WASHINGTON — The shrouds over statues of the Blessed Mother at some Catholic Charities USA facilities can be taken off. That's thanks to an executive order President Bush issued Dec. 12 — the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as it turns out.

Sharon Daly, vice president for social policy at Catholic Charities USA, said that would be the first effect of the Bush rule eliminating discrimination against religious organizations.

“HUD regulations will no longer require us to shroud statues of the Blessed Mother,” she said.

No longer content to wait for Congress to act, President Bush issued the order affecting programs that fund social services and in many internal federal government policies.

“The generalized effect is that faith-based groups will no longer be discriminated against in the public square,” said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. “They were discouraged from even pursuing federal grants. At HUD [Housing and Urban Development] alone, there are $8 billion in funds that faith-based organizations can now apply for. I'm not saying it is a totally new start, because some faith-based organizations formed secular counterparts to apply for the funds, but now faith-based groups will not have to hide who they are.”

Said the White House: “By eliminating discriminatory barriers to federal social service participation by faith-based and community groups, the president is empowering grass-roots groups that have a proven record of improving the lives of Americans who are hurting and suffering.”

Faith-based groups that receive federal assistance will still have to separate “inherently religious activities” from their social service efforts, however.

“[O]rganizations that engage in inherently religious activities such as worship, religious instruction and proselytization,” said Bush's order, “must offer those services separately in time or location from any programs or services supported with direct federal financial assistance, and participation in any such inherently religious activities must be voluntary for the beneficiaries of the social service program supported with such federal financial assistance.”

Towey said faith-based groups that receive federal funds will be able to run their organizations on the basis of their own religious principles so long as they offer their services to everyone and avoid using federal funds for inherently religious acitivites.

“We believe the civil-rights protection that has existed for 38 years

‘Daily Miracles'

“Faith-based charities work daily miracles because they have idealistic volunteers,” said Bush in a speech in Philadelphia announcing his order. “They're guided by moral principles. They know the problems of their own communities, and above all, they recognize the dignity of every citizen and the possibilities of every life.”

Faith-based organizations praised Bush for implementing his executive order.

“We think it's terrific that the president recognizes the importance of faith-based social service agencies,” said Daly, at Catholic Charities USA. She said 52% of Catholic Charities' funds come from government, “but mostly money from state and local governments.”

She said she doubted Catholic Charities would take advantage of Bush's order to expand its specifically religious activities, such as by providing religious education or spiritual help.

“I think in the United States we have a division of labor,” she said. “Catholic spiritual education is done by parishes. … The people we serve are mostly not Catholic. When you're talking about people from a broad range of religious traditions, they are not likely to seek Catholic spiritual education.”

Towey noted that President Bill Clinton started the move toward including faith-based initiatives in government funding in 1996 with a welfare reform bill.

That law said, according to the Christian Legal Society: “The purpose [of this bill] is to allow states to contract with religious organizations or to allow religious organizations to accept certificates, vouchers or other forms of disbursement … on the same basis as any other nongovernmental provider without impairing the religious character of such organizations and without diminishing the religious freedom of beneficiaries of assistance funded under such program.”

Towey said Bush's order is “just the beginning” — the president wants some changes only Congress can make, he said.

“Different federal agencies have some different hiring rules that only Congress can reform,” he said.

In any case, he said, “I think there are some senators who will want to see the [new] regulations made into actual law. Presidents come and go.”

Bush's faith-based legislative package had died in the Democratic-controlled Senate last year, but now Bush's fellow Republicans control both houses of Congress. Also, Towey said, Bush wants “more incentives for charitable giving.”

Bush's executive order requires the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist religious nonprofit groups as it does secular ones after a disaster — something previously forbidden. The president also established centers for faith-based and community initiatives at the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which dispenses foreign aid.

Many secular civil libertarians were unhappy with Bush's order.

American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Counsel Christopher Anders said in a statement, “[T]he president has decided to circumvent public and congressional opinion in his quest to allow religious discrimination in the workplace.”

The ACLU did not respond to a question from the Register asking if it planned to mount a legal challenge against the order.

“The days of discriminating against religious groups just because they are religious,” Bush said in his speech, “are coming to an end.”

Joseph A. D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.