The bishops lobby.

Mention of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops or the United States Catholic Conference draws a blank look from most people, including most Catholics. But to those involved in public policy and political life, the names evoke the power and influence of the Catholic bishops of the United States.

The NCCB and the USCC were established in 1966, just after the Second Vatican Council. The two organizations comprise the approximately 300 active bishops and auxiliary bishops in the United States. On paper, the NCCB and the USCC are separate entities. The NCCB is an ecclesiastical body, with a mission to give the bishops a forum for internal discourse; the USCC (which was preceded by a similar organization called the National Catholic Welfare Conference) is a civil corporation set up to convey the church's message to society in general.

In practice, however, the line between the two organizations is blurred and the names are used interchangeably. In addition to sharing a street address in Washington, D.C., they share officers, including the president, Archbishop William Keeler; general secretary, Monsignor Robert N. Lynch; general counsel, Mark Chopko; and government liaison director, Frank Monahan; as well as several staff directors. To a great extent, the memberships of the NCCB's administrative committee and the USCC's administrative board are the same.

These institutions--and the immense resources that sustain them--exist solely for the U.S. bishops. The staff works not for the Catholic people but for the bishops. The decisions on spending and lobbying priorities and the opinions that emanate from these offices are not those of the 55 million to 60 million American Catholics but those of the 300 bishops.

In 1983, the bishops purchased five acres of land in Washington, D.C.--only a few miles north of Capitol Hill--where they built an imposing edifice to house the NCCB/USCC. In this building, which rivals those of large trade associations in size and appearance, the heads of the American Catholic church operate as a single body. The NCCB/USCC employs about 300 people in Washington.

From these offices comes the bishops' work: congressional testimony, litigation, lobbying, media outreach, monitoring of federal legislation and regulation, participation in federal regulatory proceedings, conferences and seminars, educational ministry, pastoral letters, publications, migrant and refugee services, and grass-roots organizing. The bishops' legal office is here; in 1992 its budget was $1 million. The publishing and promotion office spent $5.4 million; media relations, $952,000; and the lobbying office, $486,000. The NCCB/USCC's total annual budget was $40 million.

The Bishops As a Special-Interest Group

The USCC has an Internal Revenue Service grant of 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Under the laws governing tax-exempt institutions, the bishops may lobby as long as lobbying activities do not constitute a substantial portion of their annual budget. However, substantial is not defined. Is it 40 percent? 30 percent? With resources as large as those of the Catholic church, even a small percentage of the total constitutes considerable financial support for lobbying.

And lobby they do.

In Washington, the NCCB/USCC is one of thousands of special-interest groups with a public-policy agenda. The national legislative program for the 102nd Congress (1991-1992) identified 74 "issues of concern to the bishops" that were likely to come up in Congress. Underlying the NCCB/USCC's interest in many issues is the same motivation that most other organizations have: protection of self-interest. For example, one of the top legislative priorities of the USCC education department is increased federal assistance for asbestos abatement in schools. The bishops want financial help to remove asbestos from the more than 8,000 Catholic elementary and secondary schools in the United States--a project a USCC representative told Congress will cost the church about $800 million.

The church has long been a significant provider of social services in this country and elsewhere. Although some of the funds for these services come from other sources--including the United Way, private foundations, and the Catholic people--many services are largely funded by the government. In 1989, Catholic Charities USA, for example, received 54.5 percent ($756 million) of its $1.4 billion budget from local, state, and federal government grants and contracts; in 1991, government support had risen to $1.16 billion, or 62.9 percent of the organization's funding.

The church does not directly declare its intent to procure these monies. The publicly available legislative agenda, for example, states the church's support for AIDS care funding without mentioning that the church itself is a major competitor for this money.

