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As my time with the Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty comes to a close, I would like to reflect on the experience, but also on the frankly bizarre reaction that some people had to my participation.
Just about a year ago, I received a call from the White House inviting me to serve on a newly formed commission dedicated to fostering religious liberty in our country. I had, and still have, no idea who recommended me or how my name was surfaced. But upon receiving the invitation, I thought, “Well, the president of the United States is inviting a Catholic bishop to be a voice around the table as the crucially important issue of religious freedom is being discussed.”
Why would I say no, especially since the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had made religious liberty a central concern?
And the commission did indeed do exceptionally important work. In the course of the year, we brought to light violations of religious liberty in the arenas of health care, education and the military. We explored the sources of religious freedom in the work of the Founding Fathers, and we drew special attention to the antisemitism that is currently bedeviling our country. One of the most significant contributions we made was to bring into sharper relief the issue of church-state relations.
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Far too much of the jurisprudence of the last roughly 75 years has been dominated by Thomas Jefferson’s ambiguous metaphor of a “wall” that purportedly separates civil government and religion.
As many have indicated, there is no mention of such a wall in either the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers or the Constitution itself. What we do indeed find in the First Amendment is the prohibition against any formal establishment of religion through an act of Congress, but this has nothing to do with eliminating religion from public life or even reducing religious expression to private acts of worship.
In point of fact, that same First Amendment insists that nothing should prevent the free exercise of religion in our country. Many of the witnesses we heard from during the year testified to the cynical way that Jefferson’s “wall” was used to justify severe restrictions on their free exercise of religion. To be sure, no student in an American classroom should be compelled to pray according to any particular religious tradition, but we heard of students who were forbidden from singing Christian songs at a talent show, or, in the most absurd case, forbidden from wearing COVID masks inscribed with “Jesus loves me.”
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A point that I made frequently in the course of our deliberations is that the greatest threat to religious liberty today comes from what amounts to an alternate religion, which I characterize as “the culture of self-invention.” This ideology dictates that there are no objective moral values and no stable human nature, and hence the determination of value is entirely a product of individual choice.
The more this philosophical perspective comes to hold sway, the more the leaders of the culture want religion out of education, health care and other institutions, for they rightly recognize that the advocates of traditional religion are their most powerful ideological opponents. In many ways, the testimonies we heard and the discussions we had echoed this fundamental theme.
I must say, furthermore, that my colleagues on the commission, including and especially the chairman, Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have been marvelous. They showed great interest in my perspective as I brought Catholic teaching to bear on the matter of religious liberty. There was never an attempt to censor me or question the legitimacy of my participation. I was allowed free rein to express my point of view, to interview witnesses as I saw fit, and to engage my fellow commissioners in lively conversation.
No one ever demanded that I demonstrate unquestioned fealty to the Trump administration or any particular political point of view. I’m proud to have contributed to the final statement that we are about to communicate to the president.
I fully realize that, for some, the simple fact that the president whose administration invited me to join the commission was Donald Trump was enough to inspire a negative response, but I thought that objection was silly.
In all honesty, if President Joe Biden had invited me to serve on such a commission, I would have said yes, though I rather vehemently disagree with many of his policies.
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To serve at the beckoning of a president on a commission dedicated to a very specific issue is not thereby to endorse every policy, proposal or action of that president.
Relatedly, other critics opined that no churchman should be so closely associated with a government agency; but I took as my inspiration Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, the legendary president of the University of Notre Dame, who served on, believe it or not, 16 separate presidential commissions under five presidents, both Democratic and Republican. There is simply no way that Hesburgh could possibly have agreed with all the policies of those various chief executives, but he served nonetheless. The point is this: If church leaders absent themselves from advising government officials, then the church’s voice does not resonate in the halls of power.
A complaint that I found particularly puzzling was that my service on this commission made me part of the Trump administration, and that Pope John Paul II had strictly forbidden churchmen from serving in government positions. But I was not part of the Trump administration!
Those in the administration of a president are dedicated to the implementation of that president’s policies. Thus, for example, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth are indeed charged with making Donald Trump’s proposals a reality. But the kind of commission on which I served is, so to speak, on the other side of the ledger. That is to say, we were not endeavoring to implement policy, but rather to shape it.
Our job was to recommend to the president actions he could take, either through legislation or executive order, that would enhance religious liberty. But giving advice and implementing policy are entirely different things.
In sum, participating in the Religious Liberty Commission was a wonderful experience, and I’m very glad that I accepted the president’s invitation.
The criticisms and objections were, in the final analysis, spurious and born, I would maintain, largely out of pique and envy.
