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iloveangels
Guest
BTW, I’m a convert and I have to tell you if you don’t know. Catholics are among the cheapest Christians around. They drive in the parking lot in their nice cars with their 2.3 kids, and then they put $1 bills and change in the collection plate. You can hear it clink. And then on top of it all, they whine and carry on about paying tuition to their own schools for their own kids. It’s disgraceful.
Did you know that the average congregation in a little protestant church (about 70-100 people) will pay for all the expenses to the church including paying off the mortgage, support and maintain a minister with his family rent utilities and all in a nice house, have a bus for the youth group and a whole fleet of apostolates fully funded? Do you realize this???
Catholics are so cheap.
/rant
Did you know that the average congregation in a little protestant church (about 70-100 people) will pay for all the expenses to the church including paying off the mortgage, support and maintain a minister with his family rent utilities and all in a nice house, have a bus for the youth group and a whole fleet of apostolates fully funded? Do you realize this???
Catholics are so cheap.
/rant
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JillyAnn
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No one is arguing the authority of the closures…but, isn’t it all about money really? and not having enough of it to keep these schools open? and decreasing diocesan debt?
I’m just exploring the consequences of the closures…not just for all of the parents but for the employees who are probably now in a mild state of anxiety…I know what it’s like, as an employee, to have the rug pulled out from under me…
I’m just exploring the consequences of the closures…not just for all of the parents but for the employees who are probably now in a mild state of anxiety…I know what it’s like, as an employee, to have the rug pulled out from under me…
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iloveangels
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Look for those teachers, it might be a shame to lose employment with a Catholic apostolate, yes. But the needs of the church change and if they want to do Catholic apostolic work, they will find another opportunity. The church is still there. That hasn’t changed.
For teachers who are upset because they’ve lost a job, a paying position, well yes. They lost a job. That’s sad. But it’s a job, it’s not like people all over don’t lose jobs sometimes. These things happen. The solution is to get another one.
PS. If the job and the money is the primary thing, and they have a valid teaching certificate in their state (and not all Catholic school teachers do), and if they want a job that is harder to lose, then they need to look at the public schools which are a real possibility for them. They have unions. They’ll have to compete but all applicants do.
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JillyAnn
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iloveangels…you seem quite angry…as i said, i am simply exploring consequences of this decision…not my diocese either…
You are very harsh and judgmental of your fellow man, my friend…
I don’t know where you live, but in the several places I have lived the congregation supports the church or the diocese shuts it down…and we are back to one of the reasons the school are being closed. ONE of the reasons the schools are being closed…If the schools don’t have enough students or are not functioning effectively it means they don’t bring in enough money…it’s a simple business model…unless you are involved in running a business it might be hard to understand this…it isn’t a sin, it’s a function of operating costs…
a) are protestants forced to tith(sp?)…one reason why Baptists, protestants,etc down south are converting to Catholicism…no required tithing…people can’t afford it.
b) I can’t imagine the protestant diocese are set up the same way the Catholic diocese are…it’s pretty much apples and oranges…different faiths and different beliefs, different moralities…
You are very harsh and judgmental of your fellow man, my friend…
I don’t know where you live, but in the several places I have lived the congregation supports the church or the diocese shuts it down…and we are back to one of the reasons the school are being closed. ONE of the reasons the schools are being closed…If the schools don’t have enough students or are not functioning effectively it means they don’t bring in enough money…it’s a simple business model…unless you are involved in running a business it might be hard to understand this…it isn’t a sin, it’s a function of operating costs…
a) are protestants forced to tith(sp?)…one reason why Baptists, protestants,etc down south are converting to Catholicism…no required tithing…people can’t afford it.
b) I can’t imagine the protestant diocese are set up the same way the Catholic diocese are…it’s pretty much apples and oranges…different faiths and different beliefs, different moralities…
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iloveangels
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I’m not angry, but I have taught in the classroom, public and private, and I believe that most people take that for granted, and Catholics are the worst of the lot. There is no reason to keep multiple catholic schools in the same geographic area open just because of people’s attachments to them, if they don’t serve their purpose anymore.
I also think that people are out of line when they think that a) the church should just give them things because they want them, and b) they can question the bishop about what apostolates the diocese should engage in.
I also think that people tend to see the Church as a cultural or ethnic phenomenon when they are unwilling to see it primarily as a religion. The Church is a religion that runs a school as an apostolate and NOT the other way around.
