SEYMOUR, Ind. (RNS) Food pantry volunteer Shirley Sears patiently walked a young woman through a series of questions on an application for emergency assistance. After they complete the form, Sears told the woman she has one more question.

“Is there anything,” Sears asked, “that you would like us to pray with you about?”

Yes, the woman replied without hesitation. Reaching across the small desk that separates them, Sears grasped the woman’s hands and began to pray.

That scene has been repeated thousands of times over the past 15 years inside this small, southern Indiana food pantry operated by non-profit Community Provisions of Jackson County.

This month, the practice was found to be against federal policy, leaving the pantry’s founder with a Solomon-like choice: Stop the prayers or give up truckloads of free food provided through the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program.

Paul Brock, who started the faith-based pantry in 1997, refused to order his volunteers to quit asking recipients whether they wanted to pray. The federal food was suspended while the sides discussed a compromise.

“These kind of cases are popping up in a lot of places around the country,” said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. “People can be overly sensitive on both sides.”

Cromartie said it is not a matter of stifling religious speech, but rather following the constitutional mandate of separation of church and state rules that come along with receiving and administering government assistance.

“If this food or money was coming from a Christian charity, there would be no problem with praying,” he explained, “but the (government) money comes with attachments, and you have to follow the rules if you are going to take the money.”

The food pantry issue arose after an inspection last winter by Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, which runs the program for the Indiana Department of Health and ensures compliance with federal guidelines. Inspectors noted that pantry staff members asked recipients whether they wanted to pray. They reported that to state officials, who determined the practice was a violation of the federal rule.

“The guidelines are no religious (activity) or teaching can be required for providing services,” Gleaners spokeswoman Carrie Fulbright said.

Because many food pantries have ties to churches, the state suggested to faith-based operations that they offer brochures or establish a separate room for prayer while complying with regulations.

Brock bristled at the call to stop the prayers, but he worried about having enough food to feed the 300 or so people who show up each week for help. The federal aid accounts for about 15 percent of the food distributed by the pantry, Brock said.

Brock said the pantry workers weren’t violating the rules because no one was ever required to pray. “We still give food to people,” he said, “even when they say they don’t want to pray.”

Officials from Gleaners, the state and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been working to find a solution that meets the requirements of the law and Brock’s commitment to his faith. Brock said he “is strongly leaning toward” signing a compromise that would allow his program to again receive food items through the federal program if it made the offer to pray after recipients receive their food, instead of before.

“I think I can work with that,” Brock said. “But I’ve still got people pushing on me from both sides.”

Cindy Hubert, president and CEO of Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, said she thinks the plan addresses the concerns and needs of all the parties.

“It really wasn’t a case of anyone objecting to praying,” Hubert said. “It is just that it can never be a requirement to get food. It can’t even be perceived that way.”

Filling a grocery with fresh and canned goods, single mother Kathy Gabbard said she has turned to the pantry several times for assistance and has been asked whether she would like to pray. On some of those visits, Gabbard said, she accepted the invitation.

“It didn’t offend me whatsoever,” she said. “I think this is a great program.”

(Tim Evans writes for USA Today. Evans also reports for The Indianapolis Star.)

Pope Benedict says the Catholic Church is ready to help Cuba move away from communism, saying the Marxist ideology no longer corresponds to reality.

The pope spoke Friday as he traveled to Mexico, telling reporters aboard his plane that the Church is willing to help Cuba move ahead without “trauma.”  He said Cubans should look for new ways forward with patience and in a constructive way.

About the drug violence plaguing Mexico, he said the Church must do all it can do to prevent young people from being enticed into joining the cartels.

Mexico is the start of the pontiff’s five-day trip to Latin America.  He then flies on to Cuba for two days.  It his first papal visit to both countries.

Pope Benedict begins his Mexican visit in the central city of Leon, where he will preside over a massive outdoor Sunday Mass.  He is not expected to generate the excitement of that made by his predecessor, the late John Paul II, who was revered in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

The visit is also being overshadowed by the bloody drug war that has left about 50,000 people dead since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on the drug cartels shortly after taking office in 2006.  The Vatican’s diplomatic representative to Mexico, Christopher Pierre, said Pope Benedict will urge the faithful to look beyond the violence that has gripped the country.

”Yes, we speak of violence as well, we can not hide it, but I can tell you as representative of the Holy Pope in this country for five years, there is a lot more in Mexico than violence,” Pierre said.

