Church and state mingle, archbishop says at Washington Red Mass.

Religion has been the guiding force of American life and must be nurtured in society and government, Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, D.C., told four Supreme Court justices and other attendees at the annual "Red Mass" Oct. 1.

Asserted Wuerl, "What is religion's place in public life? As our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, tells us in his first encyclical letter, Deus Caritas Est, 'For her part, the church, as the social expression of Christian faith, has a proper independence and is structured on the basis of her faith as a community which the state must recognize. The two spheres are distinct, yet always interrelated.' Politics and faith may mingle because believers are also citizens. Church and state are home for the very same people."

Wuerl told attendees that "a secular vision" that draws its strength from sources other than religion can never answer questions such as how are people to live and what is the meaning of life.

"The assertion by some that the secular voice alone should speak to these questions and the ordering of society and its public policy, that it alone can speak to the needs of the human condition, is increasingly being challenged," Wuerl said before a packed church that included many government officials.

"Faith convictions, moral values and defining religious experiences of life sustain the vitality of the whole society," Wuerl said. "We never stand alone, disconnected, uprooted, at least not for long."

The event at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in downtown Washington, D.C., was attended by Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Cabinet members attending included Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson. Additionally, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is also the state's Republican candidate for Senate, were in attendance.

Wuerl called religious faith the "cornerstone in the American experience" and asserted that all areas of life must be linked to it.

"Science linked to religiously grounded ethics, art expressive of spirituality, technology reflective of human values, positive civil law rooted in a natural moral order are all branches connected to a living vine," Wuerl said.

The archbishop's homily came a day before the Supreme Court's new term. During the session, the high court will deliberate the constitutionality of a federal law that bans so-called "partial-birth" abortions. (Two federal appeals courts have invalidated the law.) Wuerl never directly mentioned abortion, but did state that church opposition to "threats to the dignity of life"--church code language for its anti-abortion lobbying--is not an effort "to force values upon society."