Right around 1817, after his term as president and having retired to the family homestead at Montpelier in Virginia, James Madison, who never stopped thinking about things, jotted down some further thoughts on one of his favorite subjects—the danger of mixing religious faith and secular, godless politics. He was pretty clear about where he stood. He was opposed even to the idea of congressional chaplains.

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness, the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.

That one portion of Madison’s notes is highlighted because recent events have added a third reason for not having congressional chaplains. Because, one day, a zombie-eyed granny starver might become Speaker of the House and fire a chaplain for being insufficiently devout as regards the theological basis for sacred tax cuts. From The New York Times:

Though Father Conroy said he did not know whether politics were behind his departure, he pointed to a prayer he had given on the House floor in November, when Congress was debating tax overhaul legislation.

“May all members be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great nation guarantee the opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle,” he prayed. “May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”

Father Conroy Getty Images

About a week later, Father Conroy said, he heard from the speaker’s office. “A staffer came down and said, We are upset with this prayer; you are getting too political,” he said. “It suggests to me that there are members who have talked to him about being upset with that prayer.” Shortly after, when he saw Mr. Ryan himself, Father Conroy said that the speaker told him, “Padre, you just got to stay out of politics.”

“That is what I have tried to do for seven years,” Father Conroy said. “It doesn’t sound political to me.” “If you are hospital chaplain, you are going to pray about health,” he added. “If you are a chaplain of Congress, you are going to pray about what Congress is doing.”

In case that deft riposte didn’t clue you in, Fr. Conroy is a Jesuit. Ryan can’t seem to learn the fundamental lesson that you do not fck with The Society. When he was employed as a millstone on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket, Ryan got crossways with the Jesuits at Georgetown, to his hilarious disadvantage. Since then, he’s been running his Concerned Conservative Catholic rap on any sucker who’ll listen, although his primary Scriptural sources still seem to come from the First Epistle of Paul to the Bagmen.

However, as this incident makes clear, and even though he has announced that he will blight our lives no more next year, Paul Ryan plans to “run through the tape” in his tireless search for ways to be a public jerk. Mr. Madison says, “I told you so.”

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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