The church is under pressure from the growing rise of Protestant churches in Mexico, as well as a scandal involving the late priest Marcial Maciel, who founded the prominent Catholic order the Legionaries of Christ.  Maciel died before he faced allegations of drug addiction and molesting young boys.

A small crowd of people protested Thursday in Leon against the Church’s handling of the sexual abuse cases that have plagued the Church around the world.

”It is unbelievable that here, the law does not have any effect,” said protester Francisco Rojas. In the United States, two years ago, people denounced thousands of abuses and they got paid $450 million for abuses against minors, but here the law does not exist.”

The pope is expected to meet with President Calderon while in Leon.  For the Cuba portion of the trip, the pontiff is expected to meet with President Raul Castro and visit Santiago de Cuba and Havana, before traveling back to the Vatican on March 28.

When President Obama announced his first accommodation of religious objections to HHS' contraception mandate last month, the big unanswered question had to do with faith-based organizations that are self-insured. How could the administration require the insurance companies that (typically) manage their plans to cover contraception when the actual payments for health care are made the organizations themselves? This was sufficiently consequential for Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to use it to rationalize her vote in favor of the Blunt Amendment.

Late Friday afternoon,

(RNS) Making up half of Republican primary voters, evangelicals appear to be turning out to support Rick Santorum’s resurgent campaign in record numbers and are increasingly influencing the shape of the party.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has broad appeal among some evangelical voters because his conservative Catholic views dovetail with their social concerns. RNS photo courtesy Gage Skidmore.

Perhaps just as important, conservative Christians are increasing their crucial financial support and volunteer hours as Santorum tries to keep his momentum heading into Tuesday’s (March 20) Illinois primary.

According to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, headed by longtime evangelical political activist Ralph Reed, evangelical Christians account for just over 50 percent of the turnout so far in the Republican primaries, the highest rate ever and a significant increase over the 44 percent evangelical voting rate in 2008.

Moreover, Santorum has won a third of those votes, compared to Mitt Romney’s 29.74 percent and Newt Gingrich’s 29.65 percent.

Faith and Freedom based its analysis on the entrance and exit polling data from 16 primaries and caucuses. The data show that some 4.29 million evangelical Christian voters have cast ballots so far — or 50.53 percent of the 8.49 million total votes cast.

Reed said the turnout is up across the board, and not just in the South, where conservative Christians helped deliver a two-state primary sweep of Alabama and Mississippi to Santorum last Tuesday.

“Conservative people of faith are playing a larger role in shaping the contours and affecting the trajectory of the Republican presidential nomination contest than at any time since they began pouring out of the pews and into the precincts in the late 1970s,” Reed said.

They are also putting their money where their values are.

Santorum is collecting nearly half of his donations from donors who gave less than $200, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings by the Campaign Finance Institute — a higher percentage than any of his Republican rivals.

And while Santorum has trailed his rivals in overall fundraising, he may be catching up fast. Politico reported that Santorum raised $9 million in February compared to Romney’s $11.5 million, Santorum’s best month yet.

Santorum’s campaign also said that in the wake of Southern primary victories, Santorum raised $1 million over a 24-hour period through a grass-roots “money bomb” drive. That is in addition to some $1.8 million pledged by wealthy conservatives, many of them evangelical Christians, at a Santorum fundraiser on March 9 in Houston.

The Susan B. Anthony List also announced on Thursday that it would move its bus tour and mobilization effort for Santorum to Illinois — the kind of “on the ground” efforts that have brought Christian conservatives out for Santorum and upended the predictions of polls and pundits.

“I think there has been a long-term political impact beyond the endorsements” of big-name Christian leaders, said John Green, an expert on religious voting patterns at the University of Akron in Ohio.

Green likened the evangelical support for Santorum to black voters in the 2008 Democratic primaries, who initially backed Hillary Clinton but coalesced around President Obama once he took Iowa and got on a roll.

“There is a pent-up demand for a certain kind of candidate, but that candidate has to demonstrate that they can win,” said Green. Big endorsements, he said, act as a kind of “pump primer” to get voters — in Santorum’s case, Christian conservatives — ready to jump on board.

Whether that can carry Santorum to a win in Illinois on Tuesday is uncertain. The former Pennsylvania senator is close behind Romney in most polls, and Illinois’ downstate Republicans tend to be conservative Christians like those in the deep South.

