STATEMENT ON

SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 73

submitted by

MONSIGNOR DANIEL HOYE

on behalf of the

UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

On behalf of the United States Catholic Conference I

express sincere appreciation for the opportunity to comment on Senate Joint Resolution 73, a proposal to amend the

Constitution to permit voluntary prayer in public schools or other public institutions. The intent of the proposed amendment is a positive step towards assuring the efficacy of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. However, in failing to include the right to receive religious instruction, the amendment omits a component which is essential to the integrity of the right to pray.

The United States Catholic Conference has always given unqualified support to the public expression of faith in God through voluntary prayer. This is a fundamental part of the American heritage. This support stems from the concern of the Catholic Church for the moral and civic responsibility of all Americans. Catholic education in this country is grounded in the Church's commitment to nurture civic strength and awareness under religious auspices. Because two thirds of the Catholic school-age children in this country are enrolled in our public schools, and with a keen recognition of the interdependence all of us have upon one another, Catholic concern extends to public education and equals that for private education.

In this context, the United States Catholic Conference views the proposed constitutional amendment as a call to find opportunities for the spiritual and religious development of

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students enrolled in public schools while respecting the practices and structure of public education. Basic to our

position, however, is the belief that there is no such thing as a value-free education. In fact, the question is not whether education inculcates values, but rather what values are inculcated by a particular educational program. A balanced response to this question has been made a practical

impossibility by Supreme Court decisions concerning prayer and Bible reading. In effect, those decisions attempt to achieve neutrality in an educational context which, as a practical. matter, defies true neutrality.

Against this background the United States Catholic Conference believes that the amendment in Senate Joint Resolution 73 does not adequately and effectively assure the right of America's children to express their faith. In the context of public schools this right must include the right voluntarily to receive religious instruction consistent with their beliefs and the practices of their own faith traditions. Prayer in school is significantly different than prayer at other public functions because it involves teachers and students in a learning situation. For many children, prayer alone will not necessarily lead to a deeper understanding of faith, or even to the significance and importance of prayer itself. To this end religious instruction becomes an integral aspect of the prayer in schools issue. Prayer, without a framework of voluntary instruction in the child's religious tradition, is not sufficient fully to insure the individual's religious freedom. The present proposal would have mainly symbolic value and only minimal pedagogical value. As such, it is not of sufficient merit to justify the problems it might create in terms of the American diversity of religious beliefs

and traditions and the right of religious minorities in our

pluralistic society.

The United States Catholic Conference reaffirms the Church's commitment to protect religious freedom by submitting that any constitutional amendment of the kind under consideration should include religious instruction, on a voluntary basis and under non-governmental auspices, on the premises of public schools and other public institutions. Incorporated as part of this statement is the attached memorandum of Wilfred R. Caron, the General Counsel of the United States Catholic Conference. After reviewing relevant judicial decisions and the history of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, it sets forth one possible formulation for an amendment which would protect the rights voluntarily to pray and to receive religious instruction under private auspices on public premises. The Committee may wish to consider that proposal, on the understanding that the United States Catholic Conference would support a proposed constitutional amendment of such tenor and effect.

Again, I express my appreciation for the opportunity to submit this statement on behalf of the United States Catholic

Conference.

As a result of udicial interpretations of the EstablishBest Clause of the First Amendment, children are denied the right voluntarily to participate in prayer or to receive religious instruction in the faith of their choice at the public schools they attend. The exclusion of voluntary prayer and religious instruction from public education is rooted in decisions of the United States Supreme Court during the last four decades.

16 McCollum v. Board of Education/ the Court beld unconstitutional a released time program under which public #chool children in grades four through nine were permitted once a week to attend classes in religious instruction. The classes

1/1:3 0.8. 203 (1948).

were conducted in regular classrooms during school hours by Protestant teachers, a Jewish rabbi, and Catholic priests, employed at no expense to school authorities by a private voluntary association of interested citizens. The Court held that the program utilized the tax-established and tax-supported public school system to aid religious groups to spread their faith in violation of the Establishment Clause.

Four years later, in Zorach v. Clausen2/ the Court upheld a statutory program which permitted public schools to release students for one hour during the school day in order to attend religious centers for religious instruction or devotional exercises. Declining to read into the Constitution a philosophy of hostility to religion, the Court concluded that it would have to press the concept of separation of church and state to extremes to condemn the statute on constitutional grounds.3/ Writing for the majority, Justice Douglas stated:

When the state encourages religious instruction or
cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting
the schedule of public events to sectarian needs,
it follows the best of our traditions. For it
then respects the religious nature of our people
and accommodates the public service to their
spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be
to find in the Constitution a requirement that the
government show a callous indifference to
religious groups.4/

However, Zorach's theme of accommodation did not diminish the impact of McCollum in the slightest.

McCollum purged the value system at work in the public schools of the leavening influence of religious instruction under private auspices. Its progeny completed the work of secularization in the area of prayer.

B. Prayer

In Engel v. Vitale5/ the Court struck down recitation of a short, non-denominational prayer composed by state officials. The practice had been upheld by the New York Court of Appeals provided no student was compelled to join in prayer. The

2/ 343 U.S. 306 (1952).

3/ Id. at 313.

4/ Id. at 313-14.

5/ 370 U.S. 421 (1962).