THE ANNUAL NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST AND THE LITIGATION TO BLOCK IT AS A VIOLATION OF THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE..........

Since 1952, there has been by Congressional legislation and Presidential proclamation, an annual National Day of Prayer, celebrated on the first Thursday of May. Americans are asked on this day to, "turn to God in prayer and meditation". In Washington D.C., it is occasion for the President and Congress to attend the National Prayer Breakfast each year. After fifty eight years of such an observance, in which I have participated in ecumenically as a Pastor, with other Christian congregations, the existence of the constitutionality of the National Day of Prayer is not o coming under fire, but being legally challenge. On April 15 of this year, a federal district court judge in Wisconsin, declared the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional, declaring, "It goes beyond the mere acknowledgement of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function". Judge Barbara Crabb stayed her own order for the time being while legal arguments concerning its constitutionality are heard and adjudicated. The Obama Administration in defending the National Day of Prayer has stated is a constitutionallypermitted because it is, "acknowledgement of the role of religion in American life". Who is supporting the elimination of the National Day of Prayer, but atheists and secular humanists who deny the existence of God as well as disavow the need to pray. They argue it is a violation of separation of Church and State, yet the Bill of Rights guarantees the right to Freedom of Religion. No citizen is coerced to pray either on the National Day of Prayer, or any other day. The designation of this annual day a concerted opportunity for believing and praying Americans to lift their hearts and minds together in intercession for the needs of our country and the world. In this time of the worst national and international economic crisis to afflict the world in eighty years, is it not ample time they turn away from advancing their narrowly adhered to self reliance and seclar, materialistic, inclinations to allow the rest of our citizens who are believers in a higher, spiritual, and supreme, power to also practice our constituitional right to pray. The effort to abolish the National Day of Prayer is only beginning. That means as we await a definitive ruling, that may well come the United States Supreme Court, let us pray and advocate for our right to keep this annual observance and the necessity to pray if we choose, as American citizens for the betterment of the United States of America..........In The Right And Freedom Of Observing The National Say Of Prayer, Fr. Troy