Ironically, Santorum would get a huge boost by doing something he has not yet done: win the votes of his fellow Catholics. Santorum is often mistaken for an evangelical by GOP voters; a recent Pew Forum survey showed that among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, just 42 percent of Catholics know that Santorum is himself Catholic.

But as James Warren wrote in The Atlantic, Santorum graduated from a Catholic high school in Illinois, Carmel High School outside Chicago. That could give him a leg up in Obama’s home state, and a critical win over Mitt Romney.

“A Santorum victory in Obamaland next week would be stunning — but it wouldn’t necessarily be a surprise,” Warren said.

(RNS) The Obama administration on Friday sought to address religious objections to its birth control mandate, issuing plans to expand the number of faith-based groups that can be exempt from the controversial rule and proposing that third-party companies administer coverage for self-insured faith-based groups at no cost.

At its heart, the newest offering from the White House would allow religious groups — dioceses, denominations and others — to decide which affiliated institutions are “religious” and therefore exempt from the new requirement that employers offer free contraception coverage as part of employee insurance plans.

President Barack Obama talks with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose department is charged with implementing new rules that mandate employers to provide contraception coverage to employees. RNS photo courtesy Pete Souza / The White House.

The proposals are an effort by the administration to blunt criticisms of the controversial birth control insurance regulation, especially by the nation’s Catholic bishops, who have been at loggerheads with the White House since President Obama announced the contraception mandate in January.

Obama was sharply criticized by faith groups and leaders across the board for not providing a sufficiently broad exemption for religious groups; on Feb. 10 he outlined an “accommodation” that tried to circumvent most of the problems by having insurance companies — rather than religious employers — provide the birth control coverage through a separate rider and at no cost to the employer.

While that move appeased some concerns, Catholic bishops and others argued that the religious exemption was still too narrow and could set a dangerous precedent by appearing to allow the government to determine what groups within a faith should be considered religious.

The other principal objection was that many religious groups self-insure in order to save money, and so having the insurer pay for contraception coverage rather than the employer made no difference because insurer and employer are one and the same.

The 32-page proposal, published late Friday (March 16) in the Federal Register, goes out of its way to state that “this religious exemption is intended solely for purposes of the contraceptive coverage requirement” and does not “set a precedent for any other purpose.”

“Whether an employer is designated as ‘religious’ for these purposes is not intended as a judgment about the mission, sincerity, or commitment of the employer, and the use of such designation is limited to defining the class that qualifies for this specific exemption,” states the proposed rule.

The other main innovation in the new proposal is to have a “third-party administrator of the group health plan or some other independent entity” assume responsibility for the contraception coverage for self-insured organizations, with various proposals for ensuring that self-insured groups with religious objections would not directly or indirectly pay for the birth control policy.

Whether any of these ideas will satisfy the die-hard critics of the contraception mandate is unclear. The proposals were issued too late Friday to get comment from a number of Catholic entities, and others contacted by Religion News Service said they would have to take time to review the proposals before responding.

Yet the 90-day open comment period on the proposals, known as an “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” could function as a kind of cooling-off mechanism for this issue, which has exploded into an election-year debate that poses risks and rewards for all sides. Conservative groups, however, were quick to denounce the new policy proposal.

“At the end of the day, no accounting gimmick changes the fact that the mandate forces religious organizations to pay health insurance companies for coverage to their employees with drugs and services that simply violates their religious convictions,” said Jeanne Monahan, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council.

By providing details on the proposed accommodation, the Obama administration can now begin to shift discussions to the nuts and bolts of how to address the religious freedom concerns and away from rhetorical broadsides that the White House is launching a “war on religion” and can’t be trusted.

Staff members from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were involved in initial discussions to work out a deal, but those ground to a halt when bishops accused the White House of negotiating in bad faith, a charge the administration strongly rejects.

For years, advocates for greater unity among Christian churches have wrung their hands amid talk of an “ecumenical winter.”

But now, 10 years after leaders took the first steps toward forming the broad-based group Christian Churches Together in the USA, some have hopes that U.S. churches may be entering a new season of closer relations.

At a recent CCT meeting in Memphis, Tenn., 85 Christians — Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, white and nonwhite — made pilgrimages to historic sites of the civil rights movement. They also made plans to use next year’s 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail to pursue anti-poverty projects with houses of worship unlike their own.

