Funding for California Missions Questioned
Sunday March 14, 2004
In California, government officials are hoping to get federal money to help restore a number of historic Spanish missions which are currently being used as active, working churches for Catholics. Granted that the missions are indeed historic, but why should taxpayers help support the restoration of active churches? Why can't the congregations do this themselves?
North County Times reports:
Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argued that federal funding for the missions would violate the principal of separation of church and state. "These missions are houses of worship, they are not simply museums," Lynn told the national parks subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "It is impossible to segregate the historical from the spiritual and expect that government funds will only go to the former."
Sign On San Diego reports:
Though all the missions are considered state historic landmarks, only seven are national historic landmarks. The Catholic Church, which created the missions that stretch from San Diego to north of Sonoma, owns 19 of them. Masses are regularly celebrated at those 19. The state of California owns two missions. In 2002, 5.3 million people visited the missions, making them the third most-visited historical attractions in the state.
Critics point out that the Supreme Court has ruled that states "may not erect buildings in which religious activities are to take place" or "maintain such buildings or renovate them when they fall into disrepair." "It is impossible to separate the historical from the spiritual and expect that government funds will only go to the former," said Lynn, a minister in the United Church of Christ. "Can a person in a pew observing a government-funded restored painting of the Virgin Mary be expected to ignore the religious impulse it was meant to convey? I don't think so."
If lots of people celebrate mass in these buildings and even more visit them for historic reasons, then they should get those individuals to help fund the restoration of the missions. People claim that the funds would only go to non-religious activities, but in the case of working churches this simply means that more funds are available for religious activities. Most churches have to worry about paying for things like repairs to walls, but these churches won't. Thus, unlike most churches, they will have plenty of extra money for Bibles, missionary work, and evangelization - all indirectly supported by the taxpayers.
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Comments
i agree, the government should not pay for the missions. it is not fair that non religious people are required to pay for religious institutions. Similarly, i don’t think it is fair that religious people are required to pay for atheistic government schools. Let religious people pay for the missions and let religious people go to the religious schools of their choice without having to pay twice, for the government school through taxes and again as consumers. Religious people need to be fair to atheists and atheists need to be fair to religious people. Can’t we all just get along? Am I missing something or is everyone in agreement with me?
It is quite disingenuous for you to suggest that the two situations are “similar.” Public schools do not “teach atheism” in the same way that religious institutions teach and promote religion. Schools are only “atheistic” in so far as they don’t promote theism.
Should people who pay for private security and alarms get to stop paying taxes for public police protection? Of course not - because such taxes go to benefit the community at large, not simply the person paying. Same is true for public schools.
Yes. Quite a lot, in fact.
If a mission is truly historic and the Catholic church can’t keep it up, I see no problem with converting it to a secular museum.
As an atheist Californian paying exorbitant property taxes and feeling squeezed, I support the use of public funds for the upkeep of our historic missions. Not by themselves, and not as working churches, but to prevent the erasure of the past.
Schools in the United States have traditionally taught civic virtue. (I think NCLB has rooted much of that out.) This is, ideally, neutral in terms of belief.
Schools also have, more recently, taught current science and technical skills, which are also neutral in terms of most questions of faith.
And a good teacher can probably work out a convenient understanding with religious students.
I taught history, including eras that some fundamentalists did not believe existed.
I taught it as the best set of explanations historians, a group of professionals using a set of techniques that they were constantly refining, had yet come up with.
Theologians had some different tools, some different information, and some different understandings.
The two did not necessarily meet or conflict, because the explanations of history had to proceed on the understanding that our senses and processes for reviewing information are essentially reliable.
If only the religious texts are reliable, then of course history would have to be revised. There’s just no demonstration that satisfies most historians that historical methods are less reliable than any one set of ancient texts.
About the same goes for teaching science to fundamentalists.
For the most part, it was the parents that caused the problems, out of fear we were taking their children away from them.
For my part, as much as I liked the kids I taught, I had no such goals, and I think that’s pretty widespread among teachers.
Cheers.
I am truly amazed at Mr. Kazarian’s logic. I honestly appreciate his thinking “outside the box”. But logic follows rules for good reason. Lots of rules broken here.
The missions do serve as historical landmarks and the state should support that aspect to a degree. But as an active place of worship the Church should share much of the cost.
Thanks.