BTW, by and large, Protestants are not forced to tithe. They do this willingly out of love and belonging. My grandfather was a protestant minister, so I know this. They also go to church more than once a week, read the bible regularly as a norm, participate on church events during the week or on Saturday, and you don’t have to drag them to learn anything new like you do Catholics.
I’m catholic because Catholicism is true, but I’m appalled at times by the behavior of other Catholics. Catholics really are cheap. And the enthusiasm level is in the basement. Many Catholics act as though they are ashamed of their faith. Or as though they were saddled with something as children and wish they hadn’t been and are trying to live it down. Look around CAF and see if you don’t see multiple threads on “can I do this and get away with it,” and “why is so and so wrong,” when the church (and tradition, and scripture, etc etc) clearly teaches that it is. Or “why do I have to pay for this” which is one of the prominent sub-themes of this thread right here.
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bcra
Guest
i feel your concern as the city i was raised in today has no catholic schools all six have closed including the grammar schooli ve attended and all catholic churches are now gone. when i was a child 98% of the city was attending a catholic school. i pray for the classmates of my old parish now gone
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iloveangels
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PS. JillyAnn,
Many protestant churches aren’t set up in dioceses. Only some, like Episcopalians are. Some are in conferences which are mostly advisory, but many are independent.
They really do pay the mortgages, utilities, upkeep etc on their own buildings and pay the salary and living expenses of their pastors and their families. They maintain offices and the church, and the youth group.
Some of the bigger ones can maintain a church school, but more often they go in with other congregations of the same or similar denominations and set up a self-standing Christian school that’s rather similar to our Catholic schools only obviously the religion classes are protestant. Then they pay for that too.
So yes, they are set up differently. And the costs for all this would make the average Catholic faint dead away.
Many protestant churches aren’t set up in dioceses. Only some, like Episcopalians are. Some are in conferences which are mostly advisory, but many are independent.
They really do pay the mortgages, utilities, upkeep etc on their own buildings and pay the salary and living expenses of their pastors and their families. They maintain offices and the church, and the youth group.
Some of the bigger ones can maintain a church school, but more often they go in with other congregations of the same or similar denominations and set up a self-standing Christian school that’s rather similar to our Catholic schools only obviously the religion classes are protestant. Then they pay for that too.
So yes, they are set up differently. And the costs for all this would make the average Catholic faint dead away.
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iloveangels
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98% of the whole city? Really. I have trouble with this idea if you’re in a larger city or town in the USA. Maybe you’re in an enclave, an isolated area or a Catholic part of a bigger city. And maybe this could be true in Ireland or Spain or some traditionally Catholic country.
The US averages a little over 20% catholic at any given time and I believe it’s never been any higher than that overall.
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L_piperatus
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HouseArrest
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I think that is true for most Catholic schools, except for a few that are independent of a parish.
Of course it would be financially easier for everyone involved if the schools were self supporting, but is there any outreach or program in any given parish self supporting? I am not sure why the diocese expects the schools to be. Maybe they don’t in other parishes, but in ours we had a new priest a few years ago that came in and wanted the school to operate independently of the parish in a ridiculous amount of time, with no help from the finance council. They wouldn’t help form a committee, wouldn’t ask for any parishioners to write grants, nothing. It was very stressful.
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L_piperatus
Guest
Even better, let’s put the government in charge of supplying for our clothing needs. I suggest we enact a new mandatory tax that will supply, free of charge, clothing items deemed appropriate by the government, for all Americans. Now, if you are so picky that what the government provides is not good enough to you, you can always go to Macy’s and buy something different for yourself, but you will have to pay, nevertheless, taxes that will ensure that all Americans can buy, free of charge, some poor quality clothing produced at twice the cost of private retailers.
Why poor quality, and why will it cost more to produce it? Because this will be the government clothing service, and unionized government employees baby! 
See here - quote from open.salon.com/blog/richard_rider/2011/05/12/rider_letter_in_ws_journal_–_school_vouchers_far_cheaper :
Wall Street Journal
May 5, 2011
If Supermarkets Were Like Public Schools
What if groceries were paid for by taxes, and you were assigned a store based on where you live?
By Donald J. Boudreaux
Teachers unions and their political allies argue that market forces can’t supply quality education. According to them, only our existing system—politicized and monopolistic—will do the trick. Yet Americans would find that approach ludicrous if applied to other vital goods or services.
Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket according to its home address. And each family would get its weekly allotment of groceries—“for free”—from its neighborhood public supermarket.
No family would be permitted to get groceries from a public supermarket outside of its district. Fortunately, though, thanks to a Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer. Private-supermarket families, however, would receive no reductions in their property taxes.
