U. S. Protestant leaders are worried over their social welfare ties with government. Should federal money be used by Protestant agencies and institutions? What are the long-term effects on church-state relations? Such questions are provoking much soul searching at top denominational levels.
Issue Avoided In Atlantic City
Diversities in Protestant practice complicated a 1957 Atlantic City conference on the church’s role and function in social welfare. Attending delegates from 27 denominations of the National Council of Churches and some city and state councils recognized “dangers in centralized governmental action,” yet affirmed that “in a pluralistic society it is necessary that governmental agencies and voluntary services cooperate” on a non-discriminating basis “so that the needs of all people will be met.” Uncertain of the extent to which cooperation should be carried, especially when government funds are used by church-related services, the delegates requested further study and conference on church-state relations. Some critics fear the government’s use of the church to implement state programs of welfare, a progressive curtailment of voluntarism, and a free hand for “fund grabs” by Roman Catholic and Protestant groups which highly approve government aid for new building programs or “purchase of services” from voluntary agencies, or both.
Wide Range Of Discrepancy
Speaking to key Protestant churchmen interested in the social welfare dilemma, Dr. William J. Villaume, executive director of the NCC Department of Social Welfare, underscored extensive involvement in a review of major church and state relationships in the current execution of the welfare program of American churches.
Variance in Protestant practice, he said, extends to most major denominations reflects wide ranges of internal inconsistency. It involves many realms: government funds for new construction and new programs; direct subsidy of operating budgets by public funds through grants, loans, and grants in return for token payments; purchase of service by government from church-related welfare agencies; supplementation of church-related services by government agencies; licensing and other regulation of church-related agencies and services; and participation of church employees and churches in old age, survivors and disability insurance (social security).
In view of problems likely to confront American Christianity during the next 25 years in the area of church-state relations, the confused Protestant social welfare program raises denominational policy to new centrality. Social welfare committees and commissions, free for a decade to determine their own policies, may now be subject to careful scrutiny, and denominational leaders will be driven to a re-examination of the Protestant philosophy of social welfare and its controlling principles.
Hospital Construction
The Hill-Burton Hospital Survey and Construction Act, now extended to June, 1962, encouraged many Protestant hospitals to seek government funds for new construction, possibly because as welfare agencies Protestant hospitals are tied to their denominations less loosely than either Roman Catholic hospitals or other Protestant welfare activities. As of June 30, 1955, $124,978,000 in federal funds had been distributed as follows: Roman Catholic, $100,381,000; Protestant, $19,164,000; Jewish, $5,433,000. Thus projects by Roman Catholics, who claim 20 per cent of the population, got roughly 80 per cent of Hill-Burton funds awarded to church-related institutions; Protestant projects got 15 per cent, and Jewish, 5 per cent. Roman Catholics have often sought and sometimes received public funds to help meet the sponsor’s local share in supplementing Hill-Burton funds. The Sisters of the Holy Cross projected a $6 million hospital in Maryland if Montgomery county commissioners would submit a $3 million bond issue to voters. The balance was to come from public subscription, and $1 million to be pledged by the Order. But American Protestants also were entangled, even if on smaller scale; a Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida, unable to raise funds for a building, lapsed into “denominational heresy”—acceptance of a Federal construction grant of $780,000. In 1957, Hill-Burton grants soared to $123 million.
Vocational Rehabilitation
The Federal government spent $47 million for vocational rehabilitation in 1957. Since 1954 grants have gone directly to private non-profit organizations. Goodwill Industries, Methodist Board of Missions agency, operates in 119 cities. Since 1954, 51 Goodwill Industries reportedly have received more than $1 million in Federal grants for vocational rehabilitation.
In 1955 the National Council of Churches surveyed 978 church-related agencies of 15 denominations with a $256,506,000 social welfare expenditure the previous year. Contributions received by 69 agencies from public funds not given as fees for service came to $ 1,217,000. Middle Atlantic and East North Central states account for two-thirds of the cases of direct government subsidy of agency budgets.
Direct Federal Grants
More recently, there has been a marked national trend away from direct subsidy of church-related institutions to “purchase of service” arrangements reimbursing agencies through fees for services rendered to individuals who are public charges. But direct grants to institutions engaged in training health and welfare personnel have soared. In less than four months of 1958, $16 million in Federal grant support went to medical schools, clinics, hospitals, university psychology departments, collegiate schools of nursing, schools of social work and schools of public health in 40 states, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
Another form of subsidy to voluntary welfare agencies is the provision of low-interest construction loans (Hill-Burton Act provides 40-year loans at 2¼ per cent) which mortgage bankers consider unsound.
