ARTICLES

Church-State Partnership

Solidarity for a New Morality

Camille Giglio

The story of the Good Samaritan has taken on a whole new twist. No one has ever asked what the Good Samaritan did after he left the robbery victim at the inn. Today's religious activist might tell you that he went back to his church and joined an interfaith social justice committee lobbying for local, government funded health care clinics.

Through the 'charitable choices' amendment to the 1996 federal Welfare to Work legislation, Protestant and Catholic churches have become eligible for funds by becoming partners with community activists and government agencies in matching parishioners with government programs, especially social service and health insurance programs.

"We, the Church, have to become a good-will special-interest lobby group," said Father Mike Cunningham, pastor of Queen of All Saints Catholic Church to Democrat senator-elect Tom Torlakson, at a recent town-hall meeting held at St. Bonaventure's church, in Concord. The meeting, sponsored by the Contra Costa Interfaith Sponsoring Committee, was entitled: "Justice For All." The purpose of the November 3rd meeting, emceed by Father Rubio, president of the interfaith board, was to promote the Covenant, a set of 10 demands for state legislation and funding to state level officials. The officials in attendance were Berkeley senator Dion Aroner (D), Pittsburg assemblyman Tom Torlakson (D), Martinez city councilman Joe Canciamilla, Concord assembly candidate Jim Dias, (R), and Berkeley senate candidate Linda Marshall. The audience consisted mainly of Latinos bused in from neighborhoods within the parish boundaries of St. Mark's church in Richmond, St. Peter Martyr's in Pittsburg, as well as Queen of All Saints and the First Congregational Church of Concord. St. Bonaventure's parishioners were not represented except for the pastor, Father Mangini, chaplain for the Concord Hispanic ministry. He welcomed everyone and then left the meeting, which was held inside the church.

A large banner advertising the interfaith committee hung on the wall behind the altar and banners calling for specific economic and social justice goals hung from the remaining walls of the church. Everyone entering was handed two small banners, one resembling a pennant and the other with blue and white streamers. The audience was instructed to wave the streamers, which represent "justice rolling like a river," and participate in a call and response. They were to cry out for "Justicia" whenever certain words were spoken. This was followed by a call: "What do we want?" and the response: "We want justice," then, "When do we want it? We want it now. "Who do we want it for?" "We want justice for all." Unlike the usual town-hall meeting, it was not open for public comment. The invited officials listened to personal accounts of the "hardships of living in a community (Contra Costa County) lacking in equality and economic justice." Each account related to one of the 10 demands of the committee. Among these objectives was greater health access. In particular, the further relaxation of the eligibility requirements for the state's Healthy Families program, increased funding for community health vans by non-profit groups, and legislation to run a county-wide parish nurse program.

At the end of the evening the officials and candidates declined to sign the covenant declaring difficulties in bringing such requests to legislative completion. It was at this point that Father Cunningham responded by saying, "You legislators didn't really understand the issues." However, he hoped they would be willing to work with the interfaith committee and learn from them.

With the passage of a series of federal and state pieces of legislation three avenues of health service have merged. Churches are providing access to members of the community. Community activists are training church members to become volunteer lobbyists. The government is providing the funding and the programs. In California two programs were created to meet the federal requirements for participation. Proposition 10 created a fund with tobacco tax money for the Rob Reiner Developed Children and Families First Program. This created eligibility for children from birth to age 2 to receive services regardless of financial or other eligibility requirements. These services include the "Welcome Home Baby" program and a mentoring program. The second program was the Healthy Families California version of a federal assistance program. But the program California modeled its own from did not include abortion and family planning programs. Then-Governor Pete Wilson, sought a waiver from the federal program allowing "reproductive" coverage. This program is for individuals, children and adults, who are at 250-300% of poverty. But in order for legislators and the governor to become enthused about authoring, passing and signing these bills, they had to believe that the general public favored and even demanded these services. They needed to be lobbied.

In 1997 the Oakland Diocese's newspaper The Catholic Voice, ran a front-page article entitled "Parishes join organizing efforts to clean up their neighborhoods." It reported on a community activist organization called The Pacific Institute for Community Organizing. The group and its local branch, the South Alameda County Interfaith Sponsoring Committee, had maintained a presence in the area since 1994. Its goal was to organize neighborhoods to fight against the local bureaucracy for improvements in community life. The institute had been around for 25 years according to its co-founder, Jesuit Father John Baumann. The Voice article details the entrance of Our Lady of Rosary Parish, Union City, into the role of community activist.

According to the Voice article, the institute was founded in Oakland in 1972 by two Jesuit priests, Father Baumann and Father Jerry Helfrich. As seminarians at Alma College they had attended a summer program in Chicago on community organizing. "We worked with Tom Gaudette, one of Saul Alinsky's lieutenants at the Urban Training Center," said Father Baumann. The Jesuits gave an added dimension to community organizing unavailable to other community activists. They had entrance to churches. The Oakland Community Organizing was their first experiment, emerging from St. Elizabeth Parish, in Oakland.

The institute went on to create other branches including the Contra Costa Interfaith Sponsoring Committee, People Acting in Community Together in San Jose, Peninsula Interfaith Action, North Santa Clara county and San Mateo County, and San Francisco Organizing Project. They have also been active in San Diego creating the San Diego Organizing Project. The May 11, 2000, edition of the Southern Cross, the San Diego diocese paper, carried a front page story entitled: "Area Catholics lobby for expanded health coverage." This details the trips taken by local parishioners and religious along with the Orange county diocese bishop, Jaime Soto, to lobby the legislators for expanded health care. The group's goal was the lobbying of Governor Davis "to make an immediate investment of $50 million for the infrastructure needs of community clinics." Parishioners met with some of the most ardent pro-abortion legislators urging them to author bills that would, in realty, further the legislators own population control agendas. (Note: this legislation was killed through pro-life efforts).

This San Diego lobbying effort was summed up by a St. Jude parishioner. She said, "Jesus asked us all to do for the least [of our brethren]. Jesus worked for health care when He healed people." In West Contra Costa County, at about the same time, parishioners were bused to Sacramento by the Contra Costa interfaith group to lobby for expanded health care and community clinics. In addition they were urged to lobby the legislators to remove the debt owed by the [formerly Richmond] West County Unified School District. That district went into bankruptcy a few years back due to incompetent management, but they were still paying on the debt. As a result of that lobbying trip, Governor Davis signed a bill, authored by Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, removing the debt and, in fact, repaying the district all the money it had paid on the debt.

Contra Costa's interfaith committee is funded from a combination of grants by local foundations and state and local government. Churches are required to pay dues for participation. Churches that agree to become sites for recruiting applicants for the Healthy Families Insurance through the Parish Nurse Program receive $50 per successful application from the state Healthy Families fund. St. Francis of Assisi Church, in Concord, which has refused to provide information to its parishioners on its involvement, is the only Catholic church listed on the Healthy Families web site as a certified application assistant. The director of the county Healthy Families program, also a member of St. Francis church, has said that he has trained at least 20 application assistants including members of St. Bonaventure's, and St. Mark's.

The applicant chooses one of five health insurance carriers all of whom provide elective abortion and family planning coverage. The Healthy Families enrollees may present themselves for health care to a large number of local, community agencies, health vans and clinics including Planned Parenthood. Recently a pro-life nurse said: "I'm confused, what's the problem, I thought we were supposed to minister to our fellow man?" The assignment, she declared, was to place people in health care. If they choose to use this health care "to sin" -- that was their problem. In the meantime the Church is on the government payroll and our religious principles have been compromised.

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