Of course, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in families’ choices about where to live. Real-estate agents and chambers of commerce in prosperous neighborhoods would brag about the high quality of public supermarkets to which families in their cities and towns are assigned.
Being largely protected from consumer choice, almost all public supermarkets would be worse than private ones. In poor counties the quality of public supermarkets would be downright abysmal. Poor people—entitled in principle to excellent supermarkets—would in fact suffer unusually poor supermarket quality.
How could it be otherwise? Public supermarkets would have captive customers and revenues supplied not by customers but by the government. Of course they wouldn’t organize themselves efficiently to meet customers’ demands.
Responding to these failures, thoughtful souls would call for “supermarket choice” fueled by vouchers or tax credits. Those calls would be vigorously opposed by public-supermarket administrators and workers.
Please go to website given above for the rest of the article - scroll down to bottom of web page.
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HouseArrest
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EXACTLY! Thank you!Even better, let’s put the government in charge of supplying for our clothing needs. I suggest we enact a new mandatory tax that will supply, free of charge, clothing items deemed appropriate by the government, for all Americans. Now, if you are so picky that what the government provides is not good enough to you, you can always go to Macy’s and buy something different for yourself, but you will have to pay, nevertheless, taxes that will ensure that all Americans can buy, free of charge, some poor quality clothing produced at twice the cost of private retailers.
See here - quote from open.salon.com/blog/richard_rider/2011/05/12/rider_letter_in_ws_journal_–_school_vouchers_far_cheaper :
Wall Street Journal
May 5, 2011
If Supermarkets Were Like Public Schools
What if groceries were paid for by taxes, and you were assigned a store based on where you live?
By Donald J. Boudreaux
Teachers unions and their political allies argue that market forces can’t supply quality education. According to them, only our existing system—politicized and monopolistic—will do the trick. Yet Americans would find that approach ludicrous if applied to other vital goods or services.
Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket according to its home address. And each family would get its weekly allotment of groceries—“for free”—from its neighborhood public supermarket.
No family would be permitted to get groceries from a public supermarket outside of its district. Fortunately, though, thanks to a Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer. Private-supermarket families, however, would receive no reductions in their property taxes.
Of course, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in families’ choices about where to live. Real-estate agents and chambers of commerce in prosperous neighborhoods would brag about the high quality of public supermarkets to which families in their cities and towns are assigned.
Being largely protected from consumer choice, almost all public supermarkets would be worse than private ones. In poor counties the quality of public supermarkets would be downright abysmal. Poor people—entitled in principle to excellent supermarkets—would in fact suffer unusually poor supermarket quality.
How could it be otherwise? Public supermarkets would have captive customers and revenues supplied not by customers but by the government. Of course they wouldn’t organize themselves efficiently to meet customers’ demands.
Responding to these failures, thoughtful souls would call for “supermarket choice” fueled by vouchers or tax credits. Those calls would be vigorously opposed by public-supermarket administrators and workers.
Please go to website given above for the rest of the article - scroll down to bottom of web page.
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L_piperatus
Guest
Here’s another funny quote from Donald J. Boudreaux’ article (see link to article in my previous post):
As for the handful of radicals who call for total separation of supermarket and state—well, they would be criticized by almost everyone as antisocial devils indifferent to the starvation that would haunt the land if the provision of groceries were governed exclusively by private market forces.
In the face of calls for supermarket choice, supermarket-workers unions would use their significant resources for lobbying—in favor of public-supermarkets’ monopoly power and against any suggestion that market forces are appropriate for delivering something as essential as groceries. Some indignant public-supermarket defenders would even rail against the insensitivity of referring to grocery shoppers as “customers,” on the grounds that the relationship between the public servants who supply life-giving groceries and the citizens who need those groceries is not so crass as to be discussed in terms of commerce.
Recognizing that the erosion of their monopoly would stop the gravy train that pays their members handsome salaries without requiring them to satisfy paying customers, unions would ensure that any grass-roots effort to introduce supermarket choice meets fierce political opposition.
school vouchers and school choice, supermarket vouchers and supermarket choice - bad bad bad!!!
As for the handful of radicals who call for total separation of supermarket and state—well, they would be criticized by almost everyone as antisocial devils indifferent to the starvation that would haunt the land if the provision of groceries were governed exclusively by private market forces.
In the face of calls for supermarket choice, supermarket-workers unions would use their significant resources for lobbying—in favor of public-supermarkets’ monopoly power and against any suggestion that market forces are appropriate for delivering something as essential as groceries. Some indignant public-supermarket defenders would even rail against the insensitivity of referring to grocery shoppers as “customers,” on the grounds that the relationship between the public servants who supply life-giving groceries and the citizens who need those groceries is not so crass as to be discussed in terms of commerce.
