Orange County Perspective : Religion’s Potential to Ease the Carnage : * Santa Ana’s Congregations Can Ensure Political Resolve

In this country, we keep church and state separate, but the values of religious people are important in shaping solutions to our common problems. As the culture of violence continues, many residents correctly are reaching out to express their desire to change the climate.

With record killings this year, Santa Ana’s political leaders know full well the mounting toll of violence from gang warfare. It may be unlikely that any significant new policy directions will emerge from the meeting this past week of about 1,000 churchgoers and other residents who implored city and school officials to include them in their plans to stop youth crime. However, that the meeting was held at all was enormously important for the signal it sent.

There has been a lot of discussion on the national stage in recent months about how people with just such religious concerns can make a difference in shoring up the deteriorating social fabric. President Clinton essentially made this pitch at a White House ecumenical meeting several months ago, and has returned to related themes in various speeches. Cornel West, an African American philosopher and theologian, has written about the need to reverse a prevailing sense that we have assigned too low a priority to our “common life,” concluding that “the vitality of any public square ultimately depends on how much we care about the quality of our lives together.” There are others, like Yale Law School Professor Stephen L. Carter, who coined the phrase “The Culture of Disbelief.”

In Santa Ana, the dialogue that took place between officials and a concerned community--the coalition calls itself the Orange County Congregation Community Organization--can open up a valuable line of communication. Mayor Daniel H. Young, in deploring the epidemic of killing, seemed to welcome the opportunity to say that parents have much to do with how the battle comes out. One resident suggested that officials have plenty to learn from the feedback that community members can offer about which government programs are working and which are not.

Msgr. Jaime Soto, vicar for Hispanic affairs of the Diocese of Orange, bridged the divide between Santa Ana’s leaders and its ordinary citizens by saying that mobilized church groups can help keep politicians on track, ensuring that their policies “serve the interests of our families.” And he pointed to the power of community concern by saying, “One person can’t make change, but with 20,000, I think we can.”

The churchgoers in Santa Ana say there is gunfire in earshot of their churches. In a previous century, long before we had such laments, Alexis de Tocqueville affirmed a view of the vital role of religion in keeping American life on track. In its time and context, it was similar to Soto’s.

Tocqueville suggested that the religious sensibility could fill a gap in democracy between ordinary citizens and government. Today, by expressing concern, Santa Ana residents are taking control of their own destiny. In a time of shocking violence, this is the kind of community resolve and application of values to public policy dilemmas we need.