At this moment of American Catholic history, it might seem like a bad time to talk about public support for the church's works of education and charity. However, despite the continuing scandal over clergy sexual abuse, there may greater opportunities for collaboration between Catholicism and government now than at any time in long memory.

The openings for the Church have been made possible by both the judicial and executive branches of government.

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has moved toward a stance of neutrality toward religion, which led to its decision in June of last year to allow school vouchers. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has followed this doctrine in its pursuit of a partnership between federal agencies and faith-based charities.

Traditionally, there has been a de facto distinction between Catholic schools and Catholic social services. Often the school aid has been deemed unconstitutional, but aid to charities and hospitals has passed Constitutional muster. These are the hot and cold wires of government support for church activities.

The diverging attitudes toward Catholic schools and charities can be illustrated with two snapshots from the 19th century.

First picture: Philadelphia, 1843. The Philadelphia School Council has decided to allow Catholic students in public schools to read the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible, instead of the King James Version. This decision touches off a series of riots in which 13 people are killed; five churches and two convents are burned.

As the violence spreads towards New York, New York's combative bishop, John Hughes, affectionately nicknamed "Dagger," makes a reference to the scene that greeted Napoleon in his Russian campaign when the Russians burned Moscow. He says that if any Catholics are harmed, "New York will become a second Moscow."

Picture number two: Washington, D.C., 1898. The District of Columbia, with money from the federal government, decides to build a new wing of Providence Hospital, which is owned solely by the Sisters of Charity, to treat infectious diseases. The project is 100-percent funded by the federal government.

This arrangement is challenged as a violation of U.S. Constitution, particularly its no-establishment-of-religion clause. The Supreme Court gets the case, and upholds the aid without getting into the Constitutional issues. No political controversy results from the ruling.

For the rest of the 19th and 20th centuries, this pattern continues. On the one hand, any political or judicial effort on behalf of Catholic elementary and secondary schools is fought with tremendous controversy. On the other hand, kind of quietly, the Catholic Church is getting vast amounts of federal money to run various social programs.

Now, however, with the administration's faith-based initiative and the high court's pro-voucher ruling, these hot and cold wires of Catholic aid are getting crossed. Doctrinally, the faith-based initiative is following the Supreme Court's jurisprudence of the last ten years in which neutrality has replaced the doctrine of strict separation between church and state.

The result is that Catholics are in a more favored position to partner with the state than at any time in the last 150 years. And so, it is nothing less than tragic that at this time, the sex-abuse scandal should arise. Especially when we had a chance to get it right, back in the 1980s.

Take school vouchers, for example. In light of the Court's ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, legislatures around the country are free to devise their own programs of vouchers. How many of them will take the political heat of giving state money to Catholic schools and sending children into what some people might think would be harm's way?

If we are not careful to put our house in order now, we may lose this chance for collaboration on behalf of the greater good. We may also be faced with the specter of greater government regulation of the church than we would ever want.

Remember, the battle for independence from the state has a very long history in our church, going back all the way to the Roman emperor Constantine. Already there are bills in a number of state legislatures to remove the priest-penitent privilege in child abuse reporting statutes.

However, if we can get our act together, Catholicism in America can bring much-needed resources to the renewal of a sick society.

John Farina, a theologian and attorney who has practiced church-state law, is a fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He directs the Center's project on Catholicism and Civic Renewal.