Politicians shouldn't play the holy card.

Candidates should stop running on their religious beliefs.

THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN POLITICS AND RELIgion in American history has always, to understate a bit, been interesting. It began when various Europeans arrived on our shores ready, willing, and able to drive American Indians from their homes and land. As we know, pilgrims from the English isles encamped in what is now New England and in the mid-Atlantic territory, especially Virginia. Earlier, Columbus, and those who followed him, invaded the southern part of our continent--Florida, Mexico, and the islands off their coasts.

The English settlers were, in part, fleeing religious persecution from the established church, which sang "my way or the highway" and made those who resisted pay the price. On the other hand, explorers, then settlers, from Spain and Portugal brought the established church with them and sought to impose it here on the hapless people who were in their way.

Gloss over for the moment the excesses perpetrated by both kinds of religionists as they took over the new country. The differences between established and nonestablished churches didn't become really important until the men we now call the Founding Fathers wrote and adopted the Declaration of Independence and especially the Constitution of the United States, containing the clause in the Bill of Rights that called for the separation of church and state.

That clause did not prevent the intrusion over the course of our history since 1776 of religious arguments and slogans during political campaigns. There was, for example, "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" hurled against the 1884 presidential campaign of James G. Blaine, although it is likely that the "rum" part of the slogan had more weight than the "Romanism" religious attack.

So it wasn't really until 1928 when Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, a forthright Catholic, was chosen the Democratic candidate to oppose President Herbert Hoover that the religious gauntlet was thrown. Anti-Catholicism unquestionably reared its ugly head, but, in fairness, this was not Hoover's doing.

It was left to John F. Kennedy to break the religious barrier for presidential candidates in 1960. And even then JFK had to fight an uphill battle to convince more than a few voters that, if elected, he would not be taking orders from the pope.

Catholicism apart, it can be argued that at no time in our American history have religion and politics been so intertwined. Witness one of the major candidates for the presidency in 2000 who proclaimed, to the horror of his political managers, that no person who has not had a personal encounter with Jesus can expect to achieve heaven. While said managers did frontline damage control (at their pleading, the candidate backtracked somewhat), American Jews, Muslims, and even some Catholics blanched when the candidate's words were reported.

Pat Buchanan attacks non-Christians as immoral and Elizabeth Dole told voters about "a talk" she had with God. When the Christian Coalition had its recent convention, Gary Bauer and most of the other candidates of his party willingly kissed the hem of the garments of Pat Robertson and other "divines" for whom separation of church and state is no more than a myth.

And as legal scholar Alan Dershowitz has written, "Even Democratic front-runner Al Gore is waving the flag of faith, declaring himself a `child of the kingdom.' Since swearing allegiance to foreign monarchies is unconstitutional for a vice-president, Gore must be referring to the `Kingdom of Christ' of which many of us are not subjects."

But with months to go before the November election, we can expect to hear more and more religio-political talk. Which candidate can be expected to stand up against the holier-than-thou cohort?

Dershowitz concludes his Los Angeles Times column on the subject with these blunt words: "The time has come for voters to insist that candidates stop running on their religious beliefs. Jesus condemned as hypocritical those who prayed near the doorways in order to be seen. Our Constitution prohibits excessive entanglements between church and state.

Any candidate for president who does not support our constitutional wall of separation between church and state is not qualified to hold our highest office."

Finally, please God, let there be no Catholic publication that will take sides in the 2000 or any other political campaign, impugning one or the other candidate. And, please God, let there be no Catholic pulpit or episcopal chair that takes sides in any political contest.