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