Good points. Tax money is our money. We should have a say in how our money is spent. It bothers me to no end that the State often usurps our voice in how our own money is spent. It’s like they de-sacralize our money and so it can only go to secular, State-approved sources of their own choosing.Here’s something to think about: if school vouchers would become available across the US and an extra 2 million children per year would take the opportunity to attend Catholic schools, that would bring in to the Catholic school system, using an average figure of $5000/per voucher for a school year, an extra $10 billion per year!
Now all we need is stop this lethargic attitude and fight for our rights - including the right to have control over how and where our tax dollars are spent. School choice, and school vouchers, take away the control on tax dollars from state and federal bureaucrats, and give it back to where it should belong: to the parents. It’s just preposterous that the state takes my tax dollars but then when it comes to giving school service to my children in return for my money, the bureaucrats in state or federal governments think that they have a right to tell me where exactly my children should be educated, what exactly they should be taught, and how exactly my own money (my tax dollars!!!) should be spent.
And mass attendance rates are less than 10% in Europe because the Church is merely an extension of the government because it’s tied up financially and legislatively with it. People see it as archaic and a drag on society. Do you really want to go there?You worry is legitimate in some aspects but I disagree with your final conclusion. School vouchers are an excellent idea. Catholic schools are taking public money in many European countries and they are providing faithfully Catholic education. Same thing with Catholic colleges, hospitals, adoption agencies, and other social services in the USA that are taking public money. When a student uses Pell grant money to go to a Catholic college in the USA, he uses public money, but the government does not impose un-Catholic policies on the Catholic colleges. More recently, the state governments tried to impose immoral stuff on adoption agencies in Massachusetts and Illinois, and rather than agree to place kids with gay couples, those Catholic agencies went out of business. Yet, many other Catholic adoption agencies operate in other states, they use taxpayer money, and they do not compromise on their Catholicity.
There’s no reason why we shouldn’t demand the freedom to take our tax dollars to a school of our own choice, including to a Catholic school if we wish so, and school vouchers are the way to do that.
And then you would have more non-catholic students than catholic ones. And you would have to teach the things the state wants you to teach and abide by their standards. You would be discriminating against non-catholic students when you expect them to go to Mass and take catholic instruction. No sale. I think it’s the worst possible idea.Here’s something to think about: if school vouchers would become available across the US and an extra 2 million children per year would take the opportunity to attend Catholic schools, that would bring in to the Catholic school system, using an average figure of $5000/per voucher for a school year, an extra $10 billion per year!
Now all we need is stop this lethargic attitude and fight for our rights - including the right to have control over how and where our tax dollars are spent. School choice, and school vouchers, take away the control on tax dollars from state and federal bureaucrats, and give it back to where it should belong: to the parents. It’s just preposterous that the state takes my tax dollars but then when it comes to giving school service to my children in return for my money, the bureaucrats in state or federal governments think that they have a right to tell me where exactly my children should be educated, what exactly they should be taught, and how exactly my own money (my tax dollars!!!) should be spent.
that would be an empty threat where I live, and in any parish I have worked in that has a school, since the school families are notorious for not supporting the parish. If they want to keep the school open they will do whatever it takes to demonstrate the school is thriving and growing, the children are learning and living the faith, and the diocesan support–without which the schools could not exist–is well spent and effective.Several Catholic elementary schools in my Diocese are closing. The Bishop announced which schools a few weeks ago.
Today in the newspaper, there was an article about the parents protesting the Bishop’s decision. Among other things, the parents are threatening an “Empty School = Empty Envelope” campaign.
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Well, first off, I didn’t say whether I agreed or disagreed with vouchers. I simply commented that using the closing of the adoption agencies didn’t seem to illustrate your point.Wrong again - you concentrate on 2 states (MA, IL) that infringed on Catholic freedom and forget the other 48 that did not. If I would take this kind of defeatist attitude in everyday life, I wouldn’t leave my house because there’s a chance that another car would hit me on the road or whatever. How about the Catholic adoption agencies in the other 48 states, adoption agencies that do take taxpayer money and do a good job consistent with Catholic values?
Another thing you misunderstand, is this: those adoption agencies that were told, “if you take taxpayer money, you must place children into gay households”, were not forced by the government to close. Those adoption agencies were free to reorganize so as to operate only on private donations. The Catholic school equivalent is this: if Catholic schools will receive tax dollars through school vouchers, but then a new administration tells them that they must teach immoral stuff, those Catholic schools will still be free to reject tax dollars and return to operating solely on privately paid tuitions.
