Few people other than the most dedicated C-SPAN viewers are familiar with the House chaplain, a ceremonial congressional officer whose public duties consist chiefly of opening the House’s daily sessions with a prayer.
But the replacement of retiring Rev. James Ford, a genial Lutheran minister who sometimes arrives for work on a motorcycle, has provoked an uproar and raised politically sensitive charges of anti-Catholic bias that could hurt the Republican Party in the fall elections.
With the House proceeding toward a vote on a new chaplain–or possibly a direct appointment by House leaders to circumvent a vote–the conflict appears likely to come to a public head in coming weeks.
This comes amid the controversy over Republican nominee-in-waiting George W. Bush’s campaign appearance at fundamentalist Bob Jones University, an institution whose officers have a record of making vitriolic anti-Catholic statements.
The sectarian conflict inside the Capitol has simmered since November, when House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) chose a Presbyterian minister from among three finalists for chaplain, instead of a Catholic priest who received the most votes from a bipartisan nominating committee. Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) backed the priest.
Although the Republican leaders said that their choice of Rev. Charles Wright was based on the finalists’ performance in a last round of personal interviews, even some Catholic Republicans voiced disappointment that their leaders did not break the House’s 211-year history of selecting only Protestant ministers for the office.
Democrats involved in the selection process openly complained of insensitive treatment of the Catholic priest, including queries in early interviews about his marital status and whether he would wear a Roman collar on the House floor.
The rejected candidate, Rev. Timothy J. O’Brien, director of Milwaukee-based Marquette University’s Washington, D.C., program, told The Associated Press shortly after the leaders announced their decision, “I am convinced that if I were a mainline Protestant minister and not a Catholic priest, I would be the candidate.” He has since declined further comment.
The controversy has aroused deep passions in some, including several conservative commentators. John McLaughlin, a former Jesuit priest, aggressively denounced Republicans’ handling of the matter for three consecutive weeks on his syndicated television talk show.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) recalls arriving at a Christmas party in his home district to be met by
a group of prominent Catholic local Republican Party leaders “literally yelling at me over this issue.”
The House GOP leadership has encountered repeated criticism from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, an advocacy group devoted to combating anti-Catholic bias. From 1979 to 1982, O’Brien served as communications director of the New York-based organization.
With the United States’ 62 million Roman Catholics the nation’s largest religious denomination and a crucial swing electoral constituency, Republican Party officials have responded nervously.
According to congressional aides, GOP campaign officials commissioned a poll to assess the potential political damage, the results of which they would not disclose. Since Congress began this year’s session in late January, congressional leaders have rushed to show appreciation for Catholics and their clergy with a stream of gestures.
Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George was invited to sit beside Hastert’s wife in the speaker’s box for the State of the Union Message. A resolution praising Catholic parochial schools rapidly made its way to the House floor.
And the House voted to award a Congressional Gold Medal–the highest honor available to a civilian–to ailing New York Cardinal John O’Connor.
Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa), a Catholic who represents a swing congressional district, went to the House floor Feb. 29 to call on Wright to withdraw because the conflict “would impair his ministry.” Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), another Catholic, called on House leaders to shelve Wright’s nomination and retain Ford to avoid “handing the Democrats an issue.”
Democratic pollster Mark Gersh notes that a third of the approximately 30 most competitive House races this fall will take place in heavily Catholic districts. Those districts will be the battleground for control of the House.
“I can’t measure what impact this will have in November, because it’s impossible to know now,” Gersh said. “But the confluence with the Bob Jones controversy increases the likelihood (of an impact) and the magnitude. (Vice President Al) Gore is certain to raise Bob Jones repeatedly on the campaign trail.”
Although Republican congressional and campaign officials say they doubt large numbers of Catholic voters will be swayed by the controversy, they express concern that it could affect some of those close races.
In particular, they worry it could blunt GOP efforts to appeal to Catholics on social issues, such as the party’s long-standing opposition to abortion and its support for tax breaks to help defray tuition costs of parochial and other private schools.
“This is an attempt by Democrats to be able to go to the Knights of Columbus and talk about a non-existent chaplain issue instead of” a controversial late-term abortion procedure, said Paul Morrell, a spokesman for Armey.
The controversy over the chaplain flared after Hastert chose to open up the process of selecting the House chaplain, a position that used to be filled by the speaker.
An 18-member bipartisan committee, split between Democrats and Republicans, met regularly for almost a year to cull 42 candidates down to three finalists for the $139,800-per-year job.
According to participants, O’Brien received the most votes from committee members; Rev. Robert Dvorak, superintendent of the East Coast Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church, was second; and Wright, a Presbyterian with a long association with the National Prayer Breakfast, ranked third.
Hastert and Armey chose Wright after the finalists went through a round of interviews with the three top congressional leaders.
“I made that choice without any religious preference or point of view,” Hastert said. “It seemed that (Wright) was concerned and cared about people’s lives and families. He was a superior candidate among three great candidates.”
O’Brien told The New York Times he had been “a bit shocked” by a “strange comment” from Armey during the job interview that “he came from North Dakota originally and was raised in a very anti-Catholic environment.”
Morrell said Armey had made the statement after O’Brien indicated that he believed the congressman was raised in Texas and thus assumed Armey had been exposed to anti-Catholic prejudice as a youth.
Wright, who has shunned interviews since the controversy erupted, did not return phone calls.
An aide to Hastert said that the Republican leadership is anxious to resolve the issue soon.
Because some Republicans have expressed concern that a vote for Wright could be used against them in the fall campaign, the speaker also is examining the possibility of avoiding a House vote by directly appointing Wright, the aide said.
