Relations between Pope Benedict's personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, and Pope Francis have been acrimonious, to say the least. Ganswein wrote a tell-all book which was very critical of Pope Francis, which came out less than a week after the Pope-emeritus' funeral. Unsurprisingly, Pope Francis didn't give him an assignment which would have enabled him to stay in the Vatican. However a year after Ganswein was told he needed to return home to Germany, it has been announced that he does have a new assignment. From this article in NCR:
"One year after relieving Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the longtime personal secretary to Pope Benedict XVI, of his Vatican duties and sending him home to Germany without an assignment, Pope Francis has named the controversial prelate as the Vatican's ambassador to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia."
"The appointment was announced on June 24 in the Vatican's daily bulletin after months of speculation that Francis might reverse course and give the former prefect of the papal household a new job."
"While it is customary for personal secretaries of the popes to leave the Vatican following the death of the individual they served, it is unusual for them to exit without a new role. But Gänswein occupied a unique position for nearly 10 years, serving both a retired pope and the current pope, which he himself described in 2013 as a "challenge."
"For years, Gänswein and Francis had an uneasy relationship that was strained even further when Gänswein published a tell-all book in 2023 describing alleged disagreement between Francis and Benedict and where he said that he and Francis never established "a climate of trust."
"In June 2023, Gänswein returned to his former home of Freiburg, Germany, where he did not have a permanent job. Earlier this year, on Jan. 3, Francis received Gänswein in a private audience and soon thereafter reports began to circulate that he might soon receive an appointment within the Vatican's diplomatic corps."
"Gänswein, now 67, first moved to Rome in 1993, where he would go on to serve the late pope for a quarter of a century. He worked as an official under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratizinger at the Vatican's doctrinal office, and when Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005, Gänswein was named as his personal secretary."
"Although he did not study at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the training school for Vatican diplomats, as former head of the papal household, he has years of experience interacting with heads of state and global leaders."
"The prelate is fluent in Italian, Spanish, German, English, French and Latin. He will succeed Archbishop Petar Rajič, who in March of this year was appointed to serve as the Holy See's ambassador for Italy and San Marino."
I think this development speaks well of both men. Archbishop Ganswein has been relatively quiet during the year since he left the Vatican. Apparently the time to reflect did not lead him to burn his bridges, or join in with Vigano and like-minded people to be in borderline (or actual) schism. And for his part, Pope Francis decided to give him a position (he had asked for an assignment) where he could serve the church with his education and experience.
Lithuania is 75% Catholic, and Latvia is 23%. Estonia is not predominantly Catholic, but all three countries are majority Christian.
appointment within the Vatican's diplomatic corps.
Francis can be a little inscrutable when it comes to personnel appointments. He keeps people around whom, frankly, I would have sent packing years ago. When it comes to Vatican politics, there must be wheels within wheels which aren't visible to me.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Pope Francis has any use for entitlement; for example, people who think they deserve a cardinal hat or a choice assigment just because they're special.
DeleteI got a little impression of that about Ganswein, that he thought he was entitled to have a position and living quarters in the Vatican. He got some time to re-examine his expectations.
I knew people like that in the work world, often they weren't as indispensable as they thought they were.
Maybe Francis follows the adage that one should keep friends close and enemies closer.
ReplyDeleteVigano is digging the hole deeper. Didn’t learn anything from Ganswein. Sounds like Ganswein may have learned a bit of a lesson. He obviously wrote his book long before Benedict’s death and rushed it to publication as soon as Benedict breathed his last. Guessing he realized it had to go to market very quickly to maximize his profits. If he waited public interest in his gossip would wane and so would booksales about old news.
Vigano on the other hand ….
Ihttps://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/06/24/vigano-schism-response-trial-248207.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/06/24/vigano-schism-response-trial-248207
Anne, yes - that's hard to construe as anything other than schism:
Delete"Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has stated clearly that he does not intend to cooperate in any way in the extrajudicial trial at the Dicastery of the Doctrine for the Faith, in which he is accused of the crime of schism. He said he “does not recognize” the authority of the dicastery or of its prefect or of Pope Francis, who appointed him."
What does a bishop without an appointment even do?
ReplyDeleteNowadays I suppose raise hell on social media.
DeleteI used to run into suffragan bishops in Episcopalian circles. But they were attached to a diocese and went around doing visits and Confirmation and things at the behest of the main bishop. The Diocese of Lansing has a retired bishop who was working specifically with a Hispanic parish, but I assume that that was worked out with the current bishop. Just having an unemployed bishop sitting around sounds like a recipe for trouble.
