According to what we hear from several Park Ridge aldermen, the PADS homeless shelter advocates have been putting on the full-court press of letters, e-mails and telephone calls in advance of this Monday night’s (9/29/08, 7:00 p.m.) City Council Committee-of-the-Whole meeting at Maine East High School, encouraging those aldermen to reject the zoning amendment – recommended by 7 of the 9 members of the City’s Planning & Zoning (“P&Z”) Commission at its meeting on September 8th – that would permit homeless shelters but require them to be located at least 500 feet from any school.

Everyone has the Constitutional right to petition the government, and one of the purposes for this site is to encourage people to get more involved in local government.  So we applaud those who do so, irrespective of their position on any given issue.  We are troubled, however, by the predominance of religious arguments in support of the PADS shelter for what should be nothing more than the public policy issue of land use.  And we are troubled even more by the overtly religious partisanship of the members of the Park Ridge Ministerial Association (the “PRMA”), who appear to be treating this public policy issue like a religious crusade, and their political opponents as neo-infidels.

We here at PublicWatchdog are no fans of the religious Right or the atheist Left – or, for that matter, anything in between which suggests that public policy should be based on any one organized religious view of what God wants.  We respect and embrace the fact that our Founding Fathers, virtually all of whom were unapologetically Christian, gave us a Constitution that wisely provided for the separation of church and state.

Unfortunately, many supporters of the PADS homeless shelter seem to view separation of church and state as something that exempts churches from many of the restrictions and requirements imposed by our civil laws, so long as those churches are engaging in anything they unilaterally deem to be part of their “ministry.” 

An illustration of that view is contained in a letter that was recently e-mailed to members of the Park Ridge City Council by Fr. Carl Morello, pastor of St. Paul of the Cross Church, whose school will not be able to serve as the site of the proposed PADS shelter if the City Council adopts the recommendation of the P&Z Commission that no shelter be allowed within 500 feet of any school.  Following is the text of that letter, with our comments interspersed throughout in bracketed bold, although those of you who wish to read the letter in its original, un-annotated form can do so by clicking here [pdf]):

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I am Father Carl Morello, Pastor of St. Paul of the Cross parish, proposed site of the PADS ministry.  It is no surprise to you, nor am I trying to hide the fact that I, along with the Ministerial Association support this effort. [We agree that ever since you decided to offer St. Paul’s gymnasium for the PADS shelter back in June, you have not hid your support for that project. But you did “hide the fact” – from your own congregation! – that you were bringing the PADS shelter to St. Paul, first when you preached about PADS at the 9:00 a.m. Mass on Sunday, June 1st, without even a hint that you had already made the PADS hosting decision; and then again the very next evening, June 2nd, when you repeatedly encouraged the 8th grade graduating class to “take the higher road” but didn’t choose to do likewise by announcing that St. Paul would be hosting the shelter, even as your Social Service Minister was over at City Hall announcing that fact to the Park Ridge City Council. It’s way past time that you stopped the dissembling and the revisionist history, Fr. Morello, and finally accepted full accountability for what you personally, and your PRMA associates, have done in this regard.]  Currently the city building and zoning committee has stated that a PADS ministry site must be 500 feet from a building also used as a school.  This along with all the other proposed recommendations would make it difficult, if not impossible, to have this ministry in Park Ridge. [There are at least three, and perhaps as many as six, Park Ridge churches which are not affected by the 500-foot limit, so that restriction does not make a homeless shelter in Park Ridge “impossible” – and that’s not even taking into account all the other various locations that could hold a shelter, or the individual private homes that could shelter a homeless person for one night per week.] 

