Church Verdict

I would like to give an opposite viewpoint to your editorial. It is precisely because of the principle of separation of church and state that the pastors should have been indicted.

As long as clerics stay within their pastoral bounds and provide religious services only, the state should not inject itself into their affairs.

But what happens when religious figures enter into secular practices and start performing professional services for which the state requires licensing and for which practitioners can be held liable? At this point it is not we who are meddling in religious affairs, but the religious figures who are going over the church-state wall to meddle in secular practices.

Religious activity is constitutionally protected, but this protection does not extend to non-religious activities practiced by religious persons.

GILBERT SIMONS, ACSW

Los Angeles