Title: No way to build a church
Source: The Tribune, 01/28/2003
Author(s): N.A.
AN: 2W72840213769
Database: Newspaper Source
No way to build a church

The following editorial appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Monday, Jan. 27:

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When President Bush announced in December that he would provide more federal money to church groups, critics warned that the faith-based initiative could breach the wall between church and state, if taken too far.

It took just a month for the Bush administration to prove the critics right. Under proposed rules, the administration could use federal housing and community development grant money to help build church centers.

Federal money could pay for the church basement where a social services program is housed, as long as it doesn't pay for the sanctuary upstairs.

That means Uncle Sam could pay for a church building for the Church[sic] of Scientology's "drug-treatment program," or the Nation of Islam's feeding program, or a fundamentalist church's AIDS program that taught victims that their illness resulted from sinful behavior.

Churches have a right to teach whatever they want. And, in some cases, ecumenical social service programs are more effective than government-funded secular programs. But the Constitution isn't worth the parchment it's printed on if tax money is used to build church buildings.

It is unconstitutional to use federal money to build an entire church.

So how can it be constitutional to build a church basement, or wing, or a church center next door?

The people should not be taxed to construct buildings-entire buildings or parts of them-for somebody else's church. People might be particularly upset if their tax dollars help a church with whose tenets they disagree-whether the church is the Nation of Islam or Scientologists. Nor is it a good idea to have the federal government scrutinizing church programs to make sure they aren't using their federally funded buildings for worship. That entangles churches and the government in a way that could restrict religious freedom.

Legalities aside, there isn't enough federal money now to house the needy. This is the practical problem with the administration's entire program for aid to faith-based groups. Groups such as Catholic Charities and Lutheran Family Services have gotten federal money for years because they don't discriminate in employment or advance religion. But they already face low federal payments for the services they provide.

Splitting the federal pie more ways will only worsen their predicament.

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(c) 2003, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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