hiladelphia Mayor John Street's aggressive faith-based program is alive and well, despite the fact that the man charged with operating the initiative has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of theft.

   Rev. Randall E. McCaskill, 60, continued to draw his $96,000-a-year salary as deputy managing director in charge of the city's faith-based partnership, even after being quietly relieved of his duties 10 months ago. A story in today's Philadelphia Inquirer states that McCaskill's poor administrative skills made it apparent that he was unfit for the job, according to Deputy Mayor George Burrell.

   Even so, Mayor Street's faith-based program efforts are expanding. President George W. Bush hailed the Street administration as a paradigm for partnership between government, and religious volunteer organizations. The mayor has pledged to involve churches, mosques, temples and other sectarian groups in a battery of city-funded programs, including a recent effort to reduce truancy in the public school system. In the process, Philadelphia has become a bellwether area in the growing fad of having government form "partnerships" with organized religion -- a move that worries critics on both practical and constitutional grounds.

   Fueling the effort is President Bush's creation of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and more "charitable choice" programs that allow religious groups to compete for government contracts to provide social services.

   The indictment of Rev. McCaskill, though, may raise questions about oversight and the fact that these programs -- giving religious groups wide latitude in how they spend the public coin -- may invite large scale abuse. It also provides a look into how clergy in Philadelphia have organized to become one of the city's most powerful political forces, courted by both major parties, and often rewarded with everything from jobs to public service contracts. Finally, there is the question of why Mayor Street kept McCaskill, 60, on the payroll for nearly a year after he was officially relieved of his duties.

   The Inquirer quotes a source that McCaskill was appointed to his post ostensibly because he had "a large network of contacts in the faith community," and had been a deputy managing director of the previous administration of Mayor Ed Rendell. Street reportedly sought out McCaskill believing that he could "promote volunteer and religious efforts to foster youth mentoring, clean up blighted neighborhoods, and welcome returning prisoners to their community."

   McCaskill is no stranger to politics, and his using his role in the city's religious structure to deliver votes to begging politicians. He was among the preachers who formed the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity in 1981. Two years later, the group threw its support behind the candidacy of W. Wilson Goode. Goode is now one of the two men in charge of Street's faith-based initiative, along with Deputy Mayor Burrell.

   The Black Clergy backed Goode in his successful 1987 reelection bid, and two years later, Goode hired Rev. McCaskill to operate a so-called "North Philadelphia city Hall" complete with a $30,000 annual salary. The group continued to be a force in regional politics, but the Inquirer notes: "In 1991 the clergy organization failed to broker a deal among three black candidates seeking the Democratic mayoral nomination against (Ed) Rendell, but as mayor, Rendell kept Mr. (sic) McCaskill on at his North Philadelphia post." Two years later, Rendell bumped McCaskill's salary to $39,000, and in 1994 the preacher became deputy managing director with an annual salary of $55,000. By 1999, he was earning $70,000 a year for his services to the city.

   "Despite the city charter's ban on politicking by city employees," notes the Inquirer, Mr. (sic) McCaskill regularly appeared at, or announced, the clergy group's endorsements of Democratic candidates for political office."

   McCaskill and the clergy group also seem to have played a role in Street's hard-fought election campaign. Street, once considered a "black power" radical on the Philadelphia scene in his youth, matured to become a savvy politician who often cited his membership in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. He barely squeezed by Republican challenger Sam Katz in an expensive, bitter electoral contest. McCaskill took a three-week leave of absence from his official post to campaign for Street, but only after a City Solicitor found the minister's public endorsement to be a Charter violation.

   Within weeks of his inauguration, the new mayor named McCaskill director of public outreach and volunteerism, and boosted his salary to $96,000 as "a signal to the community that this was an important undertaking."

   Aside from corruption and political endorsements, there is another even more bizarre and disturbing side to Mayor Street's efforts to turn Philadelphia -- the "Cradle of Liberty" -- into a city saturated with invasive, religion-based programs impinging on every area of life.

   One plan involves an effort to turn the annual Sunoco Welcome America! festival into a showcase for faith-based promotion. Mayor Ed Rendell began the festival in 1993, and Street describes it as "a premier event in our city." The festival's new "Neighborhood of Nations Celebration" will include information booths for faith-based groups, a spokesperson for the event told the Inquirer last week.

   The activity "will unite many cultures and faiths through music, dance, ethnic food and displays," said an organizer. The specific roles for the sectarian organizations, though, "have not been determined."

   The Welcome America! event, though, will fuse Street's faith-based initiative with another program the mayor is launching, one that stems from his own religious beliefs. Philadelphia is a town known for Italian hoagies, thick cheese steaks, scrapple, Tastycake pastries and other culinary delights. Street has lunched a campaign to put the city on a diet, saying "We're too fat," and that people need to lose weight "in order to lead productive lives."

   The city's "fat officers" is Gwen Foster, who receives a hefty $79,000 annually for her efforts, which include carrying a bathroom scale around to stores and other public venues, enticing people to weigh themselves (New York Times, 3/12/01)

   Whatever the merits of lower cholesterol, the mayor's "micromanagement" of resident's lives seems out of step against the bigger problems Philadelphia faces -- including an upcoming transit workers' strike. There is also simmering controversy regarding the construction of two athletic stadiums in South Philadelphia. In justifying the program, though, Street draws upon religion. Like the mayor, Foster is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist sect. The Times notes, "their religion recommends a vegetarian diet and the avoidance of caffeine and alcohol. While they do not emphasize their faith as part of the city's health campaign, they both say its tenets have shaped their own diets."

    Mayor Street declared that "Life is a gift from God. We have a responsibility to be productive and take care of that gift."

    Foster has forged ahead, and set up various programs in hospitals, offices and naturally churches across the city.

   One critic, City Council member James Kenney, charges that the fitness crusade, with its aggressive outreach and almost proselytizing character, is a distraction from more pressing issues. "If I was going to pay a fitness czar, I think I'd rather have that person concentrate more on immigration and population loss and attempts at retaining the middle class."

   Philadelphia is also home to Rev. Herb Lusk, a Baptist minister who according to the Daily News is "emerging as the White House's favorite inner city pastor." This past weekend, Lusk -- who was at the White House summit on faith-based partnerships in January -- announced that Mayor Street was inviting President Bush to visit the city during July 4, and that the president would use the occasion to "be setting off his faith-based initiatives with fireworks."

   John DiIulio, head of the under-siege White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, described the prospective visit as "nice symbolism," saying "I'd like to give him (Bush) a Philadelphia sampler."

   The invitation from Street is reciprocity for last January's inauguration, when the Philadelphia mayor sat next to first lady Laura Bush, and heard the new president gush about Street's efforts to draw upon the social service programs of religious groups.

   Although Street is a Democrat, Rev. Lusk spoke at the GOP National Convention last summer, and hosted numerous party events during the convention week. His Baptist church is the setting for a slew of faith-based outreaches, including job training and after-school programs.

   Philadelphia is also home to White House faith-initiative czar John DiIulio, and headquarters for the Pew Charitable Trust -- a pro-partnership group -- and Public/Private Ventures, which runs literacy centers in 21 religious institutions throughout the region. DiIulio told the Daily News that he would also like to see Bush in town for the July 4 festival so he can meet former Mayor W. Wilson Goode, who is now a Baptist minister employed by PPV. Though a Democrat, Goode "strongly supports the Bush-DiIulio agenda," noted the paper.

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