Baltimore churches in slugfest over `faith-based' program. (People & Events).

A Baltimore, Md., program designed to help troubled juveniles steer clear of criminal activity by partnering them with church mentors has been racked by charges of favoritism and political infighting.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley announced the program in February, calling it an "all-out crusade" to save 100 youths who had already had serious brushes with the criminal justice system.

Nearly 100 young people are currently in the program, and there are plans to expand it to 1,000, but some city church leaders are angry that they have been left out and are convinced that politics is the reason.

Bishop Douglas Miles, pastor of Koinonia Baptist Church, told the Baltimore Sun that the interdenominational Ministerial Alliance wanted to take part after helping to launch the program but were frozen out by O'Malley because they objected to some of the plan's features.

"He pretty much told us we could take a flying leap over a rolling doughnut," Miles told the Sun. "He was going to do it his way. We suggested an approach that would be more holistic.... That's where he literally told us he didn't need us."

The Rev. Gregory B. Perkins, currently head of the Alliance, said he tried to mend fences with O'Malley but was rebuffed.

"I said, `Mr. Mayor, I'm offering you 240 churches, mosques and synagogues to sit down and to see how we can make this work for Baltimore. What can we do together to make this work, because the members of the Alliance have some concerns about the way it is structured,'" Perkins said. "And that's when he said, quite frankly, he never intended to include that part of the faith community."

O'Malley claims the Alliance backed out on their own, but some ministers see a political angle, noting that the Alliance endorsed Carl Stokes, one of O'Malley's opponents, in 1999.