The Wall of Separation

Last week a militant group of U.S. clergymen and laymen met in Washington and set out to raise $1,000,000 "to resist the declared purposes of the Roman Catholic Church further to breach the wall of separation between church and state."

The organization, called Protestants and Other Americans United (for the Separation of Church and State), was holding its first big meeting since its founding a year ago (TIME, Jan. 19, 1948). Main purpose of the conference was to launch a nationwide drive for members, with pamphlets, radio broadcasts and mass meetings scheduled for Atlanta, Cincinnati, St. Louis and other cities.

The windup of the program, a rally in Constitution Hall, drew a near-capacity crowd of 3,600. Speakers bore down heavily on Catholics who want state support for church schools. Said Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam: "One of the most important bastions of the fortress of religious liberty is the American principle of the separation of church and state. A full-scale attack upon this principle . . . has been launched by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church . . . The Roman Catholic Church does not believe in the separation of church and state . . . The question of public support for parochial education does raise the issue . . . Protestants and Other Americans United . . . has not been organized for the purpose of attacking the Roman Catholic Church or any other. It has been organized to maintain religious liberty . . . We are convinced that there are literally millions of American Roman Catholics who are gravely concerned by policies of the hierarchy to establish here a culture alien to the traditions of a free people."

P.O.A.U.'s new executive director, Dr. Glenn L. Archer, former dean of the Law School of Kansas' Washburn University, was encouraged by the success of last week's meeting. In an "Address to All Americans," his organization declared that recent events "have aroused a substantial body of public opinion to the danger that threatens religious liberty as guaranteed by the separation of church and state . . . In a recent public pronouncement issued by the National Catholic Welfare Conference and signed by American cardinals, archbishops and bishops, the hierarchy brands the separation of church and state a 'shibboleth of doctrinaire secularists' and serves notice that it intends 'peaceably, patiently and perseveringly' to effect a radical change in this American tradition and in the law which supports it."

After the P.O.A.U. conference ended, a Roman Catholic spokesman made a fast reply. Said Msgr. John Spence, director of education for the Washington (D.C.) archdiocese, in answer to Bishop Oxnam's speech:

"No attack whatever has been launched [by the Roman Catholic Church] on this constitutional principle embodied in the First Amendment. We are not assaulting any constitutional principle when we ask that public and parochial school children of all denominations be included in Government-initiated public welfare programs. The United States Supreme Court, in the Everson decision, established the constitutionality of free bus rides for all children. It is not conceivable that anyone would challenge the constitutionality of health services."

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