DeleteGood question, Jean. Katherine, goid anxwer. lol!
DeleteIn my experience retired bishops usually stay in the diocese they retired from. They are welcome to help out with things like confirmations and retreats as much as they want to or are able to. Our retired Archbishop Elden Curtiss did that for several years. Now he's well into his 90s and is less active. He ordained my husband and a lot of other deacons. He comes to the yearly anniversary and memorial celebration for the deacons and is pretty sharp at knowing who he is talking with (especially since the are wearing name tags!)
DeleteOf course in the case of both Ganswein and Vigano they are both titular archbishops of archaeological sites. Kind of hard to minister to dead people and ruins, so they have to find some other kind of trouble to get into.
When a bishop is appointed to a diocese, he's expected to cut emotional strings to whatever place he previously called home; the idea is, he stays there for the rest of his life (unless the Vatican appoints him to a different diocese!). So if he retires, he lives as a retired bishop or bishop emeritus in his current diocese. And when he dies, he is buried in that diocese, even if his parents and siblings are buried a couple of thousand miles away.
DeletePriests and deacons without pastoral appointments can cause trouble, too. Often, it's because of a history of causing trouble that they don't have a current assignment.
DeleteFather Reece has long maintained that it is a mistake to make Vatican officials honorary bishops.
ReplyDeleteGanswein was not a bishop for most of his time as Benedict's personal secretary. Benedict only made him an Archbishop a few months before his resignation. Obvious he knew he was going to resign.
Therefore, this problem is all of Benedict's doing. If he had not made Ganswein an Archbishop, it would have made it much easier for Francis to deal with him.
John 23rd secretary was never made a bishop. Neither was JP2 secretary while he was living.
Benedict was very strong on personal loyalties which got him and the church into many difficulties. He appointed his trusted aide at the CDF Bertone as Secretary of State without any experience. The whole diplomatic service of the Vatican suffered under Benedict who did not personally receive ambassadors as JP2 had. One of Francis first priorities was to restore the importance of the diplomatic service.
I don't think Francis appointed Ganswein to the diplomatic service just to get rid of him or reward him for his recent silence. I suspect they actually decided Ganswein would be a good candidate for the job in comparison to other available candidates.
The article does seem to imply that Ganswein has some diplomatic "soft skills". Although publishing a book that blasts one's boss isn't usually thought to be a go-to diplomatic strategy.
DeleteAs head of the papal household, he led the ceremonial greetings of Heads of State etc. when they were received by the Pope. So, he does know many heads of state and former heads of state. Probably knows a lot about their countries.
DeleteI don't know if he knows many of the papal legates since Benedict did not receive them. I suspect their reception by Francis was in Santa Marta rather than in papal residence. I am sure there are staff in the Baltic States who know them well and can assist him with getting to know them.
In other news- wonder of wonders, the Oklahoma Supreme Court actually seems to understand the Constitution and that the wall between church and state should remain tall and strong. They understand that tax money should NEVER be used to support any religious schools in the US - whether Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Islamic, Satanist, or schools run by any other religion.
ReplyDeleteThis and the Louisiana 10 Commandments law will likely go to the US Supreme Court. I expect Thomas, Coney Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch would be likely to permit both measures.
DeleteIf I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd say these laws were designed by White Christian Nationalists specifically to be challenged before the current court, thus opening the way for more public money to be spent on Christian messaging in schools.
I have nothing against the 10 Commandments. I don't have a problem with civics classes showing how the 10 Commandments (and other Biblical laws) were woven into legal structures in Western civilization from the Middle Ages on, though most of them have been rejected as unenforceable except for stealing and killing. I'd think you can even say that the Commandments are viewed as a guardrail for personal conduct among citizens in a well-ordered society.
I have no problem with studying Bible stories (or stories from any other holy books) as part of world history courses in public schools.
But I draw the line at public money going to schools that promote any particular religion. Or at requiring religious texts or symbols to be posted in all classrooms because the state wants to promote belief in them.
If people think their religion is so great, let them evangelize on their own dime.
I am basically against tax money going to private schools of any kind, not just religious ones. It's been a contentious issue in our state for a long time.
