Religion Can’t Replace Opportunity

To the Editor:

I was happy to contribute to The Chronicle’s discussion of the role of religion in addressing social problems (“Solutions to Poverty Must Be Based on More Than Faith,” My View, December 11). However, I was not happy that my writing was so distorted in a recent letter to the editor by Robert Sirico (“The Poor Need More Than What Government Can Provide,” January 29).

Mr. Sirico wrote, “According to Mr. Harvey, helping the poor requires either massive government-funded programs or inadequate faith-based endeavors.” I have never believed or written any such nonsense.

Indeed, I believe that religion and government each have distinct roles to play in society, even if their activities and interests seem to overlap at times. Religion interprets life’s meaning of the human person. Various mutually reinforcing elements combine to accomplish this. These especially include creed, ritual, and organized charity. Creed and ritual enjoy such a uniquely religious identity that they rarely surface in public-policy documents except to the extent that they enjoy constitutional guarantees. However, organized charity is not unique to religion.

The government exists to serve the common good and to promote the general welfare. Thus, to attain this basic purpose, along with a myriad of other programs, the government creates, runs, or funds programs of public welfare.

This point of similarity creates the possibility for faith-based organizations to partner with the government in the attainment of a public objective. Thus, Catholic Charities and other religiously affiliated organizations over the years chose to contract with the government to offer specified services to dependent neglected children, to the frail elderly, to the homeless, to the unemployed, and to so many others.

In such arrangements, it is critically important to the integrity of both religion and government that the religiously affiliated organization chooses to collaborate and is not prescribed by law to undertake such activities. Many of us questioned why the 1996 welfare-overhaul bill (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act) focused so much attention on the importance of faith-based groups in addressing the needs of the poor. Religiously identified organizations already constitute a valuable and enormous presence in the human-services field.

Should public policy go beyond contracting with faith-based groups for defined services to the poor? Should the government promote some other role for religion in the lives of the poor? The headline on Mr. Sirico’s letter is interesting in this regard. Certainly “the poor need more than what government can provide.” So do the middle class. So what? . . .

In addition to undertaking their own compassionate activities or doing so in collaboration, faith-based groups have another critically important role to play in society. They should protest public policies that put any part of humanity at risk. This advocacy role becomes especially important when government deals with the least powerful.

Perhaps this may explain why the leadership of so many influential religious bodies in the United States was publicly opposed to the 1996 welfare bill. They took umbrage at the bill’s disproportionate focus on personal responsibility without a parallel concern for the macro-economic world which structures the possibilities for personal involvement.

The recent visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba symbolized very well for me the balanced role of religion in trying to level the uneven playing field of powerful governments and powerless people. From the undemocratic, socialist government of Cuba, the Pope called for religious freedom and the right to free association. However, as he viewed the plight of so many people denied access to the world’s goods, he challenged the democratic capitalist government of the United States to end its economic embargo. Having religion is wonderful, but so is having access to real economic opportunity, whether you are a poor Cuban or a poor American.

Thomas J. Harvey
Senior Policy Fellow Center for Concern
Washington