Religious adoption agencies partnering with the federal government were also subject to requirements that they match children with same-sex couples, under the Obama administration.
Religious freedom "will be an area to watch" with the faith-based office, Anderson said.
"Rogers is a serious scholar of and advocate for religious liberty" who "wants to work to find common ground compromises," he said. However, "on some of the issues where religious liberty conflicts with a progressive sexual orthodoxy she tends to side with the sexual orthodoxy," he noted.
Rogers herself has previously said that the government is free to protect "sexual orientation and gender identity" when those claims conflict with the mission of religious groups partnering with the government. Such "nondiscrimination" requirements should be applied uniformly to both secular and religious groups, she said.
"My view is that when you have taxpayer funds and nondiscrimination rules that apply to the use of those funds, then what you ought generally to do is uniformly apply those rules, not create religious - you know, these yawning religious exemptions from them," she told NPR in 2019.
Rogers says she helped push the Obama administration to broaden religious exemptions to the HHS contraceptive mandate, after the initial exemptions were narrowly-tailored. She chaired the Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships beginning in 2009, before she took over the faith-based partnerships office in 2013.
Religious groups, including EWTN and the Little Sisters of the Poor, sued over the revised mandate saying it still required them to be complicit in morally-objectionable contraceptive coverage.
Rogers, in an interview with Commonweal magazine, admitted that the revised mandate "didn't ultimately satisfy all those who objected, but it was a genuine effort to listen."
Towey wished that the White House faith-based partnerships office had been more vocal in support of religious objectors to the mandate.
"It sure would have been nice if the faith-based office at the time had left their voices in support of the rights of Catholic organizations, Orthodox Jewish organizations, the Salvation Army, and others who did not embrace their orthodoxy on providing abortifacients in health care plans," he said.
Instead, the office "was a guilty bystander when the Little Sisters of the Poor and Catholic colleges like Ave Maria University were threatened with closure," he said.
The purpose of the office can vary with each administration. Under the Obama administration, Towey said that the White House tried to solicit faith leaders to promote the Affordable Care Act, a major policy initiative. The office also worked with religious groups to help combat poverty.
During the Trump administration, offices at various federal agencies issued rules clarifying religious freedom protections for faith-based groups partnering with the government. The Education Department also issued guidance on legal prayer in public schools.
At an online meeting of the office on Thursday, Rogers and other leaders emphasized the importance of faith communities in responding to COVID-19 and during the rollout of vaccines.
Towey said he thought the office was "a great disappointment during the Obama years," being "pretty much on the distant sidelines" of the administration and, when it took action, was "politicized."
"In this area, I just don't find much optimism that this office will be anything more than what it was in the Obama administration, which was ineffective and cosmetic," Towey said.
Scott Lloyd, former senior advisor at the HHS Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives from 2018-2019, also warned against any politicization of the office.
"The danger with any such effort is that the government ends up using religion to promote or legitimize its own agenda," he said. As the Biden administration "has committed to policies that promote intrinsic evils like abortion," Lloyd said that was concerning for the future of the faith-based office.
Towey emphasized that Rogers must report directly to President Biden so the office is not marginalized within the administration.
That fact, he said, "will tell you if this office is going to be serious or not." If Rogers does not report directly to the president, he said, "then that office will just be smothered in the West Wing bureaucracy, and there'll be three events a year of token significance and nothing more."
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.