Two Catholics with extensive experience in partnerships between
religious charities and the government have expressed different opinions
about President Obama's Nov. 17 executive order, which provided new
guidelines for faith-based groups that receive federal assistance.
In his introduction to the order, President Obama said the directive
was intended to “promote compliance with constitutional and other
applicable legal principles,” and to “strengthen the capacity of
faith-based and other neighborhood organizations to deliver services
effectively to those in need.”
Fr. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, welcomed the
presidential decree. His agency praised the Obama administration's
continued commitment to faith-based partnerships, describing the
executive order as “an important affirmation” of “critical programs.”
The Catholic Charities' president is also a member of President
Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Last spring, the council issued a series of recommendations on how to
improve government partnerships with religious charities, while
clarifying boundaries between churches and state agencies.
The White House used the advisory council's recommendations to draft
the new executive order. Fr. Snyder said he appreciated the
administration's “responsiveness … to the recommendations of the
council,” with Catholic Charities saying it “looks to President Obama to
continue to embrace joint cooperation in the wake of this executive
order.”
While the executive order explicitly confirmed the administration's
continued desire to help believers serve the public, a past director of
the White House's work on faith-based initiatives has expressed
skepticism about its possible effects.
Jim Towey, a lawyer who headed the Office of Faith-Based and
Communitive Initiatives under President George W. Bush before serving
for five years as the president of Pennsylvania's Saint Vincent College,
told CNA/EWTN News that the executive order was unnecessary, and could
burden religious social workers with new rules and documentation
requirements if they choose to receive federal help.
The executive order explicitly affords a series of significant rights
to groups that receive federal funding. They may display religious
iconography in their facilities, maintain religious references in the
names of their programs, choose board members on the basis of their
faith, and make reference to faith in their mission statements and
internal documents.
Nevertheless, Towey said other provisions might lead government
partners into a swamp of regulations and paperwork. In particular, he
pointed to a section on “referral to an alternative provider.”
Under that heading, the executive order requires federally-funded
faith-based groups to refer any “beneficiary or potential beneficiary”
to an “alternative provider” of the same service, if the individual
objects to the group's religious affiliation. Those groups must notify
the government of “any referral” that takes place for this reason.
Such groups must also ensure that “each beneficiary of a social
service program receives written notice” of their right to be referred
to a non-religious agency, “prior to enrolling in or receiving services”
from a faith-based program.
The executive order also specifies that faith-based groups can only
engage in “explicitly religious activities” if these are separate in
both “time and location” from any government-funded activities.
That joint requirement, Towey commented, might cause problems if one
facilities serve two purposes but only receives federal funding for one,
or if the schedule of a group's privately-supported religious
activities and government-supported non-religious activities happened to
overlap in time despite being otherwise separate.
Towey believes that these new regulations will have a “chilling
effect”– dissuading religious groups who might otherwise want to partner
with the government. Many such groups, he said, would not be willing to
divert time and energy away from the needy, for the task of proving
their compliance with longstanding principles that they have never been
accused of
violating.
He noted that President George W. Bush's guidelines for partnering
with religious groups had been in place for eight years, during which
time “there hasn't been a single legal challenge or question” to
necessitate the new guidelines.
SIC: CNA/INT'L