Which Lord's Prayer?

For John, BLUF:  George just doesn't get it, or can't cope with it.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Reading The [Lowell] Sun "Column" today I came across a discussion of the US Supreme Court's recent ruling on prayer before government legislative meetings, Town of Greece, New York v Galloway et al.

The "Column" reports the City Council is happy with its somewhat non-denominational prayer, arrived at in 2007, in response to concerns about being in tangled in a lawsuit over using the "Lord's Prayer".

Per the "Column", at the time the City Solicitor, Ms Christine O'Conner, Esq, opined "…that the Lord's Prayer is widely viewed as a Catholic prayer."  Get out much?

From when I was in short pants through seventh grade we lived in a Protestant township (1,600 people with six Catholic families) in South Jersey and we recited the Lord's Prayer every morning in school—the Protestant way.♠  The Lord's Prayer, in one of its two forms, is a Christian prayer, or at least a Western prayer.  When we moved to Levittown, PA, it was the same way.♥   Ninth grade was in Southern California and it all went away.

My one concern is how we accommodate those who don't believe in "God" or are doubtful about there being a God or other force that can shape our lives.  Would they like to express some thoughts from time to time or is their religion of materialism one that logically precludes asking for help beyond from our fellow man?

By the way, Opinionator Michael Goldman is back in the Focus Section this week, slandering The Happy Warrior, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and decrying the end of the Republic due to the Supreme Court Ruling.  If he wants to decry something he should pick the Administration's trampling of the First Amendment in its efforts to heap the blame for the Benghazi on Videographer Mark Basseley Youssef.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The difference is the doxology, which Protestents add at the end, and which Roman Catholics now say at Mass, after a short prayer by the Priest at the end of the Lord's Prayer.

♥  Levittown was the genesis of my opposition to prayer in schools.  One day I snuck a peek at my Jewish buddy to see how he said it.  A while later it dawned on me it was from the New Testament and thus a social coercion on my friend.