The Rumi Forum presented “The Key Question of Faith-Based Funding: How Are the Faith Communities & the Government to be Insulated from One Another?” with Rev. Raymond G. Helmick, S.J., & Jerome Dwight Maryon, Esq.
Summary:
The Committee on Religion & Faith in the Public Square (the “RFPS Committee”), was formed in Boston this May to examine the four great issues presented by the White House Office of Faith-Based Funding, under both Presidents Bush and Obama. These issues concern constitutional law, public policy, the diversity of public theologies in America, and the unique history of Church-&-State relations in America. They are crystallized in the question, “How can the government and the faith communities be insulated from undue interference in each other’s affairs?” That question is one, not only for the United States, but for all democracies, and particularly at a time when an uncertain global economic outlook requires governments and churches to work together more than ever. This Roundtable in the Rumi Forum hopes to launch an international dialogue on these issues. A summit will follow in DC on Wednesday, and then a national conference in Boston next spring.
Rev. Professor Raymond G. Helmick, S.J. bio:
Priest of the New England Jesuit Province, Raymond Helmick has, since 1972, worked with conflict in Northern Ireland, in Lebanon, between the Israelis and the Palestinians, in the countries of Former Yugoslavia, between the Kurds of Iraq and Turkey, in East Timor, and in Southern Africa. Fr. Ray has served as the Associate Director, 1973-81, of the Centre for Human Rights and Responsibilities in London, co-founder of the Centre of Concern for Human Dignity (a joint project of the English and Irish Jesuit Provinces), 1979-81, co-founder and Senior Associate in the Conflict Analysis Center, Washington, D.C., from 1983, Professor of Conflict Resolution in the Department of Theology, Boston College, since 1984. Educated at Weston College (Jesuit Province of New England), Hochschule St. Georgen (Frankfurt/M.) and Union Theological Seminary (New York). Co-editor (with Rodney Petersen) of Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Religion, Public Policy and Conflict Transformation (Templeton Foundation Press, 1999), author (with Richard Hauser) of A Social Option: A Social Planning Approach to the Conflict in Northern Ireland (London, 1975), La question libanaise selon Raymond Eddé: Correspondance et mémoires (Paris: Cariscript, 1990), Negotiating Outside the Law: Why Camp David Failed (London: Pluto Press, 2004). Fr. Ray also serves as the Chairman of Subcommittee I of the RFPS.
Jerome Maryon bio:
President of the RFPS Committee, Jerome Dwight Maryon, Esq., also serves as the President of the Committee on Contemporary Spiritual-&-Public Concerns. The Rule of Law, the security of America, and the witness of faith in the public forum are consistent themes in Jerome’s long-term work and study. He takes as his motto the time-honored aim of the Common Law, “Non sub homine sed sub Deo et lege” – “Not under men, but under God and the laws.” His B.A. includes a 4.0/4.0 in Poli Sci, plus the full first year of law studies, as a teenager, at the University of Paris; then he earned a First Honours Pontifical Diploma in Theology in Ireland – the land where his ancestors, in 1880, had helped forge the power of the powerless: the Boycott! Jerome served as Executive Editor of his Law Journal while earning his J.D., then joined the Navy JAG Corps; while serving as Commissioner onboard the appellate court of the Navy-Marine Corps, he took the three-year curriculum of the U.S. Naval War College and tied for first place at graduation in Newport, RI. None of the judicial opinions that he drafted has yet been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. While Commissioner, Jerome represented the Department of Defense onboard the Federal Bar Association as the Vice Chair of all Lawyers in Uniform and he also served as the first Navy JAG Historian. Building on a winning brief and a comprehensive article on the integrity of the independent military justice system, Jerome engaged Ruth Wedgwood on her claim, that the President is above the Law, in a very rare public debate on Guantánamo – and received a standing ovation. Beyond teaching Law and Poli Sci, he has been researching a major study in the comparative law of drug policies worldwide; in his spare time, Jerome serves on the Board of Trustees of the Interreligious Center for Public Life, Inc. (which he incorporated), and as the Guest Lecturer in the pioneering course, “Towards an Abrahamic Family Reunion.” As he deepens his commitment to interfaith dialogue, Jerome will be creating a think tank in Washington to address the complex intersection of Law, public policy, and our Postmodern plurality of theologies. None too surprisingly, Jerome has begun to research a book on the recent decline in our Rule of Law and our public discourse – and what we can all of us do to restore our rights and responsibilities: the plenitude of our Rule, under God.