THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 12, 1996 TAG: 9609120341
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 51 lines
The Christian Coalition announced Wednesday that its outreach organization for American Catholics, the Catholic Alliance, will become a separate corporation.
Alliance officials emphasized that the goal of the group, founded last fall, continues to be finding common ground with Catholics.
Maureen Roselli, executive director of Catholic Alliance, said the group's agenda would be ``protection of life, primacy of the family, religious liberty and care for the poor.''
Catholics and other people of faith have to take common stands, said Keith Fournier, a member of the alliance's board of directors and executive director of the Christian legal group the American Center for Law and Justice. ``It's a moral crisis.''
The Christian Coalition and Fournier's legal group were both founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, whose Christian Broadcasting Network is based in Virginia Beach.
The latest move appears to be an effort to demonstrate the group's independence. But one Catholic spokesman noted that so far, the alliance's issues have been closer to the Christian Coalition's agenda than to Catholic priorities.
``For a group to put Catholic in the front of its name and then leave out a wide range of core issues for Catholics is less than appropriate,'' said Stephen Colecchi, a special assistant to Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond.
In particular, Colecchi said, the church disagrees with the Christian Coalition on the death penalty, welfare reform, services to the poor, immigration and others.
National Catholic organizations and bishops are largely opposed to capital punishment. The Catholic Church also considers care for the poor a spiritual and political priority, Colecchi said, but he has not seen the same emphasis by the Christian Coalition.
Fournier specifically mentioned the death penalty as an issue the alliance wouldn't get into.
Roselli, however, said the Catholic Alliance has taken a position that the death penalty should only be used in ``extremely rare occasions.''
Presently, the alliance's offices are in the Christian Coalition's offices in Washington, D.C., and their calls go through the coalition's switchboard. Most of the alliance's financial support still comes from the coalition.
Asked if the Catholic Alliance and the Christian Coalition might ever take different positions on an issue, Roselli said, ``The Catholic Alliance will be developing its own agenda. It's pretty unlikely we'll be disagreeing with the Christian Coalition. But they may take positions we may not take, and vice versa.'' by CNB