Fromstaff reports

When House of Representatives Chaplain James Ford announced his retirement last fall, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.

Monday, April 10, 2000

When House of Representatives Chaplain James Ford announced his retirement last fall, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) took pains to include Democrats equally in the selection of a replacement. A committee winnowed a 40-name list and presented three without preference.

In November, Hastert and Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas) voted for Charles Wright, and Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) cast his vote for Tim O’Brien. The majority-rule vote, then, selected Wright (Presbyterian) over O’Brien (Roman Catholic). Some representatives, all Democrats, simply were disappointed they missed an opportunity to appoint the first Catholic. Then presidential candidates Gore, Bradley and McCain jumped on Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University, and Democrats married the incidents as if evidence of "a vast anti-Catholic conspiracy" (to paraphrase Hillary Clinton). Finally, Hastert acquiesced by appointing another Catholic, Daniel Coughlin.

All this disturbs me. When the House Speaker appointed an outstanding minister (Presbyterian) as chaplain, it was a political decision and not religious bias against Catholics; when he abandoned his best appointment and chose a Catholic, the religious purpose was sacrificed to political intimidation. This, in turn, has disrupted religious acrimony for raw partisan reasons.

I can recognize no evidence that Hastert and Armey rejected O’Brien because he is Catholic. Nor did Gephardt at the time, for he expressed regret only that a Catholic had not been appointed with no objection to Wright. Certainly a Catholic has as much right to the position as clergy of any denomination, and one should never be disqualified because he is Catholic. Moreover other things being equal, it would be "nice" to include a Catholic. The selection process, however, indicates other things were not equal. Finally, making such an appointment only or largely because it would be "nice" is insufficient for such serious professional responsibility. The chaplain is not an icon and this is not a ceremonial office, but a busy, hard-working pastoral minister. Qualification for the job must prevail over symbolism and politically correct tokens.

Qualification, in fact, was the basis for the Hastert-Armey choice. Charles Wright is very much a pastor and has demonstrated his skill in pluralistic settings through his long-standing leadership of the National Prayer Breakfast. He would have been an outstanding and productive House chaplain, but the opportunity was snatched from him as the consequence of political maneuvering by House Democrats and intimidation of the Speaker.

I know Tim O’Brien well enough to be confident he would have been at least adequate in the position, although less so than Wright. I became acquainted with O’Brien upon his completion of a congressional internship and as he began to teach at Marquette University, also one of my alma maters. I worked with him in the Army chaplaincy and served with him on a panel. I perceive him more of a scholar and political activist than a pastor and, so, respect the Hastert-Armey reasoning.

Finally, the way Wright was selected and O’Brien non-selected (as they like to put it) is simply the way the government works. This is not to say it should work this way, but to be honest in recognizing this fact and not attempting to manufacture sinister motives of anti-Catholic bias. When it comes right down to it, such appointments are largely political and only tangentially religious.

Ford himself had to break through senseless tradition when he became the first non-Episcopalian priest to be the West Point chaplain. I was once nominated but non-selected for the assistant chaplain position there precisely because I was a military chaplain and Academy tradition expected a civilian. It is neither logical nor fair, they told me, but it is tradition.

So, too, tradition and political connections may have had more to do with the initial House appointment than they should have, but this and not religious bias is the problem.

If people are concerned about anti-Catholic bias – and I encourage them so to be concerned – they need to address television drama that consistently demeans and even attacks Catholics. However, to interject a religious bias into the selection process of a House chaplain is at once without foundation and monstrously irresponsible. The Constitution requires the government to show no favor to any one religion, but now Charles Wright has been dismissed only because he is not Catholic and Daniel Coughlin is appointed largely because he is.

Wallace Alcorn’s column appears Mondays