Here’s the third thing you forget: Catholic colleges operate today, using tax dollars in the form of Pell grants, and they do not take orders from the government regarding what to teach. If some hypothetical future government will tell Catholic colleges that they must teach immoral stuff as a prerequisite of receiving tax dollars (Pell grants), the Catholic colleges will simply get out of the business of receiving students on Pell grants. However, in the meantime, there are many talented students who attend Catholic colleges on Pell grants, students who could not afford to pay from their own pockets.
I suggest that instead of taking the defeatist attitude that “let’s not even try to legalize school vouchers, because they may come with strings attached”, we take a proactive attitude and let our political representatives know that we want school vouchers and we also want the Catholic identity of our Catholic institutions respected. If essentially a similar system can operate and does operate today in Catholic colleges (only those “school vouchers” are called “Pell grants” instead), why couldn’t it operate just as successfully in Catholic schools?
There is a movement for school vouchers in states like FL and IN, and I think they are doing the smart thing. I as a taxpayer certainly don’t approve of the servile and defeatist attitude according to which the state can take my tax dollars and then herd my children into public schools - no, I want to take my tax dollars with me, to a school of my choice, including a private Catholic school!
I was born and raised in Europe and I can give you several examples from countries such as Britain, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Romania, of Catholic schools taking public money and providing a faithful Catholic education in return. I don’t know from where you take the idea that the Catholic Church is merely an extension of the government in Europe, but in the countries I’m familiar with, this is not so.And mass attendance rates are less than 10% in Europe because the Church is merely an extension of the government because it’s tied up financially and legislatively with it. People see it as archaic and a drag on society. Do you really want to go there?
this did not happen in Fla and Ohio when they had voucher systems, and a law that does allow this is poorly written. Vouchers however is not a solution to the immediate problem of Catholic families who have been told their schools are closing.No. School vouchers would require that we teach what the state tells us to, and have policies like they do. There would be no point in having Catholic schools in that event. It’s a very, very bad idea and opens us up to manipulation.
Look, I absolutely won’t mind if a Protestant or Muslim parent will take the school voucher and send his kid to a Catholic school, simply because they believe that the Catholic school provides a better education. I also won’t mind if the Muslim parent send his kids with the school vouchers to a Muslim school, if the Jewish parent sends his kids and his school voucher money to a Jewish private school, and so on. We are a free country, and I’m all for giving the freedom of school choice back to kids and to their parents.And then you would have more non-catholic students than catholic ones. And you would have to teach the things the state wants you to teach and abide by their standards. You would be discriminating against non-catholic students when you expect them to go to Mass and take catholic instruction. No sale. I think it’s the worst possible idea.
Catholic identity is what we need, and you don’t get that by hiring non-catholic teachers and immersing our students in thousands of non-catholics, telling them it makes no difference. Vouchers are a horrible idea, nothing more than a money grab. Selling Catholic identity for a few $$$$. Sad.
How about if half the kids who showed up at the Catholic school on opening day were non-catholics? What if some of them were strident Muslims? Some of them with gay parents, even militant gay parents? Some of them with learning disablities whose parents were trying to avoid “labeling?” Some of them with police records? Some of them bound and determined to treat the school as a prep school and nothing else? To the point of being popular and declaring in religion class that God doesn’t exist? Defiantly. Over and over. While being supported by their parents.Look, I absolutely won’t mind if a Protestant or Muslim parent will take the school voucher and send his kid to a Catholic school, simply because they believe that the Catholic school provides a better education. I also won’t mind if the Muslim parent send his kids with the school vouchers to a Muslim school, if the Jewish parent sends his kids and his school voucher money to a Jewish private school, and so on. We are a free country, and I’m all for giving the freedom of school choice back to kids and to their parents.
The fact remains that the faith is all but dead in Europe. The weekly mass attendance rate is less than 10% in most of Europe. Currently in Austria and Germany, many people are revoking their membership to save on taxes.I was born and raised in Europe and I can give you several examples from countries such as Britain, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Romania, of Catholic schools taking public money and providing a faithful Catholic education in return. I don’t know from where you take the idea that the Catholic Church is merely an extension of the government in Europe, but in the countries I’m familiar with, this is not so.
