Pubdate: Tue, 30 Jan 2001
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Author: E. J. Dionne, Jr, Opinion Columnist

SOME AID FOR THE SAINTS

Most Americans know someone hard at work in a religious organization whom 
they refer to, at some point or other, as "a saint." They use the word not 
to make a theological judgment, but to describe the people whose 
satisfaction in life comes not from amassing power or money but from 
devoting themselves to others.

So many who do the work of helping poor kids to learn, or battered women to 
rebuild lives, or drug addicts to kick their habits, are not religious. But 
it's also true that many of these saints can, indeed, be in churches, 
synagogues, mosques and other institutions connected to religion and faith. 
Yesterday, President Bush proposed that we take this work more seriously 
than we have in the past, and find constitutional ways of supporting these 
efforts with government money.

Bush is right to ask us to acknowledge that miracles do happen every day in 
scores of church basements, child care centers and prison fellowships. Even 
before the current interest in "charitable choice" programs to help 
faith-based institutions, government money often flowed through, near or 
around -- and, in some cases, into -- religiously based institutions. To 
pick the obvious: Bush didn't invent the idea of Medicare and Medicaid 
money flowing to religious hospitals, or of government student loans 
helping students who attend private and religious colleges.
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