”Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Those words, taken from the Gospel according to Matthew, were reportedly Jesus’ answer to a group of Pharisees who tried to put Him in the trick bag of either blaspheming against God or talking treason against Caesar.  Those words also may have contributed some of the insight our Founding Fathers displayed in drafting the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, which embodies the principle of separation of church and state.

That principle is being sorely tested by the Park Ridge Ministerial Association (“PRMA”) and its followers in their efforts to “religion-ize” – and thereby exempt from, or limit, regulation by city government – a proposed homeless shelter to be run under the auspices of that secular, Palatine-based Illinois corporation known as Pads to Hope, Inc. (“PADS Inc.”). 

Critics of PADS Inc. or of locating the shelter in or near a school have been denounced as “un-Christian,” while their criticisms and concerns have been branded “thinly veiled racial and economic bigotry” in a letter [pdf] to the Park Ridge City Council members by St. Paul of the Cross pastor Fr. Carl Morello, even as he and his PRMA associates wrap themselves and their pro-PADS followers in the mantle of Christian “ministry” and decry any attempts by City government to regulate their special interest.

Now we have also come into possession of a copy of an e-mail [pdf] bearing the name of Park Ridge Community Church Senior Pastor Brett McCleneghan, reportedly circulated by Park Ridge resident Laurie Pegler to over 60 other people, some of whom must have forwarded it to others who then forwarded it to us. That e-mail appears to have been sent by Rev. McCleneghan on Tuesday morning in response to the City Council’s actions at its meeting the previous night. 

In the e-mail he contends that any City regulation of church “ministries” is “clearly unconstitutional”; and he encourages his “Friends” to: “Ignore the city and open the shelter.” 

Those words bring to mind the bandito’s expression of disdain for the law in “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” as parodied years later in the Mel Brooks movie “Blazing Saddles”: “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges.”  When they come from a clergyman and pillar of our community about something as divisive as the PADS shelter, however, you’ll have to excuse us for not laughing. 

And while being on a “mission from God” may provide an entertaining excuse for a traffic law-annihilating car chase in “The Blues Brothers,” using God to justify disregard for the law has always been more tolerable in reel life than in real life.   

So we invite Rev. McCleneghan to either disclaim this e-mail as not really his, or to clarify/explain his remarks; and we promise to post his comments in full for the enlightenment of our readers. 

But until we hear or see otherwise, it sure looks like “Caesar” (i.e., Park Ridge city government) doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot to the good reverend – or to those who are demanding a PADS franchise in Park Ridge, come hell or high water.