SOME AID FOR THE SAINTS

Most Americans know someone hard at work in a religious organization whom
they refer to, at some point or other, as "a saint." They use the word not
to make a theological judgment, but to describe the people whose
satisfaction in life comes not from amassing power or money but from
devoting themselves to others.

So many who do the work of helping poor kids to learn, or battered women to
rebuild lives, or drug addicts to kick their habits, are not religious. But
it's also true that many of these saints can, indeed, be in churches,
synagogues, mosques and other institutions connected to religion and faith.
Yesterday, President Bush proposed that we take this work more seriously
than we have in the past, and find constitutional ways of supporting these
efforts with government money.

Bush is right to ask us to acknowledge that miracles do happen every day in
scores of church basements, child care centers and prison fellowships. Even
before the current interest in "charitable choice" programs to help
faith-based institutions, government money often flowed through, near or
around -- and, in some cases, into -- religiously based institutions. To
pick the obvious: Bush didn't invent the idea of Medicare and Medicaid
money flowing to religious hospitals, or of government student loans
helping students who attend private and religious colleges.