One of the earliest and most vociferous
critics of President Bush's faith-based initiative is smiling all
the way to the bank. In early October, Tommy Thompson's Department
of Health and Human Services awarded a $500,000 Compassion Capital
Fund grant to televangelist Pat Robertson's Virginia-based Operation
Blessing International.
Operation Blessing was among 21 groups receiving a total of $25
million from HHS. The Associated Press reported that grants from the
Compassion Capital Fund "were designed to provide technical
assistance to smaller churches and others that need help applying
for and running government programs." Although HHS has indicated
that smaller groups dealing with homelessness, hunger, at-risk
children, welfare to work, drug addicts and prisoners "should get
priority for the sub-grants," in the end, the primary grantees will
be making those decisions.
Compassion Capital Fund grants were awarded to
faith-based groups even though a compromise version of the
president's faith-based initiative continues to languish in
Congress.
Other grantees include the Christian Community Health Fellowship
of Illinois, which got $1.1 million; Nueva Esperanza, a Hispanic,
Philadephia-based group, which got the largest grant, nearly $2.5
million; the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, $2 million; Catholic
Charities of Central New Mexico, $1 million, and Volunteers of
America, $700,000. Another $850,000 was given "to support research
on how these groups provide social services and the role they play
in communities." One of these research grants went to the University
of Pennsylvania, home of John DiIulio, the initial head of Bush's
Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who resigned after
eight months.
Compassion Capital Fund grants were awarded to faith-based groups
even though a compromise version of the president's faith-based
initiative continues to languish in Congress. However, Congress did
give HHS $30 million, reports AP, "to help implement one of the
least controversial pieces of his plan: helping small groups that
may be doing excellent work in their communities gain the expertise
needed to win large grants and grow." Bush is asking Congress for
$100 million in unrestricted funds for next year, and while the
House has agreed to the increase, the Senate has preferred to keep
the funding at this year's level.
By sidestepping Congress through discretionary grants such as the
recent HHS awards, the administration doesn't have to deal with such
thorny issues as separation of church and state, and discriminatory
hiring practices by faith-based organizations - particularly
directed at gays and lesbians. According to an AP interview this
summer, Bobby Polito, who directs the HHS faith-based grant program
said, "groups getting grants or subgrants will be allowed to
consider religion in hiring and firing workers." Polito also
acknowledged that he didn't think there was a "problem using federal
money for a program in which prayer is central, as long as tax
dollars are paying for secular elements of the program." He also
acknowledged that "groups will not be required to separate the
religious and secular elements of their programs. Liberals object to
both approaches, saying participants should be allowed to opt out of
anything religious."
Robertson's Early Reservations
When President Bush announced his faith-based initiative in
January 2001, Pat Robertson was among the first on the Religious
Right to blast the initiative. "I really don't know what to do,"
Robertson told viewers of his TV show, "The 700 Club." "But this
thing could be a real Pandora's box. And what seems to be such a
great initiative can rise up to bite the organizations as well as
the federal government. And I'm a little concerned about it,
frankly."
Robertson was worried that groups he didn't care for would be
eligible to receive public tax dollars under the Bush plan,
including Hare Krishnas, the Church of Scientology and followers of
the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
"You know I hate to find myself on the side of the
Anti-Defamation League and others, but this is, this gets to be a
real problem," Robertson said. "I mean, the Moonies have been
proscribed, if I can use that, for brainwashing techniques, sleep
deprivation and all the rest of it that goes along with their
unusual proselytizing. The Hare Krishnas much the same thing. And it
seems appalling to me that we're going to go for somebody like that,
or the Church of Scientology, which was involved in an incredible
campaign against the IRS."
Panty Hose, Chocolate And Other Charitable Offerings
According to its Web site, the mission of Operation Blessing
International (OBI) "is to demonstrate God's love by alleviating
human need and suffering in the United States and around the world."
Founded in 1978 by Pat Robertson, the organization "was originally
set up to help struggling individuals and families by matching their
needs for items such as clothing, appliances, vehicles with donated
items from viewers of The 700 Club." In 1986, Operation Blessing
International Relief and Development Corporation (OBI) was formed as
a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to handle international relief
projects. In 1993, all Operation Blessing activities were
transferred to OBI.