Recognizing that the erosion of their monopoly would stop the gravy train that pays their members handsome salaries without requiring them to satisfy paying customers, unions would ensure that any grass-roots effort to introduce supermarket choice meets fierce political opposition.
school vouchers and school choice, supermarket vouchers and supermarket choice - bad bad bad!!!
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L_piperatus
Guest
HouseArrest, I know I’m just goofing off, but can’t resist…
Our government-run public clothing services will supply one-style-fits-all LGBT-friendly clothing only to all, whatever that means… at least transvestites will have an easier life…
Red and green-colored clothing will NOT be available during Christm… er… Holiday Season! It’s really insensitive towards atheists and agnostics to stuff the Government Clothing Stores with such items during Christm… er… Holiday Season!
And everybody will pay taxes so that the well-paid unionized Government employees will produce really expensive, really poor quality, LGBT-friendly clothing for all, sanitized of all vestiges of Christianity! And there will be no exceptions, whether we use “free” Government Clothing or shop at Macy’s instead, we will all pay taxes to support Government Clothing!
(or NOT!!!
)
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HouseArrest
Guest
Haaa! It is so funny, but scary at the same time, because it is true!HouseArrest, I know I’m just goofing off, but can’t resist…
Our government-run public clothing services will supply one-style-fits-all LGBT-friendly clothing only to all, whatever that means… at least transvestites will have an easier life…
Red and green-colored clothing will NOT be available during Christm… er… Holiday Season! It’s really insensitive towards atheists and agnostics to stuff the Government Clothing Stores with such items during Christm… er… Holiday Season!
And everybody will pay taxes so that the well-paid unionized Government employees will produce really expensive, really poor quality, LGBT-friendly clothing for all, sanitized of all vestiges of Christianity! And there will be no exceptions, whether we use “free” Government Clothing or shop at Macy’s instead, we will all pay taxes to support Government Clothing!
(or NOT!!!
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iloveangels
Guest
Hey you can get one of those funny suits. All you have to do is pull off a petty crime, and voila there you are in an orange jumpsuit with a number on it. Latest style, 3 sizes too big (or too small) and freshly laundered (or not), complete with no sox and a photo op of your very own. The garb of your dreams. Don’t like it? You could always pay bail and put your own clothes back on.
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annaevers
Guest
I can’t talk about the American schools. However, I may express some opinion on Catholic schools in Western Australia. I’m sole parent of three. The oldest left the faith while attending Catholic high school due to lack of proper Catholic faith education and many so called Catholics sending their kids to this prestigious school.
My middle boy in that high school is one of two maybe three kids in his year (ca. 200 kids in his year) attending the Holy Mass and keeping his faith. There are plenty of agnostics and atheists in that school. And also other religions. The main reason the school exist is to make profit.
My youngest one just finished primary. I can say he was the only one from the Parish school that attended the Mass every week. I have heard parents complaining that they must come to additional Mass on Sunday to get the certificate of Confirmation, which was not given on the day of confirmation. Frankly, those people are sending their kids to the Catholic school because of the status, nothing more.
Although I couldn’t afford paying, I really wish, the Catholic schools would be for the faithful. So, even my situation is not directly related to the OP, I can see that the vouchers will bring the school to the business level, not faith level. The faith will be lost down the track.
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faithfully
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Maybe it’s 'cause I live in a wealthier area… My parish collects $11,000-$15,000 a week. That’s reported in our bulletin. The school has fund raisers. They are quite healthy in result.
I’ve witnessed very frugal priests. We just changed preists, and the new one has informed us the last several have allowed the living quarters fall apart. He just asked for $$, and there it was. I find people give when they know what they are supporting. We’ve also funded the needs of schools within our diocese, but in a much poorer community. So their only Catholic school can stay open.
I’ve also belonged to a parish where the entire parish gathered to paint the entire convent, top to bottom. Sand and refinish all the pews in the main church. (And that was a beautiful elaborate church, in a broke community). Basically, every parish I’ve belonged to wealthy or not has stepped up and solved it’s problems. Perhaps the problems lie more within the culture of the community? The culture within the communities I live in are to SOLVE PROBLEMS…
I personally wouldn’t generalize like this.
edit: excuse my spelling… my brain is tired no idea when it will wake up!
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iloveangels
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This is the same thing that’s happened in Canada, where the Catholic school tuition is paid by the government.
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