WASHINGTON - Religious and civil rights leaders who battled each other over President Bush's faith-based initiative in 2001 said yesterday they had reached consensus on a number of ways government and the private sector could aid religious charities without violating the US Constitution's separation of church and state.
The 33-person group, with members ranging across the political spectrum from the American Civil Liberties Union to Evangelicals for Social Action, agreed that government agencies should not discriminate against religious charities eligible for federal social-service contracts and called for new individual and corporate tax incentives to spur charitable giving.
Former Senator Harris Wofford, a Pennsylvania Democrat who convened the working group in June, said he had not expected that a consensus could be reached by people whose opinions were so strong and often at odds. But the tragedy of Sept. 11 made them determined to find common ground and increase the capacity of religious groups to help the needy.
''I believe this is the moment when the country would really respond to mobilizing the armies of compassion to end poverty, and these recommendations are part of that,'' said Wofford, who headed the Corporation for National and Community Services in the Clinton administration.
The group's report and 29 recommendations, under the title ''Finding Common Ground,'' gave a boost to White House prospects for passage of a scaled-down version of its faith-based initiative in Congress this year.
White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said the bill was a priority for the president and predicted it would be introduced in the Senate within weeks.
The working group did not find common ground on the two most contentious pieces of Bush's original faith-based initiative: providing direct aid to pervasively sectarian groups and allowing religious charities that practice hiring discrimination to access federal funds.
Those elements were part of H.R. 7, the faith-based legislation passed by the House in July and vehemently opposed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, People for the American Way, and the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism. Those groups were represented in the Common Ground talks.
''Sept. ll really clarified our perspective and helped us all do what was essential,'' said Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the action center.
Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican who defeated Wofford in 1994 but asked him to convene the Common Ground working group, called the report ''a positive step.'' He said that he and Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, would introduce legislation soon that would mirror the group's recommendations and provide tax incentives for charitable giving and technical support for charities seeking government contracts.
Santorum said his Senate bill, like the Common Ground report, ''presses no hot-button issues that cause a lot of heartburn.''