While OBI trumpets its work at home and abroad through its Web
site, other sources provide a more nuanced picture. In 1996, the
Norfolk, Va.-based Virginia-Pilot newspaper reported that two
pilots who were hired by the charity to fly humanitarian aid to
Zaire in 1994 were used almost exclusively for Robertson's diamond
mining operations. Chief pilot Robert Hinkle, claimed that in the
six months he flew for Operation Blessing, only one or two of more
than 40 flights were humanitarian - the rest carried mining
equipment. OBI resources were being diverted to support the African
Development Co., a private corporation run by Robertson. At the
time, Robertson also had a special relationship with Zaire's late
dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.
"My first impression when I took the job was that we'd be called
Operation Blessing and we'd be doing humanitarian work," Hinkle, a
former Peace Corps volunteer, told the Virginia-Pilot. "We
got over there and 'Operation Blessing' was painted on the tails of
the airplanes, but we were doing no humanitarian relief at all. We
were just supplying the miners and flying the dredges from Kinshasa
out to Tshikapa."
At first, an OPI spokesperson denied the charges by the
Virginia Pilot. Later, however, a written statement from the
group admitted Robertson's mining company used Operation Blessing
planes "from time to time," but that most air missions in Zaire were
for humanitarian or training purposes. "For example, medicine was
transported to some 17 clinics in Zaire," the spokesman told the
paper. Hinkle called the OPI statement "a clear-cut lie."
In February 1995, Time magazine reported that Robertson's
relationship with Sese Seko began after a branch of Operation
Blessing "botched a corn-cultivation project on a 50,000-acre farm
outside the capital, Kinshasa."
Time also reported that in 1993, during the Rwandan
refugee crisis, Operation Blessing "was criticized for spending too
much money on transportation, pulling its workers out too soon and
proselytizing. 'They were laying on hands,'" an American aid worker
said. They were "'speaking in tongues and holding services while
people were dying all around,'" she added. Time points out
that although "many relief agencies are notorious for mismanagement
and backbiting�Operation Blessing drew a considerable volume of
negative reviews from fellow good Samaritans."
Charles Henderson, a Presbyterian minister who heads up
Christianity.about.com, recently pointed out that in 2001
Operation Blessing made some awfully strange purchases. The
organization that prides itself on helping the poor and hungry in
third world countries, spent more than $2.5 million on Ensure, a
dietary supplement and Splenda, a no calorie sweetener and more than
$10.4 million on candy and panty hose.
Even more disturbing is that Operation Blessing rendered a direct
grant of slightly more than $2 million to Robertson's Christian
Broadcasting Network - "more than half," Henderson says, "of the
entire OBI budget for direct grants."
Faith-based, But Not Expense Free
Advocates for government funding of faith-based organizations
argue that religious groups dispense services more quickly than the
government and have dramatically lower administrative overhead. In
the course of investigating the accuracy of this claim, Henderson
examined tax returns for Operation Blessing and found that its
administrative expenses far exceeded the zero to 10 percent claimed
by faith-based supporters.
Henderson, who is also the executive director of CrossCurrents,
an interfaith organization and magazine, points out that out of a
total OPI budget of $36 million in 1999, administrative costs were
over $11 million - a far cry from 10 percent. Twenty-five million
dollars remained for "services to individuals and
organizations."
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OBI's overhead gives the United Way
more than a run for its money. |
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Digging further, Henderson discovered that the remaining $25
million did not go to individuals, but rather "to 'organizations'
that are providing the actual services to individuals. Here,
Henderson explains in his article, "Fraud In The Name Of God", "the
trail becomes murky as one would have to follow the money through
the finances of each of these organizations to find out what
percentage of their income, including the income from Operation
Blessing, goes for administration."
Henderson goes on to "wager that an additional percentage - if
they are as 'efficient' as Operation Blessing itself the figure
would be 30 percent - is sliced off the top of the money they
receive from Operation Blessing to pay for their
administrative expenses. That being the case, we would have about
half of all donations to Operation Blessing reaching those who are
truly needy."
Several years ago there were national scandals about the
administrative overhead of United Way organizations in a number of
cities. OBI's overhead gives the United Way more than a run for its
money.
Robertson's unique blend of business, evangelism and politics has
resulted in the $500,000 award from HHS. Interestingly enough, the
grant was announced less than two weeks before Robertson's Christian
Coalition is scheduled to hold its "Road to Victory" conference in
Washington - its annual gathering of Religious Right leaders and
conservative politicos.
Is the HHS grant payback for past support or a down payment for
the future? In any case, one thing appears certain, a quieted
Robertson has now fallen into the camp of former critics of the
president's faith-based initiative.
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Published: Oct 15 2002