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Btw, the European system where taxpayers can redirect part of their tax money to a Church of their own choice, is something I wish we would emulate here in America. But school vouchers are another brilliant idea that we should work to implement, regardless and apart of any other ideas and solutions.
That is interesting. Many people think that congregations, institutes and orders are all part of the diocese, but no. How all that works is actually a function of their classification in canon law and their various rules and constitutions. Some of them have permission to be in dioceses perpetually, and some don’t. Very few bishops will mess with them once they have established permission, particularly if they are of pontifical right. You didn’t say what kind of brothers, but yes, that may be what’s going on.We have an interesting situation here in lower Manhattan, NYC. There was a parish in the East Village neighborhood that had a a large building that ran an entire block in length, with the Church and Rectory facing one street, and the school attached to the rear of the Church and Rectory facing the next street. It had a large garage and parking lot adjacent to the building that bordered on an avenue. There was a 2 story building on the corner.
Originally, the neighborhood was wall to wall Italian immigrants. However, there was a decline in this population that was replaced with WASPS and non-church going Puerto Ricans. The end of this ethnic neighborhood came 15 years ago with gentrification and a significant loss of parishioners.
Well, NYU desired the location, ostensibily for a dormitory, so they approached Cardinal Eagan our former Archbishop, who was in the process of combining several redundant Parishes and Parochial Schools and closing others. Well, the School and Church were closed and the Parish abolished. What happened then was that it turned out that the land that the parking lot and corner building did not belong to the Diocese. It belonged to an order of Italian Brothers, who when approached by the University said absolutely not.
Well, the Cardinal has retired, and although the new Archbishop hasn’t re-established the Parish, he has re-opened the church for one Mass every Sunday, and a potential congregation is growing. Incidentally, the parking lot was originally part of the Churches cemetary which was re-located in the 1920’2-'30’s. It is of interest because that is where DaPonte, the librettist for Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni was buried.
Those colleges that are no longer really Catholic are not that way because their students brought Pell Grant money with them.And piperatus, don’t even get me started on Catholic colleges. Better than half of them aren’t really catholic at all except in name only. Most of them are no longer run by religious congregations, but rather by a board of lay directors, who want to be as successful as any college board of directors and will do most anything to see to it they are.
Yes, they have the usual financial arrangements. And yes, they are in direct competition with other colleges because frankly, they’re almost exactly the same thing, except for the accidents of their history.
A few of them are decently Catholic still, but they’re in the minority.
And honestly, if you want your children to get a good education AND keep their faith, you’re better off just sending them to the nearest state university.
The more of them that come, the more Pell money they bring. Head count is name of the game and you don’t get head count UNLESS you aren’t too picky so you appeal to everyone. It’s all about “brands.” Higher education has been a big business for a couple of decades now.Those colleges that are no longer really Catholic are not that way because their students brought Pell Grant money with them.
Perhaps, iloveangels, but the idea of standards slipping just to get warm bodies in the school…I think that’s already happening!I’ll tell you what. You make vouchers the name of the game in K-12 education, you’ll have the same thing there too. All the K-12 schools will be competing for head count, and trying to get all the warm bodies they can for the sheer $$$$ of it. Because success breeds success in the world, you dare not get behind–failure snowballs. That’s how these things work once you jump on the bandwagon.
Where are we now, though? Wouldn’t we be doing that now, to get the tuition money?The more of them that come, the more Pell money they bring. Head count is name of the game and you don’t get head count UNLESS you aren’t too picky so you appeal to everyone. It’s all about “brands.” Higher education has been a big business for a couple of decades now.
I’ll tell you what. You make vouchers the name of the game in K-12 education, you’ll have the same thing there too. All the K-12 schools will be competing for head count, and trying to get all the warm bodies they can for the sheer $$$$ of it. Because success breeds success in the world, you dare not get behind–failure snowballs. That’s how these things work once you jump on the bandwagon.
All semblance of Catholicity will go right down the crapper if this happens. Don’t want to inconvenience somebody–we’d loose head count!
Diocese are huge businesses. I am sure the closings are based on “business decisions”. Our local public school district closed/consolidated a few schools because they were 1/2 empty and under performing. There were people upset about the closings because “they went to that school”.The new archbishop isn’t a native, though he does come from a neighboring state; he is more of a businessman and fairly dispassionate.