Lustre of Our Country - Continuing the Review of Noonan's Classic | National Catholic Reporter

Lustre of Our Country - Continuing the Review of Noonan's Classic | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: The question of public funding of religious activities is interesting.  The opposition to it comes from a fear of papism, which has declined in recent years.  It is obvious that the students deserve a full level of support.  The question is, does the leadership.  The difficulty is that most parish assets are held in trust under the legal ownership of the local bishop, who is appointed by the Pope and supervised by the Papal Nuncio.  If these schools were solely owned and controlled by non-profit parent boards (possibly with a religious member), this objection would vanish.  The other concern is more modern, the opposition of parish schools to both unionization and credentialing.  This is a point where the Church should yield some ground in exchange for public funds - but those funds should not be at the expense of the current system but must instead be funded by an increase in property taxes, especially in higher income neighborhoods where the parents of elite private schools reside, as they will likely be the beneficiaries of such an increase.