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·CHURCH & STATE. The separation of church and state in the U.S. is so secure that for millions of Americans the question arises only in the limited context of education. For at least a century, Protestant and other non-Catholic clerics maintained that any public funds for education had to go to public schools only: Catholics argued for a share for parochial schools. This deadlock effectively prevented federal aid to education, although since World War II exceptions began to appear—first in public bus service, then in publicly-paid-for milk for parochial schools. When the Johnson Administration in 1965 devised a bill under which parochial schools did receive federal aid—in the shape of textbooks and many other classroom facilities—there was no major Protestant opposition. And there may be little objection to more direct aid for parochial schools in the future. But some rearguard battles are being waged. New York State, which is currently rewriting its constitution, is witnessing a hassle about an 1894 clause barring direct or indirect state aid to parochial schools. Some Protestant and Jewish groups are fighting to keep this ban in the new constitution, and so is the New York Civil Liberties Union, which normally would fight against this sort of restrictive law.
·CIVIL RIGHTS. Beginning with the 1954 Supreme Court decision against school segregation, the civil rights movement was the major cause of the churches' new activism. Most denominations already paid lip service at least to integration, but the growing national concern and the direct challenge to the Christian conscience brought about a flurry of new resolutions and exhortations. In the 1960s, the civil rights struggle moved the churches further and further along from talk to action.
Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel of New Orleans excommunicated three Roman Catholics who opposed his decision to desegregate the city's Roman Catholic schools. Asked in 1962 by Martin Luther King to join in a prayer vigil at Albany, Ga., 75 Protestant, Jewish and Catholic clergymen and laymen submitted to arrest and jail for praying on behalf of desegregation. In 1963, more than 200 clergymen were arrested for taking part in picket lines and demonstrations. Hundreds of clergymen joined the Civil Rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
The Episcopal diocese of New York City recently asked all church agencies to confine their investments to corporations that have "demonstrated their commitment to equal opportunity in employment." The United Presbyterian Church has a fair-employment clause in all its contracts. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and the Board of Homeland Ministries of the Union Church of Christ have sided with a militant Negro organization called FIGHT in a dispute with the Eastman Kodak Co., which is being accused of discriminating against hiring Negroes. Joseph Cardinal Ritter of St. Louis and Catholic Archbishop John F. Dearden of Detroit have announced that they will give preferential treatment to suppliers who give equal opportunity to members of minorities. In innumerable communities, churchmen are fighting for open housing. It is the struggle for civil rights that has most visibly changed the U.S. churches' style and approach, and has given at least some of them a chance to consider themselves radical.