For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 24, 2001
Remarks by the President to St. Augustine Parish
Our Lady of Angeles-St. Joseph Center Cleveland, Ohio
Listen to the President's Remarks
11:35 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Father McNulty,
thank you very much, sir, for your hospitality and your
introduction. It's a privilege for me to be here with Bishop
Pilla, whose reputation at least has preceded him as far as the
President goes. I've been looking forward to this
opportunity to meet such a fine, noble man, firmly committed to helping
the poor. So, Bishop, thank you so much for being here,
sir.
I'm honored also to be -- to have been welcome
by Sister Ambro. The Sister is pretty firm in her --
(laughter and applause) -- she kept us on
time. (Laughter.) I am thankful to be here with
distinguished public servants from the state of Ohio -- your Governor,
Lt. Governor, both very good friends of mine -- thank you all for being
here. Two fine United States senators, Mike DeWine and
George Voinovich, traveled with me from Washington today. I
think you're going back. (Laughter.) But Ohio is
well represented in the halls of the United States Senate with these
two fine Americans. And two members of the United States
Congress, Steve LaTourette and Tony Hall from South Ohio are here, as
well. Thank you all for traveling with us today.
Tony is not from this area, but I can assure
you that if you got to know him, you would know that he shares the same
passion most of us do for figuring out ways to help people in need.
The other thing that I want to make note of is
that Tony is a Democrat. And what we're going to talk about
today is not a party issue. The idea of helping people transcends
political party. And so, Tony, thank you for coming.
I want to thank Pam Delly, the principal of
Our Lady of Angels, for the tour and the opportunity to meet the
students here. And I want to thank Dennis McNulty, the
Director of Catholic Charity Services, as well.
I want to start off with a comment about some
news. This morning, a distinguished United States Senator
chose to leave the Republican Party and become an
independent. I respect Senator Jeffords. But I
respectfully -- but, respectfully, I couldn't disagree
more. Our agenda for reforming America's public schools and
providing tax relief for every taxpayer represents the hopes and dreams
of Main Street America. Our agenda for reforming our
military and modernizing our military to defend America and our allies
represents the best hope for peace.
I was elected to get things done on behalf of
the American people, and to work with both Republicans and Democrats,
and we're doing just that. Just yesterday in the United States Senate,
Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly agreed that we should provide
tax relief for every single American who pays taxes.
The Senate has now passed tax relief, and so
has the House. And I call on Congress not to recess for
Memorial Day until they have finished the job and provided tax relief
for the American people.
And we're making great progress on education,
as well. Just yesterday in the House of Representatives,
Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly agreed that we should insist
upon local control of schools, strong accountability, and greater
options for parents when their children are trapped in failing
schools. The Senate now takes up the education bill, and I'm
confident we'll enact a plan to improve all of America's public
schools, so that no child is left behind. As well as I
mentioned I'm working hard with both Republicans and Democrats, to put
in place a faith-based initiative that I truly believe will change
America for the better.
Last weekend I spoke at one of America's great
Catholic universities. The Chairman of the Board I think is here
somewhere. Here you are. Thank you very much,
Pat, for letting me come. I was deeply
honored. Today I'm pleased to visit one of America's great
Catholic parishes. Notre Dame and St. Augustine may seem to
be a world apart, but they're united by the same Catholic teaching,
that God has a special concern for the poor. For some
people, Jesus' admonition to care for the least of these is an
admirable moral teaching. For the folks at this center, and
centers like it all around America, it's a way of life.
I'm visiting here to offer
praise. I want to praise the volunteers. I want to praise
the good folks from corporate Cleveland who are helping. I want to
praise those like the folks we met in the cafeteria, who get up at 6
a.m. in the morning, before their job, to come and help a neighbor in
need. I also want to make a pledge, that my administration
will be more supportive of the good works done here than any
administration in the history of the country, because I understand the
power of faith, that faith can change lives.
I also understand the limitations of
government. Government can hand out money, and we
will. We've increased budgets to work on social
problems. But what government cannot do is put hope in
people's hearts or a sense of purpose in people's lives.
I wish -- I wish I knew the law that says love
a neighbor like you would like to be loved yourself. I'd
sign it, that would mandate that to happen. But I think of
all nations of the world, we understand that that law comes from a
higher calling than government. And the great challenge for
our nation is to rally what I call "the armies of compassion" all
across America so that nobody is left behind.