“I would like to think of it as an ecumenical spring and that we do not yet know what will break forth,” said the Rev. Stephen J. Sidorak Jr., ecumenical staff officer of the United Methodist Church.

“I think that there’s the potential for the ecumenical movement to be more alive than it’s ever been because it will be more inclusive.”

In many ways, the movement that has grappled with theological differences, leadership struggles, finances — and even what to call itself — is in the midst of major down-sizing that they hope will lead to wider engagement:

— The National Council of Churches, the flagship agency of ecumenism, has shrunk from some 400 staffers in its heyday in the 1960s to fewer than 20. It is seeking a “transitional general secretary” after its executive, the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, stepped down on Dec. 31.

— Churches Uniting in Christ, a network that dates to the 1960s, closed its office doors in 2010 and one of its nine affiliated denominations — the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church — has suspended its membership. CUIC’s remaining leaders hope to continue to address racism and shared ministries.

— CCT itself is looking for new leadership after its part-time executive director announced his retirement. Though it includes “families” of Catholic, Orthodox, historic and evangelical Protestant faiths, it has struggled to find acceptance among the “historic racial/ethnic” churches.

Ecumenical veterans say a movement that was built on slow-moving bureaucracies needs to find a way to stay nimble in the 21st century.

“It’s a little bit like keeping the post office running,” said the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, the outgoing president of CCT’s historic Protestant family.

Part of the new approach includes a move away from the word “ecumenical.” Some Christians who had been hesitant about interchurch relations equate the word with liberal stances, or fear it could be linked to surrendering some of their theological distinctions.

“We’ve tried to shift away from that ecumenical language toward Christian unity language,” said the Rev. Richard Hamm, the retiring CCT executive director.

Neville Callam, the general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, said some Baptists have bristled at the term. “Many still don’t like the word but many are growing into an understanding of the importance of the concept,” he said.

The presence of evangelicals — and particularly Pentecostals — is growing in the organized networks and ad hoc partnerships that develop over issues like poverty.

“If you take sex out of the equation in all of its expressions, it turns out that we actually have a lot in common as we look at issues,” said Hamm, the former president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

He and others point to the influence of the Circle of Protection, which last year urged Washington to maintain programs for the poor amid federal budget cuts. That initiative included the presidents of the NCC and the National Association of Evangelicals, as well as leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and black and Hispanic groups.

“I would give priority to ecumenical meetings that are driven by mutual purpose rather than just getting together to talk,” said Leith Anderson, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

In the early days of his ecumenical work, the Rev. Cecil Robeck Jr. faced resistance from fellow Pentecostals. But later this month, the professor of church history and ecumenics at Fuller Theological Seminary will speak to executives of his Assemblies of God denomination about his interchurch experiences.

“God did something, I would say,” said Robeck, who was a keynoter at the CCT’s 2010 meeting that focused on evangelism.

Assemblies of God General Superintendent George Wood, however, said Robeck’s upcoming talk “is not an indicator regarding the Assemblies of God USA moving forward to membership in the ecumenical movement.”

While black church leaders have long been part of Churches Uniting in Christ, some are less interested in CCT. Christian Methodist Episcopal Church Senior Bishop Thomas Hoyt Jr. said it’s not a priority for his denomination.

“I think it’s so broad right now,” Hoyt said of CCT, where leaders “don’t vote on anything unless everybody can say yes to it.”

The Rev. Robina Winbush, president of Churches Uniting in Christ, said her organization is “wrestling” with how to conquer racial divides between Protestant denominations. Despite some “serious missteps” along the way, the ecumenical officer for the Presbyterian Church (USA) said CUIC remains part of the ecumenical movement because member churches demanded it.

“Primarily our lesson learned is that when you prematurely begin to dismantle something before the churches say that’s what they want to have happen, you have to spend the energy to put stuff back together,” she said.

Evangelist Franklin Graham apologized tonight to President Obama for questioning his Christian faith and said religion has “nothing to do” with Graham’s decision not to support Obama’s re-election.

Graham’s apology came after a group of prominent black religious leaders criticized the evangelist for saying he did not know whether Obama is a Christian and suggesting that Islamic law considers him to be a Muslim.

Graham, president of the relief organization Samaritan’s Purse and the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, said he now accepts Obama’s declarations that he is a Christian.

