State and federal funds paid for part of a dental school building at Marquette, a Catholic university. Afterwards, some people at the school organized an unofficial weekly mass in the building. The state heard about the masses, got in touch with the school, and on advice of counsel the school decided it would be prudent to suppress them.
The state was oppressive and the school cowardly. Still, if you let the logic of principle spin itself out (which is what happens when you leave traditional understandings behind) this is not much of an extension of the Roy’s Rock case. We are told that religious symbols on public ground attack the basic principles of the American public order. Government cannot associate itself in any way with religion. But if that’s so, can it be right to use a building for religious ceremonies that the government has helped construct for a public purpose? Isn’t that building also public ground?
From the secularist point of view, the fact that Marquette is a Catholic university makes strict separation all the more important when there’s an activity the government supports. Otherwise there would be an implication that the government supports the religious aspects of the university’s mission. So from that standpoint it makes sense to squash the mass. All of which points to a basic problem of secularism: a religious outlook is pervasive, so if you want to keep all symbolism that supports any non-secularist outlook out of public life you’re going to have to do a lot of squashing. Is that what anyone who agreed to the First Amendment had in mind?