Bishops back school choice funding bill

July 28, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 28, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has offered its support for a new school funding bill, as Catholic schools grapple with the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

The School Choice Now Act would provide one-time funding to scholarship-granting organizations, who would be authorized to allocate those funds to parents. The funds could be spent on private school tuition or expenses associated with homeschooling. Parents would be able to pick whatever educational institution they think is best for their child.

Catholic schools have endured a “triple whammy” this spring, Jennifer Daniels, the associate director for public policy in the USCCB’s secretariat for Catholic education, told CNA on Tuesday. 

This “triple whammy” of families losing jobs, the suspension of Masses and their Sunday collections to offset tuition costs, and the cancellation of spring fundraisers. 

“All of those things had a severe impact on a school’s bottom line budget,” Daniels explained. 

“We’ve seen thus far that 138 Catholic schools announced permanent closure already. And through some internal surveys we did, we found approximately 10% of schools were still uncertain about their ability to open in the fall.” 

If that number remained true across Catholic schools, said Daniels, 500 Catholic schools are at risk of not reopening. 

In an email campaign, the USCCB requested that Catholics contact their senators to encourage them to support the bill. 

“Please join the USCCB in asking the U.S. Senate to include additional relief for Catholic schools in the emergency relief package currently being negotiated,” says the campaign

“As the Senate prepares its next aid bill, we ask that the next COVID relief package include immediate assistance to families through federally-funded scholarships.”

The bill is sponsored by Sens. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) and Lamar Alexander (R-South Carolina). The bill would also provide federal tax credits for those who contribute to scholarship-granting organizations, as well as permit states to “create their own tax credit scholarship program that works for the unique needs of students in their state.” 

"All parents, regardless of income or circumstance, should be able to decide which school best meets their child’s needs, whether that school is public or private," Alexander, chairman of the Senate education committee said in a statement published July 22. 

"The School Choice Now Act provides scholarships to students to have the opportunity to return to the private school they attended before the pandemic—and gives other students a new opportunity to attend private school,” he added. 

Daniels told CNA that she was in favor of the payments to families, rather than direct support to schools, as schools primarily rely on enrollment figures. 

“We want to give families certainty to re-enroll their children in our schools, and give families the resources they need to make the best decisions for their children,” she said. 

In some states, public schools are either not opening for in-person classes, or are adopting a hybrid model of in-person and online instruction, while private schools are planning on operating as normal. This is prompting some parents to consider switching to private schools or homeschool. 

The Diocese of Manchester, which will be having in-person classes in the fall, is even offering a partial scholarship to anyone who transfers to a diocesean school from a non-Catholic school. 

Congress needs to move fast on this, said Daniels, as the start of the school year is only a few days away in parts of the country. 

“The bishops themselves have been highly engaged. The staff with the USCCB has been highly engaged in trying to get federal help for our Catholic schools for months,” she said.

“We really need Congress to act as quickly and swiftly as possible, in order to get that aid out as quickly as possible to our families.”

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From sin to scissors: The barber shop evangelist

May 19, 2021 Catholic News Agency 0
Elias Elsayah at Chris and Sam’s Barber Shop in Norwood, Massachusetts / Joe Bukuras/CNA

Washington D.C., May 19, 2021 / 10:31 am (CNA).

Six days a week on busy Washington Street in Norwood, Massachusetts, Catholic barber Elias Elsayah can be found clipping hair and changing lives. 

Now a barber for eight years, Elsayah converts the hearts of many with his own miraculous conversion story. From their chair at Chris and Sam’s Barber Shop, his customers have a clear view of pictures of the Image of Divine Mercy, St. Charbel Makhlouf, and St. Pio Pietrelcina, as well as multiple images of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“Elias proclaims the good news to you no matter what,’” Elsayah’s pastor, Fr. Joseph Daiif of St. Theresa Maronite Church in Brockton, Massachusetts, told CNA. 

Mark Farah, a candidate for seminary, told CNA that one year after sitting in Elsayah’s chair at the barber shop, he has moved from living as a “secular” college student to now awaiting admittance to the seminary for the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. 

“If I hadn’t heard Elias’ story of God’s mercy and grace, I believe I would still be living a sinful life,” Farah said.

Matthew Lima said that the first time he sat in Elsayah’s chair at the barber shop as a young man struggling with his faith, Elias preached to him about the power of the rosary.

“I will admit after sitting on his chair and listening to his words and how it helped his life I thought I will give it a try,” Lima told CNA. “I did and I felt so much better praying on the rosary and just carrying it around with me at all times to keep my faith and my mind at ease.”