DeleteOur governor ran on a promise to reduce property taxes, he wants to substitute a sales tax (we already have one, it would just be a lot higher). Property taxes are a large part of support for the schools. But they can't get the math to work out, which is no big surprise. Simultaneously the governor, and some legislators who won't give up on it, want tax credits for non-public schools. They already passed a referendum that got revoked, now it's back again. As a state we unwisely voted in casino gambling, hoping that will take some pressure off property taxes, which it won't.
We've discussed this church-state-schools topics on here before, and I realize there is a range of opinion.
DeleteMy take is that, in good times, any number of partisans or special interest groups vie to influence public school funding, curriculum, oversight, testing, credentialing, aid to private schools, etc. Just part of the wrangles that occur in a democracy that get ironed out by compromise.
What seems to be going on now, though, is that American public education, around since Puritan times, no longer looks like a good idea to growing numbers of Americans. And I think that's because the idea of a UNITED States no longer looks like a good idea. We're living in a country that is deeply divided by class, ethnicity, income, religion, geography, language, etc. We don't want no stinking compromise no more.
The idea of the "melting pot," a nation of people from everywhere united by a common destiny and devotion to a common set of ideals, is pretty much moribund.
FWIW, a couple of lawyers I know think the Louisiana Ten Commandments law has zero chance of being upheld in court. If it makes it to the US Supreme Court, it could be overturned 9-0.
DeleteHere is David French on the Louisiana law:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/opinion/ten-commandments-classroom-louisiana.html
It's true that my views on public education, and government funding of private education, are not in accord with some other folks here.
DeleteMy view is: many public school systems perform so poorly that they essentially fail in their mission. And many private schools (religious or not) do a better job educating children, promoting civic virtues and maintaining a safe environment than the public schools in the same community.
Insofar as private schools fulfill the same mission - education, preparation for adulthood, the imparting of personal and civic virtues, and so on - as public schools, there is no good reason for the government not to fund them. If, for religious schools, funding the religious content of the curriculum is a constitutional problem, then let the funding of that content come from non-government sources.
The government's refusal to fund public schools hurts students because it relegates those children to substandard public schools (cf the many Catholic school closures in Chicago and other American cities in recent decades). And it hurts private school teachers whose employers can't afford to pay them a living wage for doing exactly the same work, in many cases as well as or better than, their public-school counterparts.
Sorry, the first sentence of that last paragraph should read, "The government's refusal to fund *private* schools..."
DeleteThanks for the link to the French article. Hope he's right.
DeleteThe argument against funding private schools is that it siphons money from publics and makes them worse. Imo, we dismantle public education and all get our school taxes back and get to spend wherever. Or we try to raise up all public schools.
I suspect there would be fallout with no public schools. Every school will be "tribal" schools aimed at ensuring certain attitudes and values are pushed. You'll also have kids who need special ed traveling for miles or going to boarding schools because they can't get that service in-district.
But I don't much care anymore. I stopped going to local school board meetings because the stupid was too hard to take. School board meetings were rather secretive affairs at The Boy's Catholic school. $3,000 for tuition, and no sense of accountability. Then the priest got sent upriver for embezzlement.
Many of the founders of this country - at least many of the first immigrants to this country - fled here because of state imposed religion in their native countries. They sought to practice their religion freely, without fear of persecution by the state.
DeleteThere are many good reasons to oppose using tax money to fund religious schools. The people pushing this are mostly Catholic and evangelical Christians. Many of the “Christian” schools are subpar academically. In addition they indoctrinate students with beliefs that are scientifically just plain wrong. Even worse they teach religious beliefs that many find repugnant. The Catholics are pushing it because catholics as a group are no longer willing to subsidize their schools so they are trying to force others to subsidize them. As Jean noted, this takes away funds needed by public schools - who are mandated to educate ALL students. Catholic schools don’t educate all students - they often turn away special needs students. They kick out disruptive students. They refuse children with gay parents. They fire unmarried pregnant teachers. They teach that women are inferior to men (as do evangelicals). They teach that gay marriage is a sin. They pick and choose students and families. If they can’t fund their own schools with their own members then they need to close them ,which has happened all over the country. Looking for a taxpayer handout is ( or should be deemed) unconstitutional. They have no right to impose their religious views using the money of those who don’t share the same religious views.
