Vouchers: the heart of the matter.

In a November 1990 pastoral letter entitled "In Support of Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools," the bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States announced that among several goals to be accomplished by 1997 would be "new initiatives . . . to secure sufficient financial assistance from both private and public sectors for Catholic parents to exercise [the] right" to send their children to Catholic schools. This means, obviously, full or partial tax support for Catholic private schools through vouchers, tuition reimbursement tax credits, or some other mechanism.

This is hardly news. Since the 1840s, the U.S. Catholic bishops have sought public funding for their church's private schools through legislation, in the courts, in state referenda, and in the arena of public opinion--efforts which, to date, have met largely with failure. (It should be noted, however, that bishops have had more success elsewhere, having reached their goal of public support for Catholic schools in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Australia.)

Joseph Claude Harris has recently published a useful book that provides needed perspective on the bishops' campaign for tax aid. In The Cost of Catholic Parishes and Schools (Sheed and Ward, 1996), Harris takes an inside look at the finances of Catholic parishes and schools. While strongly supporting vouchers, he declares that the real problem facing Catholic schools in the United States is not a lack of tax support but a lack of support by American Catholics for church institutions.

He points out that, while American Catholics in 1990 had an average household income of $40,435--8 percent higher than the U.S. average of $37,403--Catholic giving to their church was significantly lower than that of Protestants (although he provides no figure for average U.S. Protestant household income). Harris further estimates that Catholic giving per parish member in 1993 was $136 and compares this with the Protestant average of $388 ($529 for Presbyterians; $382 for Methodists; and $349 for Southern Baptists) cited in the Yearbook of Canadian and American Churches. Harris also notes that Catholic households donated an average of 0.6 percent of their income to their parishes, for an annual total of $4.6 billion. If Catholic giving increased to Protestant levels, it would end the church's financial problems and eliminate any need for tax support.

What Harris leaves out of his book is at least as important as what he includes. While he briefly notes that U.S. Catholic school enrollment has declined from 5.5 million in 1965 to about 2.5 million today--a slide from enrolling about 47 percent of Catholic children to about 21 percent--he makes no serious effort to explain the reasons for the decline because those reasons undercut the case for tax support.

The reasons behind the decline are both external and internal.

External reasons. Generations ago, when Catholics were often the target of discrimination, there was an understandable rationale for having parochial schools. But times have changed. A Catholic president was elected in 1960. Catholics are now proportionately represented in Congress and elsewhere. Catholic household incomes are now above the national average. And in the years following World War II, public schools pretty much arrived at a position of religious neutrality, as required by the pluralistic nature of our society and the federal and state constitutions. In short, Catholics have "arrived" They are now mainstream. The reasons for having parochial schools may have made sense generations ago but now lack force. Catholic schools have largely gone the way of the horse and buggy.

Internal reasons. Many opinions traditionally held by Catholics have also gone by the wayside. The Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s opened the church world to new ideas, including individual freedom of conscience. When the Vatican sought to turn back the clock in 1968 with the papal encyclical condemning contraception, enormous numbers of Catholics worldwide objected, even rebelled. The authoritarianism of Pope John Paul II has produced the same effect. Today, most American Catholics disagree with the bishops on contraception, abortion, divorce, the ordination of women, and clerical celibacy. Church attendance and donations have therefore dropped at about the same rate as parochial enrollment, and reports of clerical sexual abuse and official cover ups have increased alienation.

Lacking the necessary support of its members, the church is trying to dip its hand into the pockets of all Americans. When asked to vote on referenda to provide tax aid to private schools--proposals disguised under the misleading banners of "school choice" or "parental choice" or "educational reform"--the general public has resoundingly said no, defeating these measures by a two to one margin, despite the vast amount of propaganda promoting vouchers and denigrating public education.

Americans should also take note that the Catholic bishops seem far more concerned about the 21 percent of Catholic children in parochial schools than the 79 percent who attend often underfunded or inequitably funded public schools. Is myopia too strong a word to apply?

The heart of the matter, then, is that the unelected power structure of one denomination is putting high priority on getting public funding for private institutions which its own members do not care to support, which practice forms of selectivity and indoctrination not allowed in public schools, and which are not answerable to the taxpaying public. That power structure seems unconcerned that getting its wish would fragment our society along religious, social class, and other lines; increase educational costs; and stir up interfaith antipathy.

Edd Doerr is president of the American Humanist Association, executive director of Americans for Religious Liberty, and coauthor of The Case Against School Vouchers (Prometheus Books, 1996).