“I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama,” he said in a statement.

“I apologize to him and to any I have offended for not better articulating my reason for not supporting him in this election — for his faith has nothing to do with my consideration of him as a candidate.”

Graham said he objects to Obama’s policy stances on abortion and same-sex marriage, which Graham considers to be in “direct conflict” with Scripture.

Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum, leading the GOP field in national polls, is defending his views questioning prenatal testing and President Obama’s “theology.”

The unapologetic advocacy by Santorum seemed sure to please social conservatives in the Republican Party but also fuel questions about whether he could appeal to independent voters in a general election.

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday (Feb. 19), Santorum objected to including some prenatal tests in federal insurance mandates, saying the tests lead to more abortions.

“A lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero, and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions,” he said. “We know that 90 percent of Down syndrome children in America are aborted.”

At a campaign event over the weekend in Columbus, Ohio, he said the tests effectively “cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.”

He objected to provisions in the health care law that require coverage of prenatal testing for expectant mothers, saying some tests shouldn’t be included. He mentioned amniocentesis, a test that can detect chromosomal abnormalities in fetuses such as Down syndrome.

The former Pennsylvania senator said he was not questioning the president’s faith when, at another event in Columbus, Ohio, he said Obama’s agenda followed “some phony ideal, some phony theology — oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.”

Santorum said he was referring to “radical environmentalists” who believe “that man is here to serve the Earth as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the Earth.”

“I wasn’t suggesting the president’s not a Christian,” he said.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Obama adviser Robert Gibbs called Santorum’s original remarks “over the line” and said, “It’s time to have a debate on our political positions, but not question each other’s character and faith.”

(Susan Page writes for USA Today.)

Facing growing backlash from religious groups over the administration’s birth control insurance plan, President Obama on Friday will unveil a new arrangement whereby insurers at religiously affiliated institutions — such as Catholic hospitals and universities — will not have to provide contraception coverage.

The new approach effectively removes faith-based organizations from any involvement in providing contraceptive coverage or even telling employees how to find such coverage. It also maintains Obama’s pledge to ensure that almost all women with health insurance will not have to pay for it.

“These religious institutions will not have to offer it [contraception coverage] to their employees and do not have to pay for it,” said a senior administration official about an hour before the president was to make the official announcement, which was expected at 12:15 pm.

Initial indications were that, against all odds, the administration may have found a solution that satisfies both sides in a debate that seemed destined to dog the president throughout the campaign season and to wind up alienating either women or Catholic voters – both key demographics in his bid for reelection.

Religious leaders like Sr. Carol Keehan, head the Catholic Health Association – the umbrella group for more than 600 Catholic hospitals and a key player in the health care debate – said Friday she is “very pleased with the White House announcement that a resolution has been reached that protects the religious liberty and conscience rights of Catholic institutions.”

Keehan was a key supporter of the president’s health care reform law — going against the wishes of the U.S. hierarchy — but she voiced strong criticism of the initial contraception regulations.

At the same time, Friday’s decision was also welcomed by Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, who had been working hard with pro-choice Democrats to keep the administration from providing any relief from the mandate to religious institutions.

“We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman’s ability to access these critical birth control benefits,” Richards said.

The solution proposed by the White House is surprising in that it is fairly straightforward and appears to effectively address most religious concerns, or at least blunt the harshest criticisms that Obama was trampling on religious freedom by forcing some faith-based organizations to subsidize something that runs counter to their beliefs.

The furor over the contraception mandate appeared to catch the White House off guard since Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the final regulations on Jan. 20, and did not broaden the exemption for religious groups as had been widely expected.

The administration struggled to frame the regulations as a way to ensure that women with health insurance would receive free birth control coverage – a position that is broadly popular among Americans, and especially women.

But religious leaders, chiefly the Catholic bishops and conservative evangelicals, were successful in framing the issue as one of religious freedom, not birth control, and they argued that the federal government was violating their conscience with the mandate.

These conservatives were also backed by numerous Catholic liberals and other supporters of the administration who felt that Obama had “thrown them under the bus,” as some put it, by not granting the broader religious exemption as they also wanted. In recent days it became clear that the administration had to do something, and quickly, and the solution announced Friday seemed to win back many of his allies.

“The unity of Catholic organizations in addressing this concern was a sign of its importance,” said Keehan.

But whether that unity will extend to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was unclear.