Chadi Matta, Elsayah’s friend and co-worker, told CNA that although Elsayah is now committed to his faith, he once lived a much different life. 

“Elias was a womanizer,” said Matta. “Everyone either knew him or knew of him.” He recalled how Elsayah, now 43 years old, would bring countless women to his house and lived a reckless lifestyle.

“I remember going to his apartment where he had two friends living with him,” Matta told CNA. “I thought they were living life with no rules. I always heard them talking about girls and the party life they had.”

Elsayah, who emigrated from Lebanon to the United States at 27 years old, said he was making money in sinful ways for ten years. He said that his first steps back towards the Church happened when a friend introduced him to the homilies of a priest in Lebanon, Fr. Ralph Tanjar.

“The first time I listened to the priest’s homily, he was focusing on confession and what happens when people don’t go to Mass and confession,” Elsayah said. “So, it touched my heart a little bit, and I started getting curious.”

Elsayah, who had never received any sacraments except for Baptism, began to listen to Fr. Tanjar’s homilies. Then, a friend gave him a book by St. Alphonsus Liguori on the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

“So, I started reading it and I started praying the rosary little by little because in his homilies he concentrated on the rosary a lot,” Elsayah said of St. Alphonsus. 

When Elsayah was 34, he went out to clubs with some of his friends and was assaulted on the head with a metal bat. Matta told CNA he remembered getting a call from Elias’ friend that night he had been hospitalized in the intensive care unit. 

“The sight of him in the bed unconscious, the bandages, the machines all terrified me,” Matta said. 

Before going unconscious, Elsayah said he surrendered his life to the Lord while being rushed into the hospital. Elsayah told CNA that the doctors miraculously found no internal bleeding in the MRI scan. 

“It was all drug-related,” Elsayah said of the attack. “This guy wanted to kill me.”

When Elsayah turned 35, he recalled one scary afternoon where he felt glued to his bed and smelled repulsive fumes. He said he lost the ability to move and speak. 

“I wanted to scream. I couldn’t. I got scared,” he said. “And I looked up, and saw three devils above my head with black fumes. It’s hell!”

Elsayah prayed to the Virgin Mary and begged for her help. “As soon as I said her [Mary’s] name, it was gone and disappeared,” he said. 

Elsayah said the experience reflected the grave state of his soul. His disgust of his sins moved him to make his first confession, which lasted four hours. Elsayah marked the confession as a turning point in his faith life, but noted that he still carried the effects of many sins with him. 

Over the next four years Elsayah said he began to cling to the rosary and the sacraments. 

At age 39, Elsayah attended a Mass by visiting priest Father Saliba Kozah, from Our Lady of the Cedars of Lebanon parish in Boston. Kozah, who passed away in February 2021, was a well-known priest in Lebanon and in the local Maronite community. 

Elsayah noted how he was not supposed to be at the Mass that day because of a fishing trip he had planned with his friend.

“My friend says don’t go on the trip, there’s a monk coming from Lebanon and he’s a saint. You’ll only see men like this once in your lifetime,” Elsayah told CNA. 

Elsayah wanted to go on the fishing trip “but something in my head told me don’t go,”  he said. “So, I cancelled my trip and I went to the church.”

Elsayah told CNA that during an event after the Mass, he asked Kozah a question on confession. Elsayah said Kozah replied by yelling, “You! You need to confess again!” 

Elsayah told Kozah that he had confessed the previous week. Kozah responded, telling Elsayah that he committed the same sin again. Elsayah claimed that Kozah “read his soul,” although at the time he was embarrassed and wondered why he was the only one present to be called out by the priest.

Elsayah said he felt humiliated and questioned to himself “Why in front of all these people? Why Lord?” Kozah responded, “Don’t be embarrassed. Be happy. The Holy Trinity told me about you.”

Elsayah told the priest in confession that he was living in sin with a woman to whom he was not married. He said that Kozah replied, “This woman, she’s your sister in Christ. You’re not allowed to touch her until you’re married to her in the Church.” 

“Fr. Saliba told me ‘if you die you’ll go straight to hell. No salvation, don’t let anybody fool you.’ Then, he gave me absolution,” he said.

Elsayah said that this confession changed his life forever. He began pursuing a life of purity, and his relationship with his girlfriend ended. He said his obsession with women was overcome through the grace from confession.

His own conversion story has spurred others to change their own lives. Rob Canfield told CNA that he was undergoing a midlife crisis as a 56-year-old father of four when he met Elsayah.

Canfield said that hearing Elias’ story at the barber shop helped him better appreciate his faith. “Elias is unwavering in his trust in the Word and there is a peace in that trust that I am still learning to appreciate,” Canfield said.


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