Catholic Group Urges Obama to End Faith-Based Programs
Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains why it is time for the Obama administration to shut down the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships:
The goal of the faith-based initiative launched by President George W. Bush was to put an end to the long-standing discriminatory practice of allowing federal monies to be spent on secular social service agencies, but not religious-based programs. While the outcome of this effort was less than noble, its purpose certainly was. Under President Barack Obama, it is now clear that this program has a new agenda, and it is not one that is religious friendly.
Just this week, it was reported by Washington Post journalist William Wan that a group within the faith-based office is now considering whether to ban the display of religious symbols in those religious institutions that receive federal funding.
It does not matter what the final decision is—we already know enough. The mindset that is in place is sufficient reason to close down the entire faith-based office. And it’s not just because of this new development.
On July 1, 2008, Obama said that if he became president he would not allow faith-based programs to hire just their own people. In other words, he declared his interest in gutting the faith element in faith-based programs: religious social service groups could not staff their offices with their own people when ministering to people of their own religion.
Last April, the Obama advance team told Georgetown University that the president would not speak there unless they put a drape over religious symbols. Last month, it was reported that a serious debate ensued in the White House whether to display a manger scene at Christmastime. Now they’re wondering whether to tell Catholic charitable offices to put a sheet over their crucifixes. We know what they really want, and that is good enough to call for the dismantling of all faith-based programs in this administration.
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This is precisely why use of government money to support religious institutions is a bad idea. The government would have to force the institutions to 'clean up there act', and get their symbols down off of the walls.
Speaking of the Catholic Church and their Billions of dollars, I haven't seen 'Vatican I' flying into Haiti with pallets filled with cash. When is the Vatican step up, and support the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere? (which is predominately Catholic, and suffering from an act of God!).
The Catholic church has millions of dollars to pay off victims of pedophile priests but needs help from the U.S. government ? Sorry we need that money to create jobs and fix the infrastructure of our nation. Let the pope pay those bills he has the money.
...for supporting the separation of church and state , even if it is for the wrong reasons. Very big of you.
This comes across as a baby spitting out his dummy...
Hey I actually agree with Mr. Donohue! The faith based initiatives put forth by President Bush are troubling violations of church / state separation, and should be ended.
As US citizens, of course Catholics have the right to object to governmental decisions and to seek government fundings. But, as Christians -- why do they even need to do so? If the God of Catholicism is real, why do Catholics seek or depend at all on any government's funding to support their religious activities to any degree? Where's the power of the Jesus they claim is Sovereign of heaven and earth, who they profess to believe said, " Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat : and the body more than the raiment? 26 Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? 27 And which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit? 28 And for raiment why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin. 29 But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. 30 And if the grass of the field, which is to day, and to morrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith? 31 Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? 32 For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. 33 Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Be not therefore solicitous for to morrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" (Mat6:25-34)?
Catholics turning to the government for financial support -- and now whining when it looks as if it might be cut off -- demonstrates them to be no different from any secular or even atheistic group. Let Donohue and his fellow Catholics put their money where their mouth is and witness to their God by declining all worldly avenues of financial assistance and asking God to miraculously provide apart from the ways to which all us heathens resort for financing and funding.