Ironic - for a long time American public schools did teach religion - specifically Protestant Christianity. The Catholic bishops didn’t like the little Catholic kids being taught Protestant theology, and requiring that the Bible used be the Anglican King James Version. So they persuaded nuns whom they paid a pittance to start Catholic schools for Catholic students who were being indoctrinated into Protestant Christianity in public schools. Now they want to use public money for their schools because Catholics are no longer coughing up the money needed to pay lay teachers. Catholic schools have a right to teach their religion in their schools. But they have NO right to ask non- Catholics to pay for it. They are using an excuse - that they can give kids in poor neighborhoods a better education ( the kids who don’t present problems only) by taking away money needed by the public schools to educate ALL kids - including kids rejected by the Catholic or other private schools..
Would accepting public funds change private schools? I don't know the legal ins and outs, but would religious schools be able to bar gay teachers, parents, and students if they are taking tax money? Would they be able to give preference to teachers and students who are Catholic?
DeleteI suppose that's moot if we no longer fund any schools and just open it to the marketplace; nobody would be getting any tax $$. The religious nuts could take their classes to Ark Encounter and teach Flat Earth, and I would save a couple thousand on property taxes per year and would not be on the dole!
To me, "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" applies here. If one feels that it is okay for tax money to support religious and private schools, are they fine with it supporting Muslim, Hindu, or Wiccan schools? Would it be okay to fund fundamentalist Christian academies, or sedevacantist Catholic ones? All of these are free to support their own schools. But I feel that it opens a can of worms to expect public tax money to support them.
DeleteJim, I think you had it right the first time when you said "The government's refusal to fund public schools hurts students because it relegates those children to substandard public schools". It isn't all about money, but it often is, and siphoning money off to private schools isn't going to make substandard public schools better. And public schools are the only option the majority of students have.
I say that even though I think Catholic schools are good. But up to now we've been able to make them work without government help.
Having public schools financed by property taxes is a big part of the problem. Our home in Maryland is in a nationally ranked top notch public school district. The public schools are as good or better than most of the private schools, including better academically than the parochial schools in the same community. The independent private schools, including the independent Catholic schools, with tuitions of $40,000+/year are no better than the local public schools academically. It’s a wealthy community populated by highly educated professionals who are motivated to strongly support the public schools - not upset that their taxes are used for this, because they are pushing their kids to Harvard or MIT or another of the top universities in the country. This is the hope of both the public school and private school parents - get the kids into the best college they can.. Those who will shell out enormous tuitions for the private schools are looking for more than top notch academics - they seek social prestige too. The public school parents are very involved with the PTA and often organize massive fundraising campaigns to pay for enhanced equipment etc in their already gold - plated public schools. In the next county are public schools where the parents are working two jobs each, the teachers are facing students whose parents don’t speak English, and dealing with kids whose families speak 40 or more different languages in their homes, parents who are poorly educated and can’t help their kids with homework or “ enrichment” or tutors, and three families live in the same house. The property taxes in the neighboring county, which is not stacked with a highly educated professional population, are much lower because home values are much lower and the public schools receive far less money than the neighbor public schools ten miles away in the rich county. The schools in the poor county need MORE money than those in the rich county because of the challenges they face with their disadvantaged students, but they get less. So maybe the parochial schools there decide they want some of that tax money because their parishioners can’t - or won’t - fund them. So they decide to say that the poor kids could go to their schools ( generally the catholic parochial schools ARE better in that county because they don’t take the hard cases, kick out the discipline problems, and have parents, even though not well off, who are motivated enough to help pay what they can and quiz their kids on their spelling words) if only they could get some of the scarce tax money going to the public schools who have to try to educate everyone - including the hard cases.
DeleteThe Catholic schools are wrong to try take this scarce resource -$$ - from those who need it more, using poor kids to save their schools, but the other culprit is funding public schools with property taxes because it worsens the existing inequalities.
Another thing, maybe we shouldn't expect public schools to take ALL the hard cases. I'm speaking specifically of violence. If students physically injure other students or teachers, to my thinking, they've forfeited their right to be there. No one should have to fear physical violence in school.
DeleteI think it might be good to acknowledge that, just as there are sub-par public schools, especially in poorer districts with less tax base, quality also varies among Catholic schools.
DeleteJust to bundle a few thoughts and replies in a single comment:
DeleteAnne, you're right about disparities in educational quality. We have a similar set-up here: our public schools, academically speaking, are better than the local Catholic schools (which nevertheless also do a very good preparing students to succeed academically and in life). And I agree with your similar, perhaps larger point: significant disparities in educational quality and outcomes from one district to another. Where I live, there is comparatively little that is broken and comparatively little that needs fixing - except that Catholic school teachers around here aren't really paid a living wage, if we define "living wage" as "being able to afford to live a normal life in the community in which you teach." Actually, the public elementary schools don't really pay enough for that, either, at least not for entry-level teachers (but it's still significantly more than their Catholic school counterparts are paid). The public high schools do better in this regard. There are quite a few high school teachers around here earning six-figure salaries.
