"I Will Come to you"
YOU HAVE MADE US FOR YOURSELF, O GOD, AND OUR HEARTS ARE RESTLESS
UNTIL THEY REST IN YOU

[St Augustine, THE CONFESSIONS]

November 1, 2026, Solemnity of All Saints

Recently I heard a radio advertisement put out by an organization named Freedom From Religion. As usual, this organization complains about the fact that religion is part of our culture and that religion has a place in the life of our nation. This particular ad was a warning their lack of belief is in danger from freedom to practice religion. They seem to think that they are somehow oppressed when people who are religious act according to their beliefs. They invoke the idea of separation of Church and State, as if it meant that religion should have no effect or influence on anything in public. 

This is nonsense, of course. The point of the idea of the separation of Church and State was not to abolish religion from the culture. It was to prevent the establishment of any official state or national religion that everyone had to follow. 

Anyone today who pays attention to reality should recognize that we are now very much a secular culture, far from being dominated by religion. Original religious celebrations such as Christmas (“Christ’s Mass”) and Halloween (“Hallowed Evening”) have lost much of their religious meaning for much of our population today, becoming more a gluttony for material things to satisfy our self-centered desires. For example, many people who show up for Mass on Christmas (to do God a favor? to see a cute baby in the Christmas crib? to make grandma happy?) don’t bother to worship the Lord at Mass during most of the rest of the year.

Nobody is forcing the Freedom from Religion crowd from their unbelief. Religious believers don’t vandalize the homes of unbelievers ─ although on the other hand, in many places religious believers have to lock their churches outside of worship hours so they will not be vandalized by those who hate religion and religious influence.

But everyone has a religion: it’s whatever is the most important thing in one’s life. The Freedom From Religion advocates have a religion: it’s themselves. However, I have the impression that human “gods” don’t work out so well in the long run.

Msgr. Dzielak