Roman Catholic Pressure
The argument that church-related welfare agencies serve the common good has been pressed by Roman Catholic leaders to gain immunity from negligence liability litigation, and to get land grants in Massachusetts for the erection of chapels at state mental hospitals and schools for the retarded. In New York City land grants have been made for the erection of both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches on the sites of public housing projects. In New York some mission societies are using public facilities to carry on their work. In New Jersey, city authorities turned the 17-story Jersey City Medical Center, valued at $10 million, to Seton Hall University, a Roman Catholic institution which has instituted a medical and dental school, with the city providing all maintenance, elevator and other services for a $275,000 rental.
Public agencies have been purchasing health and welfare services from existing voluntary agencies ready to sell specialized services to government. An NCC survey in 1955 showed that 832 Protestant agencies earn four-fifths of their operating income. Yet, of these agencies, 132 received over $6 million from public agencies as reimbursement for services rendered. Welfare agencies related to 16 denominations benefited, with Methodist, Protestant Episcopal, and Presbyterian U.S.A. agencies receiving more than $1 million each. The percentage of government purchase of service is far higher in relation to child placement and adoption agencies: 21 agencies reported only
$311,000 in service fees from individuals, while 15 agencies reported $1,026,000 as public reimbursement of services. In Detroit the seven Protestant children’s agencies in 1956 received $956,122, half of their total budget of $1,884,000, from the county supervisors. City welfare departments from Hartford to Los Angeles buy care for homeless men and women from certain missions and shelters, including Salvation Army and sectarian agencies offering a religious ministry. While Protestants sometimes have sought to justify such services independently of a spiritual mission, the National Conference of Catholic Charities challenges efforts to exclude organizations operating on a religious basis from receiving payments for service. Most Protestant and Jewish homes for children and the aged, in fact, also consider the religious atmosphere a distinctive contribution to their clients. Judges and public welfare workers carefully observe the requirement that public charges be placed, if possible, in institutions of their own faith. An interesting development is that voluntary agencies, especially sectarian agencies, impede the expansion of public services when their sponsors insist upon government purchase of their services.
Overseas Relief
Some $128,769,000 in relief supplies was distributed abroad in fiscal year 1958 in behalf of U. S. religious and voluntary organizations, according to the Department of State.
Much of the total represents the value of surplus food donated to distributing agencies by the Department of Agriculture. In addition, the International Cooperation Administration contributed $25,886,734 to defray costs of ocean transportation.
Here is an approximate breakdown of overseas relief for the fiscal year which ended June 30, 1958: By agency—Catholic Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, $79,400,000; Church World Service, $17,700,000; Lutheran World Relief, $8,700,000; Jewish agencies, $1,841,000; American Friends Service Committee, $900,000; Mennonite Central Committee, $800,000; World Relief Commission of National Association of Evangelicals, $577,000; Seventh-day Adventists (only group which refused government food), $261,000. By country—Italy $28,423,000; Korea, $20,730,000; India, $11,029,000; Yugoslavia, $10,010,000; Chile, $9,610,000; Spain, $7,147,000; Vietnam, $5,203,000; Formosa, $4,854,000; Philippines, $4,403,000; Hong Kong, $3,363,000; Morocco, $2,710,000.
Protestant Policy And Practice
After a survey of denominational welfare executives last August, Dr. Villaume reported that such government purchase of service is almost uniformly regarded as acceptable Protestant practice. But denominational leaders are now concerned with a deeper question than the quality of the available service, the need for additional funds to carry an enlarged clientele, and government’s free offer of partial reimbursement. That question, in Dr. Villaume’s words, is: what part will acceptance or rejection play in shaping church-state relations in America in view of the church-relatedness of the institution and recipient of funds? He notes that International Cooperation Administration during the past three years contracted with voluntary agencies (sectarian and nonsectarian) for $9 million of services in community development, health, education and agriculture.
Surplus Food Gifts
A fourth type of government assistance is the supplementation of church-related services. The most obvious example is overseas distribution of U.S. government surplus commodities by church agencies. Some 1,347,000 tons of such foods have been distributed in this way to needy people in friendly lands. The cooperating voluntary agencies simultaneously procured 200,000 tons of food from their own sources. Ocean freight costs for all such distributions were paid by federal funds, while benefiting foreign governments paid inland freight and costs. All faiths have lauded the program. In 1957 National Catholic Welfare Conference distributed about 1,175,000,000 pounds of commodities, much of it government-supplied surplus food, valued at between $123 million and $148 million, at a distribution cost of $5 million. Church World Service distributed about 300 million pounds. Roman Catholic agencies have been criticized repeatedly for using their distributions for shameless proselyting, even with building Roman Catholic churches as distribution centers in areas where there are no Roman Catholics.