On any legislative matter, the bishops or their representatives might testify at congressional hearings, write letters to members of Congress, or act as one of the many behind-the-scenes coaxers and cajolers on Capitol Hill. As of 1991, the NCCB/ USCC employed four full-time federal lobbyists in the office of government relations. The lobbyists have at their disposal the resources of the entire organization. The lobbying budget, however, does not reflect the efforts of the office of general counsel, which provides legal assistance, or of the other offices with which the lobbyists regularly work. Staffers from all USCC departments have some knowledge of legislative matters, and some of them also perform lobbying activities. For instance, the communications coordinator for USCC Migration and Refugee Services told the Catholic News Service how he arranges for witnesses at congressional hearings. "I don't think we've ever turned down an opportunity to testify," he said. "Even if the members are not going to be sympathetic, we always want to take the chance to make our views known."

The bishops' efforts to influence public policy are not limited to legislative matters. Over the years, the church has filed dozens of amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court. Three cases in which the bishops wrote legal briefs were Rust v. Sullivan (the bishops wrote in support of the prevailing decision, which upheld regulations saying that family-planning programs that receive federal funds may not counsel clients on abortion), United Auto Workers v. Johnson Controls (the bishops favored the losing side, which held that employers could bar women from jobs that might expose fetuses to health hazards), and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (the 1992 abortion-restrictions case).

The bishops also have hired outside strategists. In 1990, the NCCB/USCC retained the services of Hill and Knowlton, one of the largest public-relations firms in the world, to handle their anti-choice agenda. Although the contract (cancelled after two years) was represented as public-relations help, in Washington that rubric covers government relations as well. Hill and Knowlton is a powerful, well-connected lobbying firm in the capital--its clients have included blue-chip firms such as AT&T and IBM and controversial organizations such as Citizens for a Free Kuwait and the Church of Scientology. Only months after taking the bishops' account, Hill and Knowlton presented the bishops with a "50 State Briefing Book," which outlined pending and upcoming abortion-related legislation and political races and recommended action on each. With planned biweekly updates until November 1990, the briefing book focused on state rather than federal legislation and electoral campaigns; the information was forwarded to the 28 state Catholic conferences.

Bishops in the State House

The state conferences are modeled on the USCC and are created at the discretion of each state's bishops. Resources vary considerably from state to state. In 1988, state Catholic conference staffs ranged in size from one (Georgia) to 15 (Michigan), and their budgets varied from $40,000 in Colorado to $600,000 in California, according to the National Catholic Reporter (September 16, 1988). Each state conference establishes its own agenda, concentrating on local legislation and issues. Priorities vary, but some common themes include education (including public-school human sexuality curricula), anti-abortion activities, social issues such as economic justice and AIDS, and, of course, funding for social services for which the church vies for government grants and contracts.

Many state Catholic conferences, especially those in states with large Catholic populations, exert significant influence on policymaking. For example, a spokesperson for the Florida Catholic Conference asserted that "on the last day of the 1988 legislative session, [the conference] helped force through a parental consent bill for abortion."

The New York Catholic Conference sponsors an annual lobby day, when Catholics are encouraged to visit legislators. In 1987, more than 2,000 Catholics, including all eight New York bishops, converged on the state capitol in Albany to deliver personally their legislative wish-list.

The New York lobby day is unusual style for the bishops; more commonly, they work at an elite level. In 1990, when the Pennsylvania state legislature considered a bill restricting abortion, the bishops forged an alliance with Pennsylvania evangelicals that proved unbeatable. The fundamentalist Protestants rallied the grass-roots while the bishops, remaining above the fray, worked the issue at high levels of influence.

All in One Voice: Speaking for Themselves

An individual prelate may have great influence in his own diocese and in the state legislature; when they all come together as the NCCB/USCC, the bishops gain even more clout. Before they began to act together, individual bishops were often over-shadowed by a few towering personalities who may or may not have had the support of the rest. The NCCB/USCC, on the other hand, speaks for all the bishops in one authoritative voice with little discernible discord in the ranks.

According to Catholic psychologist and author Eugene Kennedy, the NCCB "has grown in power and financial resources and now outguns individual bishops in visibility and influence, particularly in Washington. But whether they've strengthened their moral authority to sway the people is a question."