In my speech at Notre Dame, I started by
talking about a speech that a former President from Texas gave in 1964,
and he declared a War on Poverty. I then talked about some of the
unintended effects of the War on Poverty, one of which was people
becoming dependent upon government. It's kind of a loss of
responsibility in our society. Members of both political
parties came together in 1996 to address that problem by putting time
limits on welfare. The bill was signed by my predecessor,
and it had a positive effect. But there are still people who
hurt in America.
Poverty runs deep in this country, and we need
to take the War on Poverty a step further, by recognizing the power and
promise of faith-based and community-based groups, that exist not
because of government, but because they've heard the universal call to
love somebody in need.
And so we've laid out an initiative for the
United States Congress to look at. It's one that says we're
going to have a -- what's called a Compassion Capital Fund of $500
million, to help provide seed money for programs such as these we're
witnessing here today. It says we ought to expand charitable
choice, which means faith-based organizations should be allowed to
receive federal grants when it comes to helping people in need.
There's some concern in our society about
encouraging faith-based organizations to meet their
challenges. But those are people that want to argue the
process. They want to make everything legal. And
my fundamental question to America, after having said this loud and
clear, we'll never fund faith, we'll never fund churches, but we should
fund the armies of compassion. We should not discriminate
against faith-based programs which exist to help people in need.
We provide Medicare and Medicaid money, and
that money is redeemed at charitable hospitals. We provide
Pell Grants and government loans for people that redeem that -- those
scholarship monies at religious universities. In order to
make sure the promise of America is full and whole for every citizen,
we should not discriminate against faith-based programs that simply
exist and solely exist to help people who hurt and people in
need. The neighborhood helpers and healers of America are
truly the strength of this country.
In my speech at Notre Dame, I also talked
about corporate America. And to this end, I'm going to have a
convocation next fall calling together foundation America and corporate
America, to figure out a strategy of how best to get more money into
the coffers of the faith-based programs in neighborhoods all across
America.
Interestingly enough, six of ten of the
largest corporate givers in America explicitly rule out giving money to
faith-based programs. My attitude is America and its
government should not discriminate against faith-based programs, and
neither should corporate America. And so one of my missions
is to bring folks who care about our country together and tout and
herald the great works that are being done in programs such as this and
centers such as this.
I set up an office at the White House, run by
a man named John Dilulio. He's a -- one of the forward
thinkers in terms of how to encourage faith to help people in
need. A really interesting guy. I haven't checked
his party affiliation, but I suspect it's not the same as mine --
because he understands that this is not an initiative to try to gain
political gain. Ours is an initiative to make America a
better place.
Part of the mission of the office is to
encourage programs to explain how people can access the federal grant
money, explain what we can do with the Capital Compassion
Fund. But part of it all, and a very important part, is to
make sure that government never interferes with the good works that are
being done in programs such as this. It's to make sure that
church and synagogue and mosque don't lose the fundamental essence of
their mission.
You know, there are many in our society who
fear what interfacing with the federal government can
mean. And my pledge to the faith-based community in America
is my administration will do everything in our power to make sure that
those who do interface with government never have to sacrifice their
mission, their reason for being -- because, again, I understand the
power of faith and the hope faith brings all across the country.
It is an incredible honor to be the President
of a nation of faith. It's hard to describe what it's like to travel
our country and have literally hundreds of people walk up and say, Mr.
President, I pray for you every day. It is -- first of all,
it's a very comforting feeling, needless to say. But it also
increases my optimism and hope about America, because the truth of the
matter is, in order for us to solve the deep poverty that exists, to
solve the hurt in people's souls, we need people who are willing to put
their arm around a brother in need and say, I love you. We
need mentors for young children to provide hope and solace.
America's society will change one heart, one
soul, one conscience at a time. And each of us must do our
part to provide hope for that soul and that conscience.
I've been so incredibly impressed by the
universally strong commitment of the Catholic Church and the leaders of
the Catholic Church to make sure that nobody in our society is left
behind. America is better off because of that
commitment. Our nation is well-off because of the love and
compassion of our citizens. And my hope, in working with
folks such as yourself, is to gather that compassion so that the hope
of the greatest nation of the world reaches every neighborhood in
America.
Thank you for giving me the chance to come,
and God bless. (Applause.)
END
11:48 A.M. EDT
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