Editorial

Power to the people:
Voucher decision is victory for parents, children, schools

Remember the saying, "Power to the people"? I think it was used in the civil rights movement, but it also applies - in my opinion - to the school voucher struggle.

Supporters of school vouchers believe that all parents should have the right to decide what school their children will attend. But for many low and even moderate-income families, that choice is limited by the ability to pay. Poorer families often can't afford to pay tuition at private or religious schools. Their only option is the public school. In effect, they have no choice.

Voucher programs empower people. School voucher programs like the ones in Cleveland and Milwaukee give power to the people - the power to choose a school for their children. Those programs include vouchers for religious schools. In Cleveland most participants use their vouchers to pay tuition at church-affiliated schools, nearly all of them Catholic.

In its June 27th ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Cleveland's voucher program as constitutional. The majority of justices in the 5-4 decision said that the voucher program did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The government, said the court, must allow parents to exercise their right to send their children to the school of their choice, even if it's a religious school.

Achieving equal opportunity. Thanks to the Supreme Court, all families - not just those with more money - can have equal educational opportunity. But how will this equal opportunity be made available to families outside of Cleveland and Milwaukee?

Robert Holland, senior fellow for the Lexington Institute, was quoted in a Catholic News Service article as saying, "States now are free to reform school finances so as to advance choice and healthy competition in education. They could drop guaranteed subsidies of systems that have stubbornly resisted reform and instead let public money follow a child to the school his parents choose."

Healthy competition. We know that healthy competition almost always strengthens the entities involved. This happens already with hospitals and colleges. Our public health care facilities and institutions of higher education compete very well with their private counterparts. Competition in most cases only leads to better products and services. Why wouldn't this work with elementary and high school education?

It will be a challenge to reform our educational system to give power to the people. But the cities of Cleveland and Milwaukee have shown us it can work. And the Supreme Court has given us the green light. Now it's up to our educational and legislative leaders with input from all concerned citizens to develop new educational policies empowering parents and children and strengthening all our schools.

Mary C. Uhler, editor

Mailbag

To the editor:

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Just as the U.S. Supreme Court seems to be modifying its stand on capital punishment, the Catholic Church has been modifying its stand on capital punishment in recent years through the influence of Pope John Paul II.

In early Catholic Church history, Tertullian, Lactantius, and Pope Leo I (440-461) condemned capital punishment outright.

In contrast, all of the approximately 164 popes who ruled the Papal States (754-1870) included capital punishment as part of their penal systems. There was one exception. Pope St. Nicholas I (856-867) condemned capital punishment outright. But, Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) made up for all the other popes by ordering the execution of 7,000 bandits over a two-year period. Pope Sixtus V expressed his regret that the number was not larger.

The future status of capital punishment in the mind of the Catholic Church rests with the successor to John Paul II, unless Pope John Paul II surprises us with an infallible document according to the provisions of the First Vatican Council condemning capital punishment with finality.

Charles J. Sippel, Watertown

Bishops don't deserve praise

To the editor:

I agree, for the most part, with your June 20 editorial entitled "Praise for bishops," that is, except for the title itself. I don't think the bishops merit praise for enacting a charter establishing guidelines for what should have been common sense in the first place. Many people consider pedophilia to be worse than murder. For a large number of victims existence is a living death.

I think the church hierarchy's failure to act, indeed its overt suppression of victims and families, can be attributed to the atmosphere of secrecy described by Fr. John Catoir in his "Spirituality for Today" column on the same page. In some cases a bishop's actions amplified the destructive effects of pedophilia, where it existed at all, more than a thousandfold.

I have three grandsons who live in the Archdiocese of Boston; yet I am not afraid for them. I believe that, even when conditions in the archdiocese were at their worst, on average a child was safer with a priest than with a family member, perhaps 10 times safer.

Tom Roberts, Madison

Stopped watching Letterman

To the editor:

I read Miriam Runde's letter. I just wanted to say that we have stopped watching David Letterman for the same reason, crude and hurtful material.

Also disgusted,
Pat Mosher, Evansville