Kim Lawton reports on the phenomenon of a president who speaks often about religion in public but whose personal religious practices have turned out to be very private.
KIM LAWTON: President Bush says in the difficult days since September 11th he has drawn strength from faith and prayer.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, (at National Cathedral): There are prayers that help us last through the day or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers that give us strength for the journey.LAWTON: A United Methodist who says he has committed his life to Jesus, Bush speaks openly about his personal faith.
PRESIDENT BUSH (in Florida meeting): I'm passionate on the subject because I understand the power of faith in people's lives, and I understand what it can mean.
LAWTON: He may be passionate, but the president is also very private about how he exercises his own faith and where he looks for spiritual guidance.
SHAUN CASEY, Wesley Theological Seminary: As far as I can see, there are no public religious figures that are going into the White House and coming out and then talking about some kind of conversation with the president. So if there is a circle of counselors, it is very private. It is very personal.LAWTON: During the last administration, President Clinton designated several spiritual advisers. One of them was evangelical author and speaker Tony Campolo. Campolo believes it's important for a president who claims strong religious beliefs to have regular spiritual counsel.
TONY CAMPOLO, Eastern College: We must never allow a president to feel that he or she is legitimated by God in the role that he or she assumes as president. All of us must recognize -- and certainly the president -- that we are prone to error, we are prone to shortcomings, and we need to be challenged in what we do and what we say.LAWTON: Since September 11, President Bush has held a few meetings with religious leaders, including two largely policy meetings with Muslims and one with Sikhs.
Some spiritual counsel apparently was offered on September 20, when the president invited 26 prominent leaders from across the religious spectrum to the White House, just hours before his address to a joint session of Congress.
CARDINAL BERNARD LAW, Archdiocese of Boston, (Statement in front of White House): It is significant that in this time of crisis, President Bush should invite a group broadly representative of the religious communities in this land to pray with him and to offer counsel.
LAWTON: Participants said the president prayed with them, holding hands in a circle.
CARDINAL LAW: I came away from that meeting, as I think all of us did, powerfully impressed by the president as a man of deep faith. LAWTON: President Bush has attended religious memorial services, including this interfaith gathering at the National Cathedral on September 14th. But he has not been participating in regular public worship services. Instead, he appears to have made Camp David his primary place of worship.
At Camp David, religious services are held in the Evergreen Chapel, a nondenominational facility built a decade ago with private donations. Former President Bush dedicated the chapel in 1991 in a ceremony attended by national religious leaders.Weekly Christian worship services are held for the military personnel and staff posted at Camp David and their families. Since 1991, Navy chaplains have been assigned to three-year tours of duty there. The Bushes apparently attend services there often.
FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH: The Sunday after the attacks, we attended church at Camp David. We were so glad to see members of the congregation, the 70 or so people, mostly young couples with children, who attend regular services there.
LAWTON: In the wake of September 11th, the military and the Secret Service have tightly restricted information about Camp David. The current minister is Chaplain Robert Williams, who has been posted there for more than two years. Officials would not release his photo or let us interview him.
The First Lady speaks highly of Williams.
FIRST LADY BUSH: The young chaplain is a graduate of the Perkins School of Theology at my alma mater, Southern Methodist University, and he has a quiet and strong and sincere faith.
LAWTON: Some observers wonder whether Camp David provides the president adequate spiritual sustenance.
MICHAEL CROMARTIE, Ethics and Public Policy Center: Of course it is real church. It is a chapel. It is at Camp David. It is a Navy chaplain. It is people gathered to worship. That is church.
FIRST LADY BUSH: He based his sermon that Sunday on the psalm outlined in the lectionary for that September day, Psalm 27: "Your face, Lord, do I seek. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
PRESIDENT BUSH: All our allies and friends will now be familiar with these evil-doers.
CAMPOLO: The first few times you go into the Oval Office, you're awestruck. You know, you kind of brace yourself and say, I'm not going to be impressed by this. When you get there, you are impressed. During my time, I had to constantly ask myself that: Am I being used?
Read 
