There's a new push to get the Pennsylvania state government to fund Catholic schools. In the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, principals were told that any family receiving tuition assistance would be required to lobby their state legislator to pass the school voucher bill. What's more, they'd have to provide documentation to the Catholic Diocese or lose their funding.
Once this started to become public, diocese officials "corrected" the original letter, insisting that they simply wanted to "encourage" parents to lobby on behalf of state funding for Catholic education -- even though state funding of religion is banned in the state constitution.
Mr. Bowes' [Ronald T. Bowes, assistant superintendent for policy and development] email began by saying "we must be relentless in our efforts to help pass school choice this year. I am asking you to inform parents that have received tuition assistance that they must contact their legislators and return the contact form attached to you in order to receive a grant next year. I then want you to return these contact forms to me. This way we can insure that a solid effort is being carried out by our diocese."
The attached forms ask for the date, the name of the parent and the school, the name of the state senator and state representative, the number of times contacted and how, the legislator's position and "if oppose, why?"
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
This would have produced a firestorm if it had been allowed to stand. It might even have helped the anti-voucher efforts by revealing just what sorts of activity the diocese gets involved with. It's instructive, I think, that the letter offers no reason why religious school vouchers are legal or justified. It just strikes me as a blatant grab for money: there's not enough interest among Catholics for a Catholic education, so Catholic officials want the rest of us to pay for it.
Well, I don't think that taxpayers should be required to fund religious education for other people's churches.
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