President George W. Bush talks with U.S. Catholic leaders at the residence of the archbishop of Washington Jan. 25 in Hyattsville, Md. CNS

Catholics study President's social service proposal

By Patricia Zapor
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

The White House and five federal agencies will each have an office dedicated to helping faith-based and community organizations work with the government to provide social services under a plan announced Jan. 29 by President Bush.

John DiIulio, a University of Pennsylvania public policy professor who helped create and run a program in Boston that is credited with helping reduce youth homicide in the 1990s, was appointed to run the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

“When we see social needs in America, my administration will look first to faith-based programs and community groups which have proven their power to save and change lives,” said Bush in announcing the program at the White House. “We will not fund the religious activities of any group, but when people of faith provide social services, we will not discriminate against them.”

As outlined in Bush’s executive order, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives would establish policies, priorities and objectives for the federal government to “enlist, enable, empower and expand the work of faith-based and other community organizations.”

Its responsibilities would include mobilizing public support for faith-based initiatives; encouraging private charitable giving to such efforts; eliminating “unnecessary legislative, regulatory and other bureaucratic barriers that impede effective faith-based and other community efforts to solve social problems”; and ensure those organizations meet “high standards of excellence and accountability.”

A meeting was scheduled Jan. 31 at the White House. Invitees included Cardinal George, who could not attend, and Catholic Charities Administrator Father Michael Boland. A further report will appear in the next issue of The Catholic New World.

The offices would be established in the departments of Justice, Education, Labor, Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development. HUD has actually had a Center for Community and Interfaith Partnerships since 1997. Until he was required to resign his political appointment with the arrival of the new administration earlier in January, it was headed by Jesuit Father Joe Hacala.

Sister Mary Rose McGeady, a Daughter of Charity who is president of Covenant House shelters and support services for runaways and kids in crisis, was among the several dozen representatives of organizations that might participate in the program.

“This is a collection of some of the finest America has got to offer,” said Bush of his audience, “people who lead with their hearts and, in turn, have changed the communities in which they live for the better. This meeting is a picture of the strength and diversity and compassion of our country.”

McGeady told Catholic News Service that “the president came through as very sincere in believing that faith based organizations do a very fine job of taking care of the poor. He actually talked from the viewpoint of ‘love thy neighbor.’”

Father Val Peter, executive director of Girls and Boys Town who planned to attend the meeting with Catholic leaders, told CNS he would emphasize the need for accountability by participating programs.

“Every slick Louie in the neighborhood will be trying to figure out how to get to the trough,” he said, relating the experience of the state of Illinois in opening up some programs for faith-based groups. Problems arose, for example, with “store-front churches,” he said.

They may have had the best of intentions, Peter said, but lacked structure and accountability and there was no way to tell where and how some money was spent.

Peter noted that collaboration between the government and faith-based organizations is nothing new, and actually dates back to the beginnings of the nation, when churches established hospitals, orphanages and settlement houses.

But in the last few decades the pendulum has swung away from the government encouraging collaboration with church-based organizations, and in favor of secular entities, he said, adding that he welcomed a swing back in the other direction.

Peter said he also would encourage protections against groups using federal funds to proselytize, which he said is both harmful and unnecessary.

“Mother Teresa touched the lives of the poor and did not proselytize,” he said. “She said giving witness is enough.”

Keeping overt religious messages out of programs sponsored by the government doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing an organization’s faith roots either, he said.

DiIulio, the new director of the White House office, is a Catholic who has been a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and was director of the Manhattan Institute’s Jeremiah Project. That program was founded in 1998 to identify, document, publicize and fund faith-based programs that help inner-city youth and young adults.

DiIulio is the author or co-author of 12 books including one with former education secretary and drug policy adviser William Bennett on crime and drug policy, and one with syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne on religion, politics and faith-based organizations.