Church and State

(I received this today from Americans United for Separation of Church and State. As they say, a church should not be a political action committee, but that is exactly the role churches are assuming in America under the auspices of the Bush Administration and the Religious Right. We have seen before during this administration how with a nod and a wink the tax exempt status of Christian groups is regularly violated in order to enter the political fray. Likely this will be seen as part of the so-called “unholy war” which has allegedly been declared on the church, but as Lynn says, the bishop should have spoken as an individual, and not a diocese.)

IRS Should Investigate R.I. Catholic Diocese For Political Intervention, Says Americans United

Bishop Opposed Giuliani Candidacy In Official Diocesan Newspaper, Says Church-State Watchdog Group

The Internal Revenue Service should investigate the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, R.I., for opposing Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

In a June 13 complaint to the IRS, Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn said Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, writing in the diocesan newspaper, Rhode Island Catholic, appears to have violated federal tax law by attacking Giuliani and stating that he “would never support a candidate who supports legalized abortion.”

Commenting on the complaint, Americans United’s Lynn said, “If the bishop wants to join the political fray, he should do so as an individual without dragging along his tax-exempt diocese. A church is not a political action committee, and it should not act like one.”

In a May 31 editorial, dubbed “My R.S.V.P. to Rudy Giuliani,” Tobin called Giuliani’s stance on reproductive rights “pathetic,” “confusing” and “hypocritical.” (The former mayor of New York has said he is morally opposed to abortion, but supports reproductive rights.)

Tobin also compared Giuliani to Pontius Pilate. The bishop wrote that Giuliani’s “weak-kneed” views on reproductive rights prompts him to think of the “sad figure of Pontius Pilate in the Gospels, who personally found no guilt in Jesus, but for fear of the crowd, washed his hands of the whole affair and handed Jesus over to be crucified.”

Americans United’s letter to the IRS noted that federal tax law forbids non-profits to use organizational resources to support or oppose candidates for public office. In a revenue ruling scheduled for issuance June 18, for example, the IRS states that leaders of non-profits endanger their organization’s tax-exempt status by making “partisan comments in official organization publications….”

The diocese is a non-profit organization with a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The federal tax code prohibits such organizations from endorsing or opposing candidates. Indeed, the IRS Web site notes that non-profit groups are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective office.”