| Faith-based chief faces ideological
minefield
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington
A key component of President Bush’s “Faith-Based
Initiative” will likely die before Congress adjourns. The legislation
would allow government-supported faith-based social service providers to
maintain their “religious character” and provide $10.4 billion in
additional tax breaks for charitable contributions.
But that doesn’t mean the increasingly nasty fight over the
role religious groups should play in providing services to the poor is
over.
In fact, it’s just begun. And it’s likely to get more
heated next year as Congress prepares to reauthorize Head Start, energy
assistance for the poor, the Community Services Block Grant, and a slew of
anti-poverty efforts under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
program.
In one corner is Bush’s point man -- director of the White
House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Jim Towey. The
46-year-old father of four has worked for Democrats -- under former Florida
Gov. Lawton Chiles -- and Republicans, including former Oregon Sen. Mark
Hatfield and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who reportedly recommended him for his
current job. Towey spent 12 years as legal counsel to the Missionaries of
Charity, Mother Teresa’s religious order, and lived for a year as a
fulltime volunteer in one of the order’s homes for AIDS patients.
Towey’s office exists, he said, to knock down the barriers
that prevent churches, synagogues, mosques and other faith-based groups from
receiving federal funds to carry out an essential part of their mission:
serving the needy. This can be accomplished, he told NCR, in a
nonpartisan manner that upholds constitutional church-state separation
provisions.
“There’s been a real unfriendliness to faith in the
public square, and the president has said repeatedly that we don’t need to
fear faith -- that we can respect our Constitution and at the same time welcome
faith in the public square as it serves the poor.” Even as they seek to
provide secular services such as job training or soup kitchens, religious
groups have been forced to disguise their faith-based roots or jump through
bureaucratic hoops to become eligible for such funding, said Towey.
“The focus should be on the quality of the service provider.
The question shouldn’t be, ‘Does your organization believe in God or
not?’ The question should be, ‘Does your program work? Are
people’s lives being turned around? Is there accountability? Is the group
maintaining separation of its public funds from its private funds?’
”
Said Towey: “You need to make it clear to groups that they
are not to preach on Uncle Sam’s dollar and that they are not to promote
religious beliefs or practices on the government’s dime.” Short of
that, however, religious groups should compete for federal money on the same
level as secular organizations, said Towey.
Critics see another agenda at play.
“Are we talking new initiatives to meet unmet needs?”
asked National Community Action Foundation executive director David Bradley.
“Or are we simply going to rearrange the deck and take existing money away
from effective social service agencies and give [it] to others [with little
regard for their] ability or competence?”
“Show me the new funds, the new resources,” said Jesuit
Fr. Joseph Hacala, formerly director of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development’s Office of Community and Interfaith Outreach in the Clinton
administration.
Hacala supports government aid to faith-based groups. He’d
just like to see more of it. “They’re robbing Peter to pay Paul --
the administration has cut a significant amount of money that went to
faith-based groups,” including funds to provide the technical assistance
these groups need to administer complex programs, he said.
Meanwhile, a brouhaha has erupted over what some consider partisan
activity by Towey and his faith-based colleagues. “The faith-based office
is conducting seminars in congressional districts that just happen to have very
close races coming up,” said Americans United for Separation of Church and
State executive director Barry Lynn. “They’ve created a kind of
faith-based slush fund and they’re dangling it around the country,”
particularly in African-American communities, said Lynn. The goal? Change a few
votes prior to November’s election and preserve Republican control of the
House of Representatives.
Towey denies it. “I think groups like Americans United for
Separation of Church and State are extremist groups -- their views are not
mainstream America. And when they talk about … slush funds for churches,
that is not only insanely inaccurate, but it’s hurting the poor. The
president respects the wall between church and state, but he does want to knock
down the wall that separates the poor from effective programs.”
Others note that Towey cleaned house when he took over the
faith-based office last February, removing staffers more concerned with
politics than the poor.
Towey recalled a recent gathering in Memphis with bishops and
pastors of the Church of God and Christ. “If you did a straw vote in that
room President Bush would lose very badly. But that wasn’t why I was
there. I was there because these are the people who are in touch with the poor
and because they are interested in building [their] capacity, getting technical
assistance, and being considered to provide services like other groups. Why
can’t they do job training? Why can’t they help with low-income
housing? They have the contacts, the confidence of the people, and that counts
for something.”
Lynn agreed with Towey that it is “ridiculous” to
require a soup kitchen run by “Saint John’s” to remove the word
“Saint” from its sign, but he sees the Faith-Based Initiative as a
solution in search of a problem. For example, said Lynn, “Lutheran Social
Services and Catholic Charities have been getting huge amounts of government
funds for years, but they don’t discriminate in hiring or proselytize.
They play by the rules.” In contrast, the Bush approach amounts to
“funding religious groups with government funds.”
A key point of contention: Should religious groups using federal
funds be permitted to discriminate against those of different faiths in their
hiring decisions? “Nobody’s trying to force the Catholic church to
hire women priests, but why in the world should a Presbyterian be discriminated
against in a [taxpayer supported] Baptist-run soup kitchen?” said
Lynn.
The Faith-Based Initiative is more than legislation. Offices to
promote outreach to faith-based groups now exist in the Departments of Health
and Human Services, Justice, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development. Thirty
million dollars in grants to assist faith-based and community groups build the
capacity to compete for federal money and administer programs will be
distributed through the “Compassion Capital Fund.” And, said Towey,
the president will soon announce a list of “dos and don’ts”
designed to help both faith-based groups and government officials work through
the thicket of church-state issues that arise when a religious entity provides
government-supported social services.
As he guides the faith-based initiative through its constitutional
and ideological minefield, Towey has one significant advantage: People like
him.
One prominent Democrat expressed skepticism about the
administration’s approach to faith-based programs, but not about Towey:
“He’s a warm and committed guy -- no doubt about it.”
“Jim has a deep sense of commitment and a track record:
He’s been out there,” said Hacala.
“Jim has a passion for the poor -- that’s what has led
him to the work he does and that passion has helped keep the Faith-Based
Initiative on track despite the partisan and ideological difficulties,”
said John Carr, secretary of the U.S. Bishops Office of Social Development and
World Peace.
The esteem in which he’s held should serve Towey well;
he’s going to need all the friends he can get.
Joe Feuerherd is NCR Washington correspondent. His
e-mail address is jfeuerherd@natcath.org
Related Web sites
Americans United for Separation
of Church and State
www.au.org
Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives
www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/faith-based
National Catholic Reporter, October 11,
2002
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