Remarks at an Independence Day Celebration in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, July 9, 2001

Your mayor and I have just come from an Independence Day celebration in north Philadelphia, organized by a great American named Herbert Lusk. Herb first came into prominence as an athlete. Today, he is pastor of Greater Exodus Baptist Church, and his parishioners still like him. [Laughter] Herb's church is one of the hundreds of churches and synagogues and mosques in this city where worship of the Almighty is expressed in service to neighbors in need.

In every part of Philadelphia, caring people are doing the work of compassion. They teach boys and girls to read, as in a program called Youth Education for Tomorrow, where more than 20 faith-based literacy centers are producing great results for your city's children.

At the Jesus School in north Philadelphia, little Aneeisha Graham came a year ago, not knowing any letters of the alphabet. Today, at age 7, she reads at the fourth grade level. Aneeisha is with us today. It's great to see you, darling. Thank you for coming.

Other faith-based groups in this city operate shelters for the destitute and the homeless. They bring kindness and understanding to young women facing domestic violence or crisis pregnancies. They give time and attention to the children of prisoners. These are the kinds of citizens every society needs, citizens who speak for the voiceless and feed the hungry and protect the weak and comfort the afflicted.

America's founding documents give us religious liberty in principle; these Americans show us religious liberty in action. Religious liberty is more than the right to believe in God's love; it is the right to be an instrument of God's love. Such work is beyond the reach of government and beyond the role of government. And those who hold positions of power should not be wary or hostile toward faith-based charities, or other community groups which perform important and good works. We should welcome their conviction and contribution in all its diversity.

So today I call on the Unite States Congress to pass laws promoting and encouraging faith-based and community groups in their important public work and to never discriminate against them. These soldiers in the armies of compassion deserve our support. They often need our support, and by taking their side, we act in the best interests and tradition of our country.

Without churches and charities, many of our citizens who have lost hope would be left to their own struggles and their own faith. And as I well know, they are not the only ones whose lives can be changed and uplifted by the influence of faith in God.

The founding generation discerned in that faith the source of our own rights, a divine gift of dignity, found equally in every human life. Our Nation has always been guided by a moral compass. In every generation, men and women have protested terrible wrongs and worked for justice, for the abolition of slavery, the triumph of civil rights, for the end of child labor, the equal treatment of women, and the protection of innocent life.

Not every reformer in our history has been religious, but many have been motivated by a scriptural vision in which "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."