JOHN PATRICK DIGGINS
Religion and the Founders
T
HE CURRENT STATE
of American politics, with all its religiosity
and its pretense about morality and values, leaves one wonder–
ing if anything changes under the sun.
It
is always hazardous to
question belief in progress by citing evidence of moral decline. But con–
sider two episodes in history that are five centuries apart: the ancient
reign of Pope Leo X and the modern presidency of William Jefferson
Clinton.
On October
31, 1517,
Martin Luther posted his famous, or infa–
mous, 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral. One thesis
dealt with his angry objections to the Roman Catholic Church's practice
of selling indulgences. Pope Leo X approved of church officials travel–
ing all over Europe carrying sacks of indulgences that, for a price, would
grant dispensations to those who desired to eat meat on days of fast,
those who sought to marry a relative, those who needed to be told that
their deceased loved one would be released from Purgatory by hiring
priests to sing masses for the soul of the dead, and those who wanted
the penances imposed during confession to be commuted for money.
"The rule of the Church," wrote the nineteenth-century Oxford histo–
rian James Froude, "was nothing for nothing."
Let us move forward five centuries and shift from Europe to America
and from religion to politics. Today campaign donations carryon like
the spiritua l huckstering that ruined the reputation of the Catholic
Church centuries ago. Contributing huge sums of money buys access
and influence; no dollars, no dispensations. In the Middle Ages money
bought entry into the inner sanctum of the Holy Roman Church. Today
money buys access to a sacred place res iding at
1600
Pennsylvania
Avenue, perhaps the one shrine in American political history, the hal–
lowed chamber that no true patriot would like to see desecrated-the
Lincoln Bedroom. During the nineties the White House became an
overnight rental agency through which one could sleep with the ghost
of Lincoln for a hefty contribution . With this arrangement, Jesus's dic–
tum needs to be revised: "Blessed are the rich!"
