Faith-Based Funding on Trial

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court Dec. 1 agreed to review a case challenging the Bush administration’s support for federal funding for faith-based institutions. A group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit against assorted federal agencies, saying they violated the constitutional prohibition on state-supported religions by singling out faith-based organizations as “particularly worthy of federal funding because of their religious orientation.”

The organization also argued that “the belief in God is extolled as distinguishing the claimed effectiveness of faith-based social services.”

The government said the lawsuit should be dismissed because the foundation had no legal standing from which to challenge the way the government operates. But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the organization’s members could sue, as taxpayers with an interest in programs funded by Congress. The Freedom From Religion Foundation describes itself as “an educational group working for the separation of Church and state.” In its website section “what does the foundation do,” the first item on the list is “files lawsuits.”

(CNS)

New Jersey Senate Exiles Minister After Invocation

TRENTON, N.J. — Rev. Vincent Fields says he didn’t plan to speak out against same-sex “marriage” when he offered the invocation at the opening of the state Senate session Dec. 11. At first, he prayed for wisdom and understanding for the senators. But then, the pastor from Absecon recalled, “the Holy Spirit took over, and I had to pray what he said.”

What Fields said next — on the day a Senate committee advanced a bill allowing civil unions for same-sex couples — has gotten the pastor banned from giving future Senate invocations. “We curse the spirit that would come to bring about same-sex ‘marriage,’” Fields said in the Senate chamber. “We ask you to just look over this place today, cause them to be shaken in their very heart in uprightness, Lord, to do what is right before you.”

The invocations are not supposed to be political or divisive, Senate President Richard Codey said. But Fields, who runs a nondenominational church, provoked a lot of comment. Asked if he felt Fields had gone out of bounds, Codey said, “Absolutely. Positively. Yes. He will not be back.”

(RNS)

Bishops Doing ‘Good Job,’ Poll Finds

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — For the first time since before the clergy sex abuse scandal broke in 2002, the percentage of Catholics who think the U.S. bishops are doing a “good job” is higher than the previous year, according to results of the Contemporary Catholic Trends poll conducted by LeMoyne College in Syracuse and Zogby International.

In the fall 2006 Contemporary Catholic Trends survey, 71% of Catholics said they strongly agreed (29%) or somewhat agreed (42%) that “the U.S. bishops are doing a good job leading the Catholic Church.” That percentage had been 83% in the fall of 2001; the U.S. clergy sexual abuse crisis erupted in Boston in January 2002. The percentage dropped as low as 58% in 2004. Last year, 67% of Catholics said the bishops were doing a good job.

The latest survey results, made public Nov. 30, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. Zogby conducted telephone interviews of 1,505 self-identified Catholics chosen nationwide.

(CNS)