Religious corruption (supported by taxpayer dollars)

In spite of the compelling evidence for the duplicity of many religious leaders, the Bush Administration set up a system for pouring even more money into "faith-based initiatives" — which means putting hard cash directly into the hands of venal, self-centered holy men.  At the same time Bush was shoveling truckloads of money to his political allies, The Nation (1/6/03) reports that the State of Illinois  accused Bishop James Wilkowski with "diverting for his personal use" over $468,000 in grants that were intended for the medical care of AIDS patients.  You may wonder how someone could sink this low, to grab money meant to help victims of AIDS.  Of course, in the minds of most of these religious holy men, AIDS victims are being punished by God, so taking money meant to help AIDS patients is only aiding and abetting God's will.

      At the same time The Nation reported that Indiana State Senator Sam Smith Jr. is accused of channeling a $445,000 grant intended for a Baptist Women’s Shelter to Rev. Lee Gilliam, who used the money to buy rental properties.  Similarly, a group praised by Pres. Bush as a model for Faith-based initiatives was accused by HUD of buying houses from HUD cheaply and then reselling them for excessive prices.

      The problem here should be obvious, even to a confirmed moron.  A State or Federal agency has tight controls on how money is spent.  For example, as a librarian at a state university in Kansas, I would have great difficulty getting the state to cut me a check personally.  They would demand (and rightfully so) to know why I should get the money, and they have people on campus to check up on me.  On the other hand, if I was a minister running a faith-based organization, the number of people paid to look over my shoulder is probably pretty small — and the chances for being caught are few and far between. I could mix the organization's cash with the cash from the grant, and in a few months I could so confuse the two that it would take a dozen auditors to figure it out.  The controls on faith-based organizations are lax, at best. At worst, they have a license to steal.