Church and State in the Philippines
By L. A. S.
The Northwestern Christian Advocate (Methodist) raises the query whether the separation of church and state in the United States is to be overthrown by the Philippine Commission—the governing body representing the authority of the United States in the islands. The mere possibility, not to say the probability, that so great a disaster at home as the overthrow of the American principle of the separation of church and state should follow from the venture of the United States into foreign waters ostensibly to confer benefits on some inferior races abroad, is a matter of serious concern to the people of this nation. This Methodist authority evidently believes that the possibility, if not the probability, exists. The reason for entertaining this view is that the Commission, whose acts “are, in a sense, the acts of the United States government,” has shown a disposition to pursue a course which is, says the Advocate, “a clear violation of the tradition and laws of this nation.” The latest instance of this was the proclamation of a public holiday on a leading Catholic feast-day—the day celebrated in honor of “Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.” “Such an action by the government in this country would be impossible,” observes the Advocate, “and those responsible for it in the Philippine Islands should be called immediately to account.” Such an act represents a union of the state—and that state standing for the United States—with the church, and that church the church of Rome. Many plausible reasons were urged upon the Commission why such a holiday should be proclaimed. It was made to appear that the day was one almost universally observed by the people, and that public sentiment demanded such an action. “Our Lady” was “the titular patroness of the Philippine Islands.” There was “special occasion,” it was said, for granting such a holiday in Manila at this particular time, and it would be “in deference to the wishes of nearly all the leading business men of the city.” What could the Commission do, therefore, from the standpoint of good policy, but issue the proclamation? Such reasoning has a strangely familiar sound to people who have heard the arguments advanced for making Sunday a legal and compulsory day of rest in the United States. The Advocate refers to “an article from the pen of William E. Curtis, defending the act of the Commission,” by arguments the serious defect in which was “in assuming that the government must either forbid the festival or authorize it as a legal holiday. He intimates,” says the Advocate, “that to forbid it would be an interference with the liberty of the people in the matter of worship, and would cause a revolution. [How similar to the arguments that not to make Sunday a compulsory rest day would be an interference with the religious liberty of Sunday observers.] But,” continues the Advocate, “nobody asks the government to forbid it. If the members of the Catholic Church want to celebrate the festival as an act of worship, let them do it. It is a church affair. That is different from making a legal holiday of it, and closing offices, banks, and all public business, thus making the festival a government affair.” The whole history of this nation's endeavor to establish and maintain a colonial system of government—to govern another people without their consent—shows the government becoming entangled in the web of papal diplomacy; and the whole history of Sunday legislation in this country shows the same thing. Both are leading to the overthrow of the principle of separation of church and state, and to a union of the state with Rome.