But the fact that the bishops speak for themselves and not for all Catholics does not necessarily diminish their stature in the public realm. A campaign aide to Jimmy Carter told one researcher, "We were concerned about the bishops because we thought that they could affect the vote at the margin. And it is at the margin, after all, that elections are won and lost.... The Catholic hierarchy leads a large national institution which has almost unparalleled resources as its disposal."

Playing with the Big Boys: Bishops in the White House

There are still, however, some luminaries among the American Catholic hierarchy who have secured places at tables set for the politically privileged. Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law met then-Vice-President George Bush in 1985 and the two reportedly became fast friends. Law, one of the nation's most conservative and outspoken prelates, later was the Bushes' overnight guest at both the White House and Kennebunkport. Cardinal John O'Connor of New York, another hard-liner, also spent the night at the White House during both the Bush and Reagan presidencies.

The church hierarchy has other unique avenues to hobnobbing with the powerful. Each year in Washington and other cities, on a Sunday in early October (to mark the beginning of the new Supreme Court term), Mass is said especially for the judiciary and members of the bar. The Red Mass (so named for red vestments worn by the celebrants to represent the tongues of fire of the Holy Spirit) is attended not only by Catholic members of the Court but also by non-Catholic justices, judges, and other public officeholders. Even the president sometimes attends, as Bush did in 1992. The 1991 Washington Red Mass was attended by more than half the justices of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist. As the Washington Post reported: "Cardinal James A. Hickey, the archbishop of Washington, may be the only man who could have a Supreme Court majority on its knees before him, and this is not an opportunity to be squandered.... The proceedings this year seemed geared to remind the justices of an obvious and upcoming issue: abortion."

There are secular events as well. The Alfred E. Smith Dinner, sponsored by Cardinal John O'Connor and held annually in New York City, is a must-attend function for politicians. Held only two weeks before election day, the dinner almost always draws both presidential candidates.

The Bully Pulpit

The church's tax-exempt status precludes its legitimate participation in electoral politics; church representatives should not endorse or denounce a particular candidate or party. The church hierarchy generally has steered clear of electoral politics, except where matters of reproductive rights are in question. Despite the fact that the bishops' general counsel has explicitly and repeatedly spelled out for them the legal restrictions on their political activities, bishops in many dioceses cross these limits when the issue is abortion. During the 1980s, many pro-choice Catholic politicians felt the brunt of the bully pulpit. They were censured in sermons, barred from church functions, refused sacraments, removed from parish councils, and threatened with excommunication. Catholics have been told by bishops that they should not vote for pro-choice candidates.

These coercive methods have not worked well for the bishops. Polls show that the public--Catholic and non, Catholic--dislikes the bishops' political pressure-tactics. In a June 1990 New York Times/CBS News poll, 70 percent of the Catholic New Yorkers polled said that they disapproved of Cardinal O'Connor's warning that pro-choice Catholic politicians might be excommunicated. And a KRC Researching and Consulting poll conducted in October 1990 for Catholics for a Free Choice showed that three-quarters of all Americans do not think the bishops should use the political arena to advance their moral opinions.

This disapproval means the pressure often backfires. A prime example occurred in 1989, when San Diego Bishop Leo T Maher (since deceased) informed Lucy Killea, longshot candidate for the California State Senate, that she could not receive communion because of her pro-choice stand on abortion. The rebuke--and the public's strongly negative reaction to it--is credited with giving Killea the winning margin. (Further irony is the fact that Killea's victory gave the California Senate a pro-choice majority.)

That the bishops have spent so much of their persuasive capital in an effort to restrict reproductive rights--to an extent that Catholics largely disagree with and in a style that disregards the legitimate views of others--is lamentable.

The opinions of bishops and other religious leaders clearly belong in the public square; American tradition gives them that right. And the bishops' views can be compelling and convincing. Most people, regardless of their religious affiliation, welcome the bishops' expression of moral principles and conscience on a wide range of concerns.

So many issues confront us--racial equality, economic justice, human rights, war and peace--to which the bishops have an important contribution to make. With their extensive resources and peerless organization, Catholic bishops have the ability to contribute richly to the common good. No one gains when the bishops choose to squander their moral authority.