Posted on 09/19/2005 10:36:04 AM PDT by Coleus
Vatican official decries lack of public funding for Catholic schools
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The lack of public funding for religiously sponsored schools in the United States is an injustice and an "incredible anomaly" in the world, a Vatican education official said Sept. 14.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, said Europeans "are absolutely amazed at the situation in the United States," one of the few nations in the world that provides little or no public funding for the education of children in religiously run schools. That policy puts the United States "in the company of Mexico, North Korea, China and Cuba," he said.
Citing "the enormous contribution to society made by Catholic schools," he said providing public funding for that service is a matter of distributive justice. The right to a Catholic education "is so fundamental to the life of the church that this struggle cannot be given up," he said.
Archbishop Miller, a Canadian who was president of St. Thomas University in Houston for six years before his appointment to the education congregation in 2003, was the keynote speaker at a conference on Catholic elementary and secondary education held at The Catholic University of America.
His talk focused on what characteristics make a Catholic school Catholic.
In a brief conversation with Catholic News Service just before his talk, he confirmed that the next day he was to begin meeting in Baltimore with the 117 U.S. bishops and seminary personnel assigned by the education congregation to conduct visitations in all U.S. seminaries and formation houses over the next year or so.
The visitations, sparked by the clergy sexual abuse crisis, are to focus especially on seminary admission policies and the quality of programs forming seminarians in fidelity to church teachings and in living chaste, celibate lives.
Archbishop Miller declined to discuss details of the meeting in Baltimore, saying it would be inappropriate for him to do so.
In his talk he emphasized that in Catholic teaching "parents are the first educators of their children" and the education given in schools is an extension of parental education, carried out "in the name of the parents, with their consent."
Because of parental rights to form their children in accord with their moral and religious convictions, "in principle a state monopoly of education is impermissible," he said. The church upholds the principle of a plurality of school systems and the rights of parents to choose among them, he said.
Speaking of what makes Catholic schools Catholic, he said the church's mission of evangelization is fundamental. Education, raising children so that their whole life is imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, "is an ecclesial responsibility," he said.
The first mark of a Catholic school is that it is "inspired by a supernatural vision," seeing to the education of the full child, not only for service to society, but for love of God and holiness of life for the sake of the child's ultimate destiny, he said. "It is about saint-making," he commented.
He said Catholic education should be marked by "a profound Christian anthropology," an understanding of the human person as a child of God, seen in the light of Christ and divine revelation.
Many views of the human person found in education "simply are not Christian," he said, but in a Catholic school the person and message of Jesus Christ should be what "anchors the whole system."
Another mark of a Catholic school is that it is "animated by communion and community," he said. He praised U.S. Catholic schools for their recognition of the importance of parental involvement in their children's education.
Archbishop Miller cited the "totalizing experience" of Catholicism as another element that should pervade Catholic education. The Catholic world view encompasses the entire spectrum of education, he said, because it affects one's understanding of history, society, the person and the nature of knowledge.
He recalled Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's homily, on the eve of the conclave in which he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, in which the pope-to-be condemned the widespread "dictatorship of relativism" in contemporary culture.
"The greatest challenge to Catholic education in the United States today," the archbishop said, would be to restore in American culture "the conviction that human beings can grasp the truth" and that real freedom rests on truth.
A final critical mark of Catholic education lies in "the witness of the teachers," he said.
Catholic schools need committed, practicing Catholics as teachers because children learn from their example and their witness to the faith, he said.
The conference, which drew a variety of local and national Catholic education leaders, was co-sponsored by Catholic University and the Solidarity Association, an organization that promotes Catholic schools.
The City pays for school nurses and for crossing guards
The state and city gives all property a property tax exemption and sales-tax exemption, the IRS grants non-profit status.
The state and city pay for basic skills and comp. ed. instruction.
Now as far as the larger expenses such as infrastructure, salaries, payroll taxes, utilities and health insurance, the schools are on their own.
The good archbishop is probably like many of the bishops, priests, clergy and about 50% of lay Catholics, they TALK pro life and school vouchers and VOTE democrat. The USCCB had NO voter guide for the 2004 election and neither did most state catholic conferences (the legislative arm of that state's bishops). Did the archbishop provide a voters' guide for his diocese? I bet not. They get what they deserve--many Catholic shcool closings.
Most would rather take up many social justice issuses like fostering illegal immigration, welfare, free housing for the poor while the middle class who pay tuition for catholic schools get property and income tax increases to pay for these social programs.
Is it that they don't understand our form or government or, that they don't care?
I think it's a good thing that they don't fund religious schools here, whether Catholic or not.
It sounds like the Bishop should be campaigning for school vouchers. If vouchers were in effect, most of them would be spent on schools like the ones he is promoting.
In most towns, catholic schools are the best and only alternative to public schools. This is a situation that is changing, and would change more once vouchers are approved. But definitely a good voucher program would benefit catholic schools.
Probably that they don't understand our form of government. I have read elsewhere that the US is one of the only, or at least very few, countries in the world that does not at least partially fund religious schools. And it always puts us in company of the world's worst.
The more the government spends, the more the church has for its own purposes.
The more the government spends, the more the church has for its own purposes.
I think vouchers should be allowed to funnel the money to the schools you want to send your kids to.
In California we spend I hear $7500 on a regular kid and $15,000 on a non-english speaking child.
IMO if we send even half to the school of our choice and send the rest of the money back to the Stae or Federal general budget away from the (Teacher's union), then great for everyone.
The quality of education results will rise if that happened IMO.
My kids go to Catholic school and I want the government as far away as possible from that school, thank you. The moment the government starts funding things, it has found a way to influence those same things.
I'll pay my own way, thanks.
Nope. This dog don't hunt.
While I sent one child to a Christian (not Catholic) school for a year and would have liked to have had a voucher system or some other way to help defray to cost, our gubmint ejucashun system is not set up to fund Catholic or any other private school just because the school is there.
Yeah, I'd rather have my grandkids in a Christian school and support a voucher system, but the program suggested by this guy crosses the constitutional line IMO.
Judging by the tone of the article, sounds like they don't care to me.
Amen!
Just what we need, the likes of the Archbishop of Los Angeles sucking at the public teat.
He's a Vatican bureaucrat who's a Canadian citizen, so it's safe to say his diocese is a titular one somewhere outside the US, and doesn't have a lot of American voters in it. :-)
There ought to be some form of tax relief for those of us who educate our own children on our own nickel. If all the kids in the Catholic and other private school systems were dumped into the public system, there's no way they could handle it.
This makes no sense to me. The church gets the majority of its money from parishioners' tithing. The more money parishioners pay in taxes, the less money they have to support their church.
I hear this often -- what's the proof of this? Just curious. I am inclined to support vouchers and would like an example of where they have led to government "control" of schools and how this occurred.
Without Government support via vouchers, every parent sending their kids to parochial schools is paying *twice*.
Vouchers will *NOT* increase taxes overall because they will break down the Government educrat monopoly. Instead of $8000 per child a $5000 voucher will suffice for most schools.
Presto - lower taxes, better education and less hostility towards religion in the upbrining of children.
Think about it. The US is as hostile to religion as Cuba and China. The current policy was designed by the ACLU, not the American voter and not parents.
Bingo.
The main argument against prayer at graduations, "moments of silence" before the school day, and other religious references in public schools, is that they receive public money. Public funding is their foothold into every institution we have. Should Catholic and other parochial schools receive taxpayer-provided funds, sure enough, the ACLU would be right behind them, telling them what they could and couldn't do.
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