WASHINGTON (ABP) — President Bush's lieutenant for promoting government funding for faith-based social programs announced April 18 he is leaving his post.
Jim Towey, director since 2002 of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, will leave at the beginning of June to become president of St. Vincent College, a small Benedictine Catholic school in Latrobe, Pa.
In his role, Towey has pushed hard to boost the faith-based plan — garnering him both plaudits from some religious conservatives and criticism from supporters of strong church-state separation.
The White House released a statement from Bush April 18 thanking Towey for his service. “Under his leadership, the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives has applied the compassion of America to help solve some of our most challenging problems,” he said. “His work on behalf of the poor and the sick has improved lives. I admire Jim for his compassion, his faith, and his sense of humor.”
In a press conference following his announcement, Towey told reporters he still believed in the project. “President Bush's faith-based and community initiative is deeply rooted in America's heartland. It's established. It will continue to bear fruit for years and years to come,” he said. “And I thank God for President Bush's leadership on an initiative that has faced a steady headwind from day one.”
Towey's tenure, and the office itself, have proven controversial. Opponents of direct government funding for pervasively religious charities cited church-state concerns in criticizing Bush's move. Some have successfully sued programs funded under the plan for violating the First Amendment's ban on government endorsement of religion.
Towey, in characteristic style, was dismissive of such criticism during his farewell press conference. “This is the death rattle of the voices that were heard when President Bush first took office, because the wall between church and state is still standing,” he said. “But faith-based groups have been welcomed into the public square and the poor have benefited from having access to their effective programs.”
Both his predecessor in the office, John DiIulio, and a former Towey aide, David Kuo, ended up criticizing the White House's handling of the issue following their departures. They and other former supporters of the plan have suggested Bush's political operatives have simply been using it to gain support among religious voters — without actually expanding funding for social services.
But Towey said he believes the initiative is close to Bush's heart. “What I find exciting … is that this initiative, whenever it's needed President Bush's engagement, he's been there. Never once in over four years when I went into see him was he opposed to a new initiative,” he said.
He also predicted the program's continued existence, no matter who succeeds Bush in office when his term expires in 2009. “I think you'll be talking about this for generations. Because we will never help our poor if we don't give them reasons to change, and government can't love and government cannot bond and connect with our poor. They will never have the trust of the poor like a rabbi or a preacher or some of these grass-roots groups that may have no particular faith at all,” he told reporters.
Towey's sometimes-pugnacious rhetoric in defense of the plan has frustrated its critics. For instance, during his departure press conference, Towey twice called those critical of the initiative “secular extremists,” echoing a charge he has made in the past.
One critic of the faith-based plan, Holly Hollman of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said that sort of rhetoric is unnecessary. “On several occasions, the BJC voiced its concerns to him and sought ways to work together more constructively,” she said. “Unfortunately, Towey never seemed to recognize that people of faith criticized the initiative precisely because of their faith. The initiative diminishes the role of religion by threatening the independence of houses of worship, funding religious discrimination and blurring the line between church and state that protects religious freedom.”
Welton Gaddy, president of the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance and pastor of Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, La., called on Bush to use the occasion to disband the faith-based office. “Mr. President, for the sake of religious liberty, please stop mixing religion with politics in the appropriations process and stop violating the Constitution by sponsoring and funding favored religious groups,” he said in a press release issued shortly after the announcement.
In his press conference, Towey touted the program's successes during his tenure. “I'll leave this office, after proudly serving here for four years, deeply grateful for the results and accomplishments that we've achieved,” he said. “The court has upheld repeatedly the initiative is constitutional.”
Chip Lupu, a law professor who monitors the legal state of the initiative for the non-partisan Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, said April 18 Towey's assertion isn't entirely accurate. While federal courts have turned away two broad challenges to the entire program, results for the other recent lawsuits challenging specific religious programs as First Amendment violations have been far more mixed.
“It is true, no court has said the initiative taken as a whole is unconstitutional,” said Lupu, who teaches at George Washington University Law School. “But [Towey] knows that, in the cases in the lower courts that are initiative-related, there are five or six — and they've lost almost every one.” In addition, he noted, similar lawsuits are pending in other federal courts.
Lupu also criticized Towey's use of rhetoric. The faith-based chief has been counter-productively combative in his characterizations of the initiative's critics, he said.
Lupu also questioned two of Towey's favorite assertions that, when read together, could reasonably be viewed as mutually exclusive: that people's spiritual needs must be addressed when providing social services, so government should fund groups that do so — and that the administration is, nonetheless, ensuring that explicitly religious activities provided by those groups won't receive tax dollars, because that would be a clear constitutional violation.
“Jim Towey left office the same way he occupied it — he never wanted to take that stuff seriously, he never wanted to engage it straightforwardly,” he said.
The 49-year-old Towey is a Florida native who previously headed a non-profit group dedicated to helping the elderly. He also served under Gov. Lawton Chiles (D) as the head of Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
Towey, who holds a law degree, also served for 12 years as the chief U.S. attorney representing the late Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity order of nuns.
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