Church and State

[ironphoenix]

Ganked from goldsquare: an excellent opinion piece on the complex and difficult relationship between religious and government institutions in the US. The legal arguments are specifically American, but the underlying question is universal.

Even the question of what should, from a purely religious point of view, be the criteria for membership in a religion is a very difficult one for me. On a fundamental spiritual level, I take the words "Catholic Church" very much at face value, and open the doors very wide indeed, but how that relates to human institutions is ... fraught.

Comments

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

It would be an interesting court case! I suspect that the defense would be that she can't apply because she lacks the essential qualification of ordination, which would bounce the case out of Labour Board and into a larger rights tribunal, where the question of the obligation of a religious organization to grant ordination without regard to gender (and will that make a precedent for sexual orientation?) will have to be decided. I think that in that framing, it's difficult to see how imposing that obligation on religious organizations wouldn't contradict the fundamental right of freedom of religion.

I don't see how your two paragraphs don't contradict each other, though.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know under Canadian law it wouldn't fly.

And what I meant is I don't think the church should be forced to hire a professed atheist or Hindu as a priest, just like a company shouldn't be forced to hire a manager who openly says that they don't agree with the stated goals or products of the company.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Ah I see what you meant there.