If you, as City Council vote for such recommendations to be passed it would be a low point in the history of Park Ridge. [We can’t even pretend to comprehend the degree of egotism, narcissism, or delusion that it takes to condemn – as “a low point” in our city’s history! – a change in the zoning code that would permit homeless shelters and also take measures to protect our children.]  This seems to me, and others watching this from near and far, to be nothing more than thinly veiled racial and economic bigotry. [That kind of inflammatory rhetoric is patently offensive, especially coming from a “man of the cloth” who has criticized milder comments about homeless shelters as “fear-mongering.”  Unlike you, we are more concerned about the opinions of those in this community than we are about the opinions of those “watching this from near and far.” And if there is “economic bigotry” in Park Ridge, we remind you of how readily you accepted the fruits of that attitude when you raked in the multi-millions of dollars this community donated to pay for the not-so-humbly named “Morello Parish Life Center” at St. Paul.]  I feel this is beneath the real strength and character of this community.  I personally feel deceived by some in city government who have led me to believe, all along, that if we followed the path of special use permit we could work together to make this valuable effort happen. [If you have been “deceived,” sir, it is most likely by those in City government who tried to shamelessly curry your favor with assurances that you would ultimately get whatever you wanted. That a 7-2 majority of duly appointed public officials on the P&Z Commission, after having held public hearings and considered the matter, recommended that the shelter not be located within 500 feet of a school because of a perceived risk to the safety of children, is not deception but, instead, is an example of local government actually doing its job rather than pandering to some special interest or another.  And even more remarkably, those 2 P&Z members who dissented from the recommendation did so not because the amendment was too restrictive but because it was not restrictive enough.] Instead, this has taken more and more of everyone’s precious time and energy on something that should have been simple to work out together and accomplish.  Shame on us all! [No, sir, the shame belongs squarely on the shoulders of you and your associates for not going public with your plans for a PADS shelter months before that “it’s a done deal” pronouncement was made by St. Mary’s Episcopal and the PRMA back in January. And don’t give us any more of that “maybe we would have done it differently if only we had known what the reaction would be” garbage that you and the PRMA started shoveling out once the spit hit the fan: you all cynically chose the “easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” strategy. Once again, it’s time for all of you to accept accountability for your actions and their divisive consequences rather than point your fingers everywhere else.] 

I have spent my life in training and in formation and preparation for the priesthood.  I have been a priest for 25 years and at the heart of our ministry are the corporal works of mercy, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter those in need, bury the dead and visit those in need of pastoral care. [As has been noted repeatedly, you have always been able to “shelter those in need” in your own (or, more accurately, the church’s) home, so why has it taken you 25 years to finally act on one of those corporal works of mercy at the heart of your “ministry”?  Why are you so easily satisfied by warehousing the homeless in a school gymnasium for only one night a week, after which they have to move to another town?  And why are you insisting that this religious “ministry” be outsourced to a secular agency like PADS?] Not to allow us to do what we are called to do hurts the entire community. [We’d prefer to let “the community” decide that for itself, through an advisory referendum on a PADS shelter in April’s election. And if you truly are concerned about what “hurts the entire community”, you will actively support such a referendum to put an end to the divisive and hurtful attacks you have tacitly encouraged by those who call other members of your own and other congregations “un-Christian” because they happen not to favor a PADS shelter in this community, or believe that their children deserve the protection of a 500-foot buffer.  But, then again, once there’s a vote total on the issue, you can no longer mobilize a bunch of people in white shirts and claim that they represent the majority of our citizens.] 

I urge you to take this into consideration when you discuss the requirements when you meet on September 29th.  It has been said that this issue is a source of divisiveness in the entire community. [Yes it is, because you and your fellow PRMA members caused it to be so by doing all of your planning under the radar rather than out in the open; and then letting those who disagree with you be labeled “un-Christian.”] I hope that we can work together for the good of this community to make this happen and restore a sense of dignity and unity for all. [The presumptuousness of this statement is nothing short of incredible!  Can you seriously believe that the only way this community can have its “dignity and unity” restored – assuming it’s been lost in the first place – is by you and the PRMA getting your way on the PADS shelter?  As we see it, the “dignity and unity” of this community is far better served by its refusal to allow you and the PRMA to dictate public policy from your pulpits.]

Sincerely,
Fr. Carl Morello
Pastor
St. Paul of the Cross Church