Regarding the "hard cases": I'm sure it's true that Catholic schools don't take them, and/or don't keep them. That's not so much a desire to "cream" only the best and lowest-maintenance students, as an acknowledgement that they lack the special programs, facilities and skill sets to provide those students with an education. For students who don't need intensive intervention, (as those who require some sort of special-ed enrichment. fine-motor therapy and the like, state law here (and I believe in most/all states) already requires the public school systems to provide these services to private school students, without forcing them to attend the public schools. Some of my own children benefitted from these services when they were enrolled in Catholic schools.
Around here, public schools also expel students with chronic behavioral issues. School systems in this area tend to have separate alternative schools for those kids.
I also agree that not all Catholic schools are good. Neither are all charter schools, for that matter. And I'm not okay with schools teaching creationism as science. (Nor the 1619 Project as history.) Of course, a common and consistent set of standards would help school officials, elected officials, parents and the general public assess the academic quality of a school, regardless of whether it is public or private. Politically, that has proven to be a very tough sale, as public school teachers resist the imposition of standards and the parts of the general public who don't have kids in school don't seem to care very much.
I don't think more money is the cure for what ails public schools. In Chicago, whenever more money comes in, it just goes into the paychecks of the same teachers. Nothing really changes to shake up the status quo. It's quite possible that what "drags down" poor-performing public school systems isn't funding, or anything else that is intrinsic to the school experience; it could be broader social factors. My daughter who is a teacher has noted that, when kids in her class suddenly start slipping academically and exhibiting behavioral issues, it's because of something going on at home (such as a divorce).
DeleteJim, I agree that broader social factors play a big part in dragging down poor performing schools. If there is a lot of poverty and social dysfunction it's pretty hard for a school to counteract that.
DeleteWhen you compare countries with great school systems (Finland) vs the U.S., three factors stand out:
Delete1. Centralized standards and curriculum prevent wild variation among school quality, but the U.S. prefers local control and decentralization. Lots of pros and cons, but I've been to too many migraine-inducing school board meetings to believe that local control is ideal.
2. Funding is distributed equally among schools. Huge problem in the U.S., where the idea of "Robin Hood laws" pisses off rich districts who don't want the riff-raff getting "our money."
3. Increased teacher professionalism and respect for the profession. Many Michigan colleges have increased GPA standards for entrance into education programs, and the state toughened its requirements for certification. So far it's not improving respect for teachers because parents get mad when their little darlings aren't getting As or are having discipline problems. They always blame the teachers; can't be them because they're stellar parents.
Instability at home is probably the most critical factor in whether a kid gets a decent education. When I volunteered at the local junior high newspaper program as a parent advisor, I was just astounded at the number of stressed out kids. Friday's were tough. About half the kids were carrying 50 pounds of luggage around for their weekend with Dad.
About centralized standards, they were trying to do that with Common Core. But there were problems implementing it, one complaint I heard was that too much time was given over to testing. And another was that the liberal arts were given short shrift.
DeleteI understand my state, Illinois, has adopted Common Core. This site says this:
Delete"The state of Illinois has adopted the Common Core standards to ensure a consistent education for its students. However, the standards outline student skill sets and expectations, not how they are achieved. Teachers have the freedom to choose materials and lesson plans that will allow their students to develop these crucial skills."
"https://www.kcsd96.org/curriculum/common-core-learning-standards1"
I think it does constrain teacher autonomy to at least some extent. For example: my daughter loves to take her class on field trips to museums, zoos, et al. When she taught at a local Catholic school, her philosophy about field trips was, "Let's go do something enriching and fun, and then talk and write about what we learned." But when she moved to public school teaching, she discovered that she didn't just have carte blanche to pick and plan her own field trips (even though the budget for such things presumably was considerably bigger): whatever activity they do has to align to a standard and a goal - it has to "plug into" the Common Core framework in some way. She's finding that, in the public schools, they actually do fewer outings than in the Catholic schools. Yet the Archdiocesan Catholic schools also have implemented Common Core. So I think some of this variation in what different schools do is based on how an individual school or school system chooses to implement Common Core.