Foreign mission boards, both Protestant and Catholic, have often requested federal donations of war surpluses in the Far East, payment of war damage claims, and diplomatic privileges for missionaries (such as use of post exchanges).
Local Church Involvement
Supplementation of welfare services by government has nudged into many local church situations, as well as church-related agencies. Churches provide facilities for health clinics staffed by departments of health, for instruction classes for mentally retarded children and even in elementary education—all under financial contract. Public school classes are conducted in the following New York institutions: Hebrew National Orphan Home, Yonkers; Assylum of St. Dominick, Blauvelt; Cardinal Hayes Memorial Home, Millbrook; St. Agatha’s School, Nanuet; St. Joseph’s School, Peekskill; and St. Francis Sanitorium, Roslyn, N.Y.
Surplus commodity distribution is procured on the home front also, as under the National School Lunch Program. In some cases state law prohibits disbursements to private schools. Surplus food is also distributed to nonprofit summer camps. In New England a city missionary society in 1956 distributed foods valued at $1,420, delivered by a state agency for a $37.70 service charge. Summer camp and other distributions would multiply this figure thousands of times.
Another supplementation is the granting of federal research awards and fellowships to church-related medical schools and hospitals. In one year these ran $1,800,000.
The problem of church and state also shadows the licensing of church-related agencies and services. The NCC’s Department of Social Welfare in 1953 “generally approved … the licensing of voluntary institutions by state governments … provided that the freedom of the churches and other private groups and agencies to enter into these fields of service is protected.” It also stressed that “church-related institutions should neither request nor expect any exemption whatever from … minimum acceptable standards prescribed by … fire, safety, health and welfare laws.”
A sixth major area in Dr. Villaume’s report surveys the participation of church employees and churches in old age, survivors and disability insurance. The 1935 Social Security Act unveiled the uncertainty of many American churches in the matter of the relations they desire to maintain with the state, Dr. Villaume notes. Since an insurance tax compulsorily collected by the state might endanger the tax-exempt status of churches, they were apprehensive. But practical aspects soon outweighed theoretical considerations. When lay employees of religious organizations became eligible on a permissive basis in 1951, the majority entered readily. In 1954 Congress approved clergy participation as self-employed on an individual-election basis. By the end of March, 1957, more than 100,000 clergy waivers had been signed. But the coverage of a disproportionate share of older men, which drains the resources of the program, is now giving caution and, with a final deadline of April 15, 1959, only half the clergy are participating. Close to 60 per cent in the 60–64 age bracket elected coverage, and 80 per cent of those 65 and over, whereas 29 per cent of those under 30 are participating. Dr. Villaume facetiously comments that two interpretations are possible: “that older ministers are more liberal in their attitude toward the state, or that a minister knows a bargain at the expense of the government when he sees one!” Many ministers entered the program, however, on the conviction that they are tax-paying citizens and eligible on that basis rather than as ministers.
Where To Go From Here?
The sweeping involvement of Protestant social welfare programs in matters of state cooperation is quite sure to raise the question whether policy-making should be left to denominational leadership rather than to the agencies. Dr. Villaume has addressed to Protestant leaders some major questions now confronting the churches.
He asks: What are the appropriate delineations of role and function between church and state in welfare work? Where does sound democratic policy draw the line between state and voluntary welfare services? Is the same line applicable to both church-related and other voluntary agencies? What are the differences between the welfare programs of the state, of nonsectarian voluntary agencies, and of the churches, in motive, purpose and effect? What is the church’s appropriate sector of function and responsibility in community life?
Again he asks: What are sound and effective patterns of collaboration between church and state in welfare work which will not impair the freedom of either? When does a church-related welfare program become an instrument of sectarian religious influence and penetration in the community? Should state collaboration with church-related welfare work be considered on grounds of separation from sectarian religious influences or on grounds of non-discrimination? What tax funds or other subsidy or assistance should the church seek or accept from the state for its welfare work? Should the church collaborate with the state when the state welfare program is influenced by partisan politics?
These and other questions are likely to provoke a good deal of Protestant soul-searching in the months ahead. What is at stake is more than an indictment of Roman Catholic and Protestant attraction of staggering Federal monies to church enterprises, but the necessary definition of the Protestant philosophy of social welfare and the formulation of guiding principles of application.
C. F. H. H.
