New Bush Office Seeks Closer Ties to
Church Groups
By FRANK BRUNI and LAURIE GOODSTEIN
WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — President
Bush has selected a University of
Pennsylvania professor
of political science to
head the first federal
office intended to
promote the integration
of religious groups into
federally financed
social services, several Bush
advisers said today.
The advisers said
the opening of the office and
the appointment of
John J. DiIulio Jr. to fill it
would almost certainly
be announced at a
White House event
on Monday, and they acknowledged that it would
draw heated opposition
from organizations and religious groups that
advocate a strict separation
of church and state.
But the encouragement
and government financing of faith-based
programs was a signature
campaign issue for Mr. Bush, who has said he
reads the Bible every
day. And the decision to entrust the new federal
office in charge of
that effort to Mr. DiIulio, a widely published expert on
juvenile crime with
impressive academic credentials, is an example of the
political caution with
which the Bush administration will proceed.
The choice of Mr.
DiIulio, in fact, is only one of several ways in which
Mr. Bush and his aides
are trying to blunt any impression that what the
president is doing
amounts to an evangelical endeavor.
"John is a social
scientist who believes in empirical evidence," said one
Bush adviser, stressing
Mr. DiIulio's focus on provable results from
faith-based social
programs that address problems like substance abuse,
youth violence and
teenage pregnancy. The adviser also emphasized that
Mr. DiIulio does not
see faith-based programs "as a panacea," but rather
as one arrow in a
quiver with plenty of others.
In addition to Mr.
DiIulio, the other central figure in the effort is Stephen
Goldsmith, the former
mayor of Indianapolis who was the chief domestic
policy adviser for
Mr. Bush's presidential campaign.
Several Bush advisers
said Mr. Goldsmith would be the chairman of a
new national advisory
board whose work will complement that of the
new federal office.
Mr. Goldsmith will also serve as an official adviser to
Mr. Bush on the issue.
Mr. Bush and his
aides do not want the proposals related to faith-based
programs that they
unveil to seem too driven by religion. Indeed, the
president's goal is
to find new ways for the federal government to
encourage private charities
— including but not limited to religious groups
— to provide more
social services.
To that end, the
title of the new federal office will allude not just to
faith-based programs
but also to community initiatives, although several
advisers said the
order in which the words "faith" and "community" would
be placed was under
debate.
Additionally, Mr.
Bush has invited not only leaders of faith-based groups
but also the heads
of other not-for-profit organizations to meet on
Monday morning at
the White House to kick off a week of events
intended to describe
and promote the president's vision.
The guest list,
according to one of the people on it, includes the Rev.
Stephen E. Burger,
executive director of the Association of Gospel
Rescue Missions; Sara
E. Meléndez, president and chief executive officer
of Independent Sector,
a coalition of nonprofit organizations and
foundations; and Millard
Fuller, founder and president of Habitat for
Humanity International,
the ecumenical house-building group.
"It is about faith-based
institutions, but it's also about more than that,"
said another Bush
adviser, referring to Mr. Bush's plan to encourage
private groups to
administer more of the kinds of local programs often
provided by government.
A more thorough
integration of faith-based and other not-for-profit
groups into federally
financed social services is a cornerstone of
compassionate conservatism,
a political philosophy with which Mr. Bush
has strongly identified
himself.
Compassionate conservatism
holds that while the government should limit
the scope of the social
services it provides, it should take an active role
as a catalyst and
source of financing for work done by neighborhood and
religious groups.
Mr. Bush has said
some of the groups with the best results for
rehabilitating prisoners
or fighting drug abuse are ones that take religious
and spiritual approaches.
He has also said the government should not
hesitate to give money
to these groups, as long as secular groups that
provide similar services
are also available.
There are signs
that these initiatives may elicit bipartisan support. This
morning, on the ABC
News program "This Week," Representative
Richard A. Gephardt
of Missouri, the House minority leader, signaled
interest in Mr. Bush's
approach.
The Bush administration
will roll out these initiatives with the utmost care,
under the guidance
of Mr. DiIulio, who is Catholic, and Mr. Goldsmith,
who is Jewish.
Although both are
well liked by religious conservatives, neither is an
ideological lightning
rod like Marvin Olasky, another proponent of faith-
based programs and
compassionate conservatism. Mr. Olasky was with
Mr. Goldsmith and
Mr. DiIulio at a long meeting with Mr. Bush in Austin,
Tex., nearly two years
ago.
"It's not just that
we're paying attention to the politics of it," one of the
Bush advisers said.
"We're paying attention to the pragmatics of it. I think
we're doing it right,
and I think we're going to be careful about it."
Mr. DiIulio's résumé
makes him seem like a personification of Mr. Bush's
attempts to retain
the support of religious conservatives while also
courting moderates
and building a broad base of support.
He is a fellow at
both the Manhattan Institute, which is a conservative
think tank, and the
Brookings Institute, which is not. In a two-month
period in the summer
of 1999, he wrote major articles for The Weekly
Standard, a conservative
publication, and for The New Democrat, a
moderate one. He identifies
himself as a new Democrat.
Mr. DiIulio has
also done extensive work with black pastors in urban
areas, and one of
the Bush administration's hopes is that its advocacy of
faith-based programs
will be a bridge to black ministers and win some
support with the Congressional
Black Caucus.
Mr. Bush garnered
the support of about 9 percent of black voters in the
presidential election
and has been reaching out aggressively to African-
Americans ever since.
This morning, he, his wife, Laura, and his parents
attended a Methodist
church here with a predominantly black
congregation.
For years, Mr. DiIulio,
who taught at Princeton before the University of
Pennsylvania, was
known more for his work on criminal justice issues
than on his interest
in faith-based programs. He was among the voices
loudly advocating increased
prison construction in the early 1990's and
wrote a 1996 book
about the war against crime, "Body Count," with
John P. Walters and
William J. Bennett, the former education secretary
and drug czar.
Mr. Goldsmith, a
former prosecutor, was a two-term mayor in
Indianapolis who privatized
everything from golf course construction to
sewage treatment and
showed an interest in revitalizing long-neglected
inner-city neighborhoods.
Late in his second term, he started the Front
Porch Alliance, a
group that acted as a liaison between religious
congregations — mostly
urban African-American churches — and
government.
For his work with
churches, Mr. Goldsmith, a Republican, was lauded
by many evangelical
Christian leaders. But some Jewish leaders said they
were nervous about
an approach that redirects tax dollars to churches.
"There's a lot of
respect for Stephen Goldsmith," said Rabbi David
Saperstein, director
of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
"Many in the Jewish
community know him and respect him, but any time
you have a formal government
endorsement of religion that this
faith-based office
conveys, that takes us down a path that too often in
our history has turned
out to be disastrous for religious freedom and
religious tolerance."