(In her case, she has only taught a few years, whereas the other teachers on her "team" (i.e. the other teachers who teach the same grade she teaches) tend to be 20-30 year veterans. So part of what she has experienced probably is a function of her being the junior member of the team.)
I'd be against any set of standards that gives short shrift to the arts and extra-curriculars. I don't think curtailing that sort of thing is really a Common Core requirement.
"I think some of this variation in what different schools do is based on how an individual school or school system chooses to implement Common Core."
DeleteI think that's a good point. A good deal of what teachers can or can't do resides in a principal or dean (or head of bus transpo in the case of field trips) willing to fall in with and free up funds for things a teacher wants to do. The Boy's public elementary school did great field trips, zoo, a week at the nature center, to the Flint Arts Institute, MSU Planetarium, etc etc.. In junior high, different admin. We had to get parents to drive for the middle school newspaper club trips and pay for supplies out of pocket. But the buses would take the jocks, band, and cheer squad anywhere in the state. At night. In winter.
Jim, more money won’t solve the challenges of educating kids with disadvantaged backgrounds. But taking money away from those schools to educate mostly middle class kids in Catholic schools certainly won’t help. They need more money, not less.Using tax money to subsidize religious schools whose own members won’t do it is wrong on both constitutional and moral grounds. The Catholics who claim they just want to help ( a tiny percentage ) of poor kids get a decent education have fabricated a plausible sounding rationale because they haven’t convinced their own membership that supporting parish schools is a good idea. If they really cared they would be running fundraisers to provide scholarships to kids who can’t afford the tuition. Bu their true concern isn’t the poor kids - it’s saving the schools for their own middle class children, using poor kids to do it.
ReplyDeleteCommon Core - don’t know details but I do know that my sons don’t like it - especially not the math. I struggled to help my grandson with it when he was in virtual first grade during Covid and I was there to keep him sitting at the screen. I would help with homework.
In my rich county in Maryland the parents willingly spring for field trips, and organize them, if the school budget won’t cover. There were proposals floated to disallow this as some schools in the same county served a disadvantaged population whose parents couldn’t pay extra, nor even be volunteer chaperones. I don’t know what happened with that proposal.
Our county has 209 schools and 150,000+ students. The demographics have changed radically in the last 30 or so years. Many of those in wealthier areas of the county now go private because of school boundary changes White flight WITHIN the suburbs.
Anne, you're right that it would cost the school systems and the taxpayers more if private schools were somehow to be folded into the existing public systems. But isn't there a society-wide moral imperative to educate our children? If the private schools didn't exist, the public would be on the hook to educate these kids.
DeleteAround here, the Catholic schools are constantly fundraising, including for scholarships.
Yes of course. Our kids were mostly educated in private schools - parochial, independent Catholic school, and Episcopal schools. And a few years in public school. Parents were always moaning about how they should get a tax break - a credit - because their kids weren’t in the public school. I would consider something like that, but I would need to know more. We paid a whole
Deletelot of tuition. Our eldest went to a parochial school kindergarten - the parish sponsoring the school is the wealthiest in the entire Archdiocese of DC . Our own parish didn’t have a school then. But this one was fairly close - surrounded by 5000 sq ft and bigger ( waaay bigger - up to 15,000 sq ft) homes on two acres or much more. We were doing fine with two professional level incomes but compared to most of the families we were low income. And yet they complained. I volunteered at the school and there were aspects of the culture and the way they taught that I didn’t like. So he went to the public school from 1-5th. There were things I didn’t like about the public #school too - but academically it was superior to the parochial school he had attended - full of kids from the highest income brackets. No lack of privilege. Because of my volunteer work at the parochial school I was able to observe a lot more than what went on in the kindergarten.
There is a privately founded and run scholarship fund in the archdiocese for poor kids anywhere in the archdiocese. It was founded and is run by one of the wealthier Catholic families. They solicit donations from other wealthyCatholic families. But even then it’s not nearly enough to meet the need. I don’t know of any parishes that raise scholarship money for poor kids. There are two historically black neighborhoods in our town - founded by freed slaves with many of the residents descended from the slaves who founded them. Those kids go to the public schools which are better than the parochial schools.
Our community is majority Jewish and there are Jewish private schools. I have never heard of them asking that taxpayer money from all the non- Jewish population be used to pay for the Jewish kids to go to one of the Jewish schools. They pay for their own. Catholics should too.