In My Homestate of NY, Catholics Take Action In Albany, The Capital.

Kathy Peters was expressing her anguish over the plight of Catholic schools to New York state Assemblyman Brian M. Kolb of the 129th District, which includes Seneca County, as well as parts of Cayuga and Ontario counties.:

n Kolb’s office, Peters told the assemblyman that Catholic schools are closing more and more frequently due to rising expenses that drive up tuition rates and drive parents away. Government could help Catholic schools through such measures as the extension of tax credits to parents who pay Catholic-school tuition, she said.

“There are ways to save Catholic schools without using tax dollars to save them,” said Peters, former principal of St. Michael's School in Newark.

Kolb expressed sympathy to Peters and her colleagues, residents of the Diocese of Rochester’s Finger Lakes region. However, he noted that the state’s politically powerful public-school teachers’ unions oppose such school-choice measures as tuition tax credits and publicly funded tuition vouchers that might help parents finance nonpublic education.

This is one of the growing issues in which I part way with my union. The reason is simple: I hold to Catholic teaching on Family. Parents are the first teachers of their children. Since they hold this fundamental responsibility, they should enjoy the support of the state and localities to carry out this responsibility. Tax credits for Catholic Schools or public vouchers of one kind or another can be prudent ways of providing this support.

As an urban HS teacher, I understand my collegues' concerns. Too little money in education budgets makes its way to the local schools. Bloated bureacracies and idiotic regulations suck up precious funds and choke off needed innovation. With this dysfunctional culture in operation, it's small wonder that teachers get their backs up at anything that even smells like it will take money away. It's more than a fear of lost positions. It's a fear that we won't have the resources we need to serve the kids that voucher-financed families leave behind.

While I understand these concerns, I do not entirely share them for reasons I shared above. I also do not believe that money for vouchers must mean less money for "public schools". A fair system of distribution for these vouchers would preclude such arbitrary cuts. Besides, parents have the right to educate their children. This must not be taken away from them simply to preserve the status quo.

There are other encouraging signs of Catholic advocacy of state policy. There are also ho-hum interpretations of Catholic Social Teaching aka "social justice", which is another way of saying tax-and-spend, that quite frankly well-meaning Catholics should reconsider. Especially if they want to serve the poor in solidarity, they'll need to consider which incentives state policies encourage, not simply lofty goals of lifting up the poor through government programs.

This article from the Catholic Courier in Rocester also explores how the NY Conference of Catholic Bishops resists some of pro-abort Pataki and his cohort's attempts to coerce Catholic Charities to defy its Catholic Conscience. In particular:

The state Catholic conference, in collaboration with Protestant plaintiffs, has challenged the mandates in state courts, and an Appellate Division decision on the matter is expected in the next several weeks.

Spokesman for the Catholic conference also notes another way in which the conference is taking on policy: the Network:

He noted that the 13,000-member Catholic Advocacy Network is one tool the conference has used to mobilize Catholic voters. Most members are notified via e-mail of pending legislation that concerns the conference, Poust noted. The conference urges network members to act on important bills by linking them to draft messages about bills on the conference's Web site that the network members can then forward to their own legislators with the click of a mouse.

We've had some success in terms of applying pressure to members of the Legislature to back off sponsorship of bills that we oppose," Poust said. "An e-mail campaign to the governor a while back was instrumental in gaining the release of funds for mandated services in our schools that had been appropriated but not released. We expect the successes to multiply with the numbers."

If Catholics can influence policy through the collaborative participation of citizens, then NY stands a greater chance of becoming a better state for all New Yorkers. If the Reasonable powers that call for a pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia and pro-embryonic stem-cell research world (and locking down school funding for solely public schools) control the agenda, God help all New Yorkers.