From the CBS News article Dancien linked to:
Essentially, the requirements for PPP loans are the same whether a business or organization is secular or not. Churches are automatically granted nonprofit status. So, as long as a house of worship employs 500 people or fewer, it can now request a federal loan for an amount 2.5 times its average monthly payroll.
I'm not familiar with the background here, so can someone please explain?
Congress passes law authorising loans on very advantageous terms to both secular and religious non-profit organisations.
Non-profit organisations, both secular and religious, successfully apply for loans under the scheme.
Assuming the applications were dealt with correctly, what's the problem?
If Congress wanted to attach conditions -- which might, with hindsight, have been a good idea -- to exclude wealthy universities like Harvard, or individual congregations that are part of a large and wealthy church, then it was open to it so to do, but since it didn't, I don't see how the beneficiaries of this congressional largesse can be criticised for applying for loans that Congress voted to offer them.
Laws represent what the legislature intend to happen, and if legislators want to avoid particular consequences they don't intend, then they should draft the laws accordingly, but I don't see how an organisation can fairly be criticised for applying for funds to which it's legally entitled.
Unless the legislation gives the decision-makers this sort of discretion, you can't have a system whereby the government department responsible for processing the applications says, "while this application meets all the criteria for a loan, we're denying it because we don't think this is the sort of thing Congress had in mind when it passed the law," and neither -- it seems to me -- can organisations fairly be criticised for applying for financial assistance to which they're entitled under a specific programme.