"A Wall of Separation"

How far should the state go in supporting religious education? Or should the state support such education at all? In the white marble temple of the U.S. Supreme Court last week, a new engagement was fought in this running battle. Atheist Vashti McCollum had a final hearing in her suit to stop the board of education in Champaign, Ill. from allowing religious instructions at her son's school (TIME, Feb. 10).

The two-year-old argument lasted about two hours in court. Some Saturday soon the justices will decide in private conference whether the "wall of separation between church & state" has been breached in Champaign.

Last week the Christian Century was ready with answers to several specific church-state problems.

P:Tax-supported free bus transportation, free lunches and textbooks for parochial schools are unconstitutional, said the Century:

"Such a diversion of public-school funds involves the interlocking of the taxing function of the state with the institutional functioning of the church which owns and operates . . . schools. . . . The majority decision of the Supreme Court in the New Jersey case undertook to justify such aid to parochial schools by detaching bus transportation from the institutional functioning of the church, and even of the school. Having thus detached it, the court then classified bus transportation as a 'public welfare' measure. . . .

"The fallacy of this procedure should be apparent. Other functions of the school can be detached from the school in like manner one after the other. . . . The state cannot assume responsibility for any function of a parochial school without interlocking its function with the institutional functioning of the school and of the church which, for its own religious purposes, maintains it."

P:"Released time" for religious instruction in public-school buildings is also unconstitutional. (". . . . The school instructors vacate their function and the several churches take it over. . . .")

P:Devotional Bible reading and prayer in public schools is all right with the Century.

P:Similarly, the Century approved of "the study of religion as an integral part of the public-school curriculum under the instruction of regular public-school teachers."

P:A U.S. "ambassadorship" to the Vatican, said the Century, is unconstitutional.

P:The Century also disapproved of the chaplaincy in the armed services. The clergy should serve as chaplains but "be paid by the church, wear a uniform or garb distinctive of the church, accept no military rank and, beyond their civilian patriotism, own no allegiance save that to which they are solemnly committed in their ordination vows."

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