The Denver Roman Catholic Archdiocese on Thursday announced a $3 million voucher program to help parents who can’t afford Catholic schooling for their children.
Church officials said they modeled the privately funded grant program after an embattled public-voucher system, which the Catholic Church supported, that never went into effect in Colorado. The state Supreme Court ruled the program unconstitutional in 2004.
This defeat created a need, Archbishop Charles Chaput said.
"I think if we had government vouchers, our Catholic schools would be full," he said.
Chaput said giving charitable funds in the form of vouchers is not a political statement. The church intended to give parents the financial power to choose where to send their kids and how to nurture their spirituality, he said.
It is good to see the Archbishop not waiting around for the government to do what should be done and to help ensure the availability of a Catholic education to those who can’t afford it (or at least not while simultaneously paying properties taxes to provide money to send other people’s kids to public schools.) Being that this is the Archdiocese of Denver the Catholic schools there probably even provide a solid Catholic education
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Instead of vouchers, the bishop should subsidize the Catholic school systems to be free like public schools. At least I think that’s what the bishop in Lincoln, Nebraska did.
Government vouchers will come with government strings. Not at first, but quickly. First there will be the reasonable regulations for health and safety. Then a few reasonable curriculum requirements. Then mandatory “diversity” training in all schools accepting government vouchers. Then a requirement that all schools receiving government vouchers provide access to birth control and refer for abortions.
In short, government vouchers will turn Catholic schools into public schools. Chaput has the right idea, but it just amazes me that the bishops are so used to having their national conference act as a subordinate affiliate of the Democratic Party, that they are actually offended when they don’t get a hand out.
If the government does anything, it should allow a tax credit for money spent at any K-12 school. That way we could send our kids to Catholic schools that stay Catholic (fighting our bishops keep them Catholic is another story) and the government will never get the money long enough to attach strings to it.
As a product of the Denver Catholic school system, I am sad to say I didn’t get a particularly solid Catholic education. It wasn’t terrible, and we did have at least one orthodox theology teacher at my high school, but the school felt Catholic for about twelve hours a year (which more or less covers the number of masses we had).
I have a friend who is a relatively new and solidly orthodox teacher at a Denver-area Catholic school. He has a few stories about biting his tongue in the face of silly season principals and having to disabuse his students of heresies they picked up from his colleagues.
But perhaps more money will mean more scrutiny, rather than less Christianity.
I also attended Catholic school in Denver. I found that my grade school provided a pretty solid Catholic education. My high school was slightly different, too many older spirit of VII types teaching there. I am hopeful though since there has been an infusion of younger teachers there and the new principle was my favorite teacher when I went there.