FEMA plans to reimburse faith groups for aid – washingtonpost.com Highlights – MSNBC.com:

‘I believe it’s appropriate for the federal government to assist the faith community because of the scale and scope of the effort and how long it’s lasting,’ he said.

Lynn disagreed. ‘The good news is that this work is being done now, but I don’t think a lot of people realize that a lot of these organizations are actively working to obtain federal funds. That’s a strange definition of charity,’ he said.

… FEMA officials said religious organizations would be eligible for payments only if they operated emergency shelters, food distribution centers or medical facilities at the request of state or local governments in the three states that have declared emergencies — Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In those cases, ‘a wide range of costs would be available for reimbursement, including labor costs incurred in excess of normal operations, rent for the facility and delivery of essential needs like food and water,’ FEMA spokesman Eugene Kinerney said in an e-mail.

That whole checks and balances thing that I recall hearing about in high school seems to be a thing of the past, eh?

Well, maybe this will make God happy. So happy even that He’ll feel a little guilty about wiping out New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast over the past two years.

Unless this was His plan all along…