here in the Northland, we now have many Buddhists, Muslims, Jains
and Hindus. Here in Minnesota, we include Native American spirituality
in the lexicon of religions. According to Religion Information Services, a research firm
here in Minnesota, there are now 43,000 Muslims, 20,000 Buddhists
and 15,500 Hindus in this state, which has always been evenly
divided between Protestants and Catholics. Working at this newspaper, for instance, are people who were
raised Catholic or Protestant, but have now rejected those dogmas
and have launched their own search for spiritual health. Therefore, it is a surprise to us here in the Midwest that
there could be such bickering about who will say morning prayers
in the House of Representatives. I'm not saying this is a job
that requires very little effort. But I do wonder how much labor
is involved in writing a prayer that lasts 30 seconds. Therefore,
here is my solution. First, I think the House of Representatives should appoint
a retired Catholic priest to the chaplain's post. And I think
the man should serve until he expires. This will restore a feeling
of fair play to the process. Second, given the diversity of religion in our nation, the
representatives should vote to abolish the office of chaplain
when the last chaplain dies. Meanwhile, in the place of the chaplain's
30-second morning prayer, the House of Representatives will instead
observe a few moments of silence. This will allow lawmakers to
speak with their own particular Supreme Being. In the history of this nation, Americans have always respected
religion. When it becomes a subject of petty bickering, something
has to be done. And the best solution is to either pass the chaplaincy
each year to representatives of a variety of religions or wipe
the office from official practice. Fighting about religion is just not the American way.
Clark D. Morphew
Posted For February 26, 2000