You are precisely correct in noting that the teaching of Protestant religion in public schools was a major motivation in the creation and spread of Catholic parochial education. Do not overlook related issues, however. In Catholic schools, we were probably learning more about the Spanish settlements in California, Florida and the Southwest than were public school students taught by the more culturally Anglophile public schools. That the American Catholic hierarchy was largely Irish by ancestry made Catholic schools less sympathetic to England.
Many Catholic churches display substantial collections of statuary depicting saints. St. Mary's Church in New Haven, Connecticut, had an altar in the rear of the church (one of five in the main church) which featured a statue of St. Martin de Porres, a black saint. The presence of that statue served as a reminder that ours was not a religion only for Caucasian folks. Children were led to inquire as to the details of St. Martin de Porres' life that led to his recognition as a saint. The church itself has been substantially remodeled and reconstructed by the Knights of Columbus which was founded in 1882 in the basement of the church by Fr. Michael McGivney, then an assistant pastor, and now under consideration for sainthood.
The Roman Catholic Church in the United States in the 1800s was substantially an immigrant Church of working people of modest means. When a parish could afford a parochial school, it was simply unthinkable that a Catholic would send children to public schools. When I was in a parochial school in the 1950s, our parish had a relatively moderate pastor (one of five parish priests at the time) who seldom preached. He would give a sermon every year about money and the requirement that individual Catholics give (according to their respective means) generously to the support of the Church, parish and school. One year, he reminded the parishioners that the parochial grammar school (which then had about 850 students and double classes K-8 plus nursery school, all taught and run by a couple of dozen quite Catholic nuns) was tuition free, that money was therefore no excuse for sending one's kids to public schools and that any Catholic parent sending their kids to public schools was well along the path to go straight to hell for neglecting the obligation to provide a Catholic education for their kids.
We did not think in terms of whether or not Catholics should be subsidizing the children of those poorer than our own families. We had an obligation to support the Church itself and the Church decided how to spend the money. That idea has not outlived its usefulness as such but the Church bureaucracy has greatly changed since the 1950s. Then, James Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles was known as a "master builder" because of his tremendous success as a builder of parochial schools. Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston and Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York and many dozens of other bishops and archbishops also built schools as fast as the funds were available, investing in the future of the Church in our country.
The Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s became, for the Roman Catholic Church in the USA and elsewhere a tragedy of bureaucratic errors and, some would say, a protective cover for modernism and other heresies against the traditionally conservative social emphasis of the Church. Catholicism in America was never and probably will never be a model of fiscal conservatism in government except insofar as we educated our own at our own expense. The Church has favored labor unions (whose support of abortion and homosexuality is severing that connection prospectively), generous welfare programs for the "deserving poor" and sometimes others as well, been all over the lot on matters military, opposed (but not dogmatically) capital punishment and been mostly patriotic.
Both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are well to the ideological left of the Roman Catholic Church on virtually everything.
The Roman Catholic Church in the United States is afflicted nowadays in many places by infiltration of liberalism into our Church schools by what we may refer to as "Sister Mary Pantsuits" as diocesan superintendents of schools. Sister Mary, Catholic by ancestry and baptism only, is ideologically in the same mode as NEA and AFT. Often she may feel a keen sense of embarrassment among other educators over what she and they view as hidebound attitudes associated with the Church (opposition to abortion, opposition to homosexuality, celibate male-only clergy, etc.). Sister Mary dreams that the Church will enter a brave new world of standard liberal windtunnelism in her time. She will die disappointed in that respect.
She believes that her mission is most certainly NOT to see that the children in diocesan schools are emphatically Catholic but rather that the schools under her conform to NEA/AFT norms methodologically and ideologically. The parents often fail to figure this out because they all too often uncritically trust Church schools.
A small but emerging model formed in response to the need of Catholic parents to educate their children very well in subjects sacred and secular is the parent owned and run private Catholic academies. The word "Catholic" may often not be used in the name because diocesan bishops control the use of that name and not all bishops are good guys on matters educational or devotional but the point is made by calling the school "Our Lady of (whatever)" or St. (whomever firmly Catholic and unquestionably counter-reformation like early Jesuits). As a result, diocesan and parish money is foregone but control remains with the parents regardless of changes in diocesan bureaucracy. The good news for fiscal conservatives is that we also do not want vouchers or other forms of taxpayer subsidy which would bring heathen government strings to govern the school. We were freed, as parents, by the 1920s SCOTUS decision in Pierce vs. the Society of Sisters to make the final decisions on the education of our respective children. We will pay the cost for that from our pockets and those of our contributors who share our vision. The price of freedom is relentless free market fund-raising. So be it.
Without intending any offense to anyone, history should note a distinction between the colonial standards of Spain and England respectively on matters of race. The Church of England had been part (in this Catholic's opinion) of the Roman Catholic Church until the time when Henry VIII's desire for a male heir led him to question the validity of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Henry purported (on failure to obtain an annulment of his marriage) to notice that the Church in England was somehow specifically the Church OF England. Jesus Christ had instructed His apostles to teach and baptize ALL nations. The Spaniards hewed more closely to Christ's commission and encouraged young Spanish soldiers and colonial officials to marry young women of other races in their colonies. The British did not. As a result, race is a perpetual flashpoint in societies rooted in British colonial rule much more so than in Latin America.
Whatever differences Catholics may have with the United States and some of its policies, we Catholics cannot make serious complaint as to our treatment here. America has been good to us. The British model of civil liberties and economics reflected in the basic documents and traditions of this country seem and may well be superior to the models of Catholic countries. The traditional Catholic model of education and as to "lifestyle" issues seems and probably is better. American Catholics have learned as to economics and as to civil liberties from our non-Catholic colleagues here. Perhaps it is in education and as to "lifestyle" issues that we can return the favor.
I would prefer (morally) that my tax money not go to public education and that government money never go to parochial and private schools. If my Church wishes to educate the poor with money donated to the Church, that is OK with me so long as parochial education so funded is genuinely Catholic and all the more OK when all the more Catholic. The race of the recipient is utterly irrelevant. Likewise, nationality. These are all kids and they are all children of God.
Let us get back to a positive view of schooling of whatever sort. Let a thousand schools bloom! Let us have a fair competition on an even playing field. I would be less skeptical of public schools if I had any hope that they could be reclaimed from the left. If they are reclaimed from the left, I could be an enthusiast while still noting that I do not know how we decide whose standards will prevail if anyone's and that I have other things to do with my time than argue with school boards and administrators.
I did know that the former British colonies and the former Spanish colonies had vastly different policies on the matter of race.
The good news for fiscal conservatives is that we also do not want vouchers or other forms of taxpayer subsidy which would bring heathen government strings to govern the school.
That is a big debate. I'm not sure it would be possible for vouchers to fund religious schools without the government eventually trying to control those schools in some insiduous ways.
Let a thousand schools bloom! Let us have a fair competition on an even playing field.
That is a worthy goal.
Exactly. ITA with everything you posted, too.