The Uphill Battle to Steer Government Aid to Religious Groups

“I invite churches and faith-based institutions to continue to play the role they have always played — as leaders, teachers, and guides in our communities. I want to offer support for your efforts, including financial support, in a way that supports our Constitution and civil-rights laws and values the role of faith in inspiring countless acts of justice and mercy across our land.”

Nobody would be surprised to hear that kind of exhortation during this presidential campaign season. But probably few people would guess that it was John F. Kerry, not President Bush, who uttered those words.

In a speech to the annual convention of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historically black denomination, Mr. Kerry echoed commitments made in the last presidential campaign not only by Mr. Bush, but also by his opponent, Al Gore.

But even with such widespread political agreement about the role of religious organizations, the Bush administration’s experience suggests that Senator Kerry will need a good deal of help from his own party and some of its close allies to fulfill his pledge, if he is elected. And he will also need support from the courts: This month, in a key decision on government financing of religious groups, a judge told the federal AmeriCorps program it was wrong to pay for volunteers to teach at parochial schools.

When President Bush took office in 2001, he moved quickly on his high-profile campaign promise to help religious groups. A week after being inaugurated, he established the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the White House, as well as similar outposts in the major cabinet departments responsible for programs of potential interest to faith-based charities.

To lead the effort, he chose capable and committed appointees: first, a well-regarded scholar, John DiIulio, and then a Florida lawyer, James Towey, who had spent more than a decade assisting Mother Teresa.

The White House sent Congress a proposal to extend “charitable choice” rules beyond a handful of federal programs. Charitable choice, which had been adopted with bipartisan backing in the 1990s, sought to enable religious charities to maintain a spiritual ethos while receiving government support and to make sure that people seeking help at government-supported charities were not forced to avow an organization’s religious beliefs to receive help.

By midsummer, the administration issued a report documenting the “unlevel playing field” on which religious groups had to compete for government funds, and the disproportionately small share they obtained.

Yet, even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the momentum behind the Bush administration’s efforts to help religious organizations had begun to slow.

That was partly due to opposition among more conservative religious groups, some of which worried about increased government oversight, while others believed they would be forced to create too much distance between their religious practices and the social services they sponsored. As an alternative, they favored giving vouchers to needy people so they could redeem them at either secular or religious charities, and pushed for new legislation that would provide incentives for increased charitable giving, a large share of which was expected to go to religious organizations.

More influential was opposition from liberal Democrats and their allies among groups favoring strict church-state separation. They believed that the Bush administration was trying to direct government funds to organizations that would discriminate on religious grounds in choosing whom to help (or whom to hire to provide services). Dubious that social services provided by religious groups were better than those provided by secular charities, they believed the White House was more interested in steering money (and new members) to its political allies at religious organizations than in making a sincere attempt to help the needy.

As a result, and despite the attempts of centrist Democrats to fashion a compromise, the White House’s efforts to help religious charities — including proposed new incentives for charitable giving contained in a measure called the Care (Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment) Act — continue to languish in Congress. Several administrative changes have leveled the “playing field” for religious organizations, but while they have been able to win more money, their share of grants remains small.

Congress also appropriated less money than the Bush administration requested for new measures, such as the “compassion capital fund,” which provides money to help religious groups strengthen their management and operations, and a program to provide mentors to the children of prisoners.

In addition, church-state separation groups have pursued a string of federal and state court cases, calling into question the legal grounds on which government funds are provided to religious groups.

The opponents are having some success. This month, for example, a federal district court judge in the District of Columbia told the Corporation for National and Community Service that it ran afoul of the Constitution in supporting the University of Notre Dame’s AmeriCorps program, which arranges for college graduates to spend two years teaching in inner-city parochial schools.

Despite procedures aimed at ensuring that the participants in the program could not teach religion during their AmeriCorps hours, the court concluded that making a distinction between religious and nonreligious activities was impossible, that “the line between the two has become completely blurred,” as the judge wrote.

If sustained on appeal, this verdict could go to the heart of “charitable choice” rules that assume religious organizations can draw a line between their government-supported social services and their more narrowly sectarian pursuits. And regardless of the eventual outcome, court decisions like this cause religious groups to be reluctant about starting new partnerships with government.

What is especially ironic about the court’s decision is that the AmeriCorps program at issue was created during the Clinton administration.

Democrats and their allies then understood the value of providing funds to religious organizations, accompanied by reasonable (if not necessarily airtight) rules designed to prevent improper government aid for religion, such as those contained in the “charitable choice” provisions.

When the Bush administration (in which I served as head of the national-service agency) sought to extend that idea, however, many refused to go along and helped stymie several good proposals for increasing private as well as government support for particularly hard-pressed charities.

Senator Kerry’s endorsement renews hope that more financial help for religious groups may be on the way. But there is no need to wait until we elect the next president for that. If Senator Kerry is really sincere about what he said to the African Methodist Episcopal Church convention, he can call upon Congress to end the deadlock and take steps now to adopt the Care Act.

Leslie Lenkowsky is professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University and a regular contributor to these pages. He was previously chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service, under President Bush. His e-mail is llenkows@iupui.edu

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