Denver Newsroom, Aug 1, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- Bishops and school superintendents across the US are emphasizing the importance of in-person education for the coming fall term, and are seeking to reassure parents that schools are taking the precautions necessary to keep children safe.
In Florida, where Governor Rick Scott has issued an order mandating that schools must reopen in person in the fall, superintendents say they are doing everything they can to prepare to welcome students in safely while also offering remote learning for those who need it.
Chris Pastura, superintendent of schools in the St. Petersburg diocese, told CNA in an interview July 31 that he and other leaders in the diocese believe strongly it is important for students to come back in person.
“Our kids are loved every day, they’re in a community, they’re in a faith community, they’re celebrating the sacraments— I think our kids need that environment. Our kids need to go back to school.”
“COVID is not the only dangerous thing in our society. Lack of community, loneliness, and all those kinds of things affect kids. And I think it’s important for our kids to be back in school.”
Florida has become a center of the US coronavirus outbreak of late, with infections on the rise over the past few months.
From a pro-life standpoint, Pastura said, the schools in his diocese will be doing comprehensive testing for their employees, and other measures such as social distancing in the classroom to protect the students.
On Monday, the Diocese of St. Petersburg sent a letter to the parents of its nearly 13,000 students asking them to sign a waiver of liability, choosing to accept the risk that their children may be sickened by coronavirus at school.
Several other dioceses in Florida and a number of others across the country are asking parents of students returning to class in-person to sign similar waivers.
Pastura said for the most part, parents are accustomed to signing waivers for almost any activity their child does. The diocese had in spring drafted a waiver for summer camps, and early in the summer began to consider adapting it for the school year, as well.
All schools are giving the option of coming back in person, or doing online learning for students in high-risk medical categories, or who may have high-risk people in their households, Pastura said.
The idea, he said, was to create a “statement of understanding” for parents, make them aware that a child could contract coronavirus despite the school’s best efforts.
“Since this is just such uncharted territory, we thought it was important for people to first realize that we are doing all kinds of plans to make sure that our students and our employees are safe, and we’re trying to make sure we do this the right way.”
However, Pastura said, the school cannot possibly know what children are being exposed to outside the seven hours a day they spend at school.
“The release from liability— is it overly cautious? Maybe,” he said.
“But we do live in a very litigious society, and we just thought it to be prudent…providing families with a very clear statement, I think that’s the responsible thing to do, I think it’s the fair thing to do.”
Being asked to sign a waiver for any activity can raise red flags for people, Pastura said, and because there is so much uncertainty around coronavirus, it is understandable that parents may not understand the importance of the waiver.
Pastura said he and his Catholic school colleagues at other dioceses across Florida speak regularly about their reopening plans. He said he hopes that parents will trust those in authority over the state’s Catholic schools, and recognize that those authorities are creating reopening plans with students’ best interests at heart.
“There’s a lot that goes into these decisions, and sometimes we just have to have some faith in one another. Even if we don’t agree with someone’s decision, maybe we can accept that it was made in good confidence based on the information available.”
The superintendent of schools for the Pensacola-Tallahassee diocese has also spoken out about the importance of opening Catholic schools in person.
“We feel that their spiritual growth is vital to them. We’re educating the whole child, and spiritually is a big part of that,” superintendent Mike Juhas told EWTN News Nightly.
Elsewhere, the bishops of California said this week that Catholic schools in California are taking appropriate measures against the threat of coronavirus and authorities should issue waivers to rules that bar the schools from reopening for “vital” in-person education, citing the low risk of coronavirus infection among children.
Initially, the nation’s largest Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles, with 74,000 students attending its schools, announced on June 15 that schools would be reopening for in-person learning in the fall in Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara.
However, California governor Gavin Newsom said on July 17 that schools in the state where coronavirus cases were high would remain closed for in-person learning.
Meanwhile, in Texas where COVID-19 cases have soared in the summer, the state is granting religious private schools the freedom to decide for themselves how to reopen in the fall.
In a July 29 joint op-ed, the archbishops of New York Boston and Los Angeles exhorted Congress and President Trump to adopt a federal scholarship tax credit modeled after successful state-level credits in order to assist private schools. Such a program would now be possible following the Supreme Court’s landmark June ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, they said.
The bishops argued that Catholic schools— many of which are facing closure amid the pandemic— are worth saving because of their savings to taxpayers and their success in creating successful and well-formed citizens.
“Students and families for generations have benefited from Catholic schools, which have benefited America as a whole. This is now in serious jeopardy, as another sad legacy of the coronavirus pandemic,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, and Archbishop José Gómez wrote.
“Urgent action by President Donald Trump and Congress to meet the needs of Catholic and other school families will preserve this important education option for generations to come and prevent added financial burdens on our government school systems.”
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Do Jewish organizations have some animosity towards Catholicism? Beyond the abortion divide?
This is extreme animus which seems disproportionate to the leaked memo about federal v state lawmaking?!
Apparently their [Ruth Sent Us] philosophy is that every pregnancy they suffer is due to rape. They want sexual pleasure without responsibility.
Without grace that brings us to respond to God’s goodness, purity, spousal faithfulness, the tenderness and selfless giving of motherhood and love of children, the inevitable result is disassociation of the divinely ordained gift of sensual pleasure from the purpose of the conjugal act.
They dress in long red hooded gowns with white headdress as eerie as their coven like behavior. Sensuality has become consonant with Justice A Kennedy’s golden calf of liberty. After all, if we insist on something as a human right, there must be some personal, interior reward. Fundamental. Venereal. Consequently and virtually our culture has become venereal minded, foisting a new morality of liberty to exercise and experiment sexually [from pansexuality {with humans} soon likely to omnisexuality {with any living creature}] on college campuses, in children’s classrooms.
Irrational. Of course, but only if you’re not morally deranged. Sin, repudiation of natural law is always irrational because reason, that is, right reason is rational and consistent with the ordained order of things.
What then for the Catholic? Despite ourselves, our widespread nominal practice, the priesthood abuse scandal, heretical Catholics in Congress, apparent abandonment from the highest hierarchy – we are in the forefront! Miracle of miracles it’s Catholics who bear the banner of Christ and Blessed Mary as did the Crusaders, as did Joan of Arc, as did Columbus when he landed on the Americas’ soil.
We’re in for a fight [I’m stupid and arrogant so I choose to fight] offered the chance to prove our mettle to Christ, that we truly love him, that we stand for truth and justice, for family and children, that we will stand and fight to the end and to the glory of his Holy Name.
So then, I choose to fight with the spiritual arms Christ has given me, to address the truths of the faith clearly and with confidence, to give example as Christ did when confronted, to pray and offer sacrifice, to desist from violence and harm to others, to demonstrate the true meaning of our humanness.
Thats a disappointing statement, Father. Do you imagine prayer will stop demonstrators who believe they can disrupt our worship services with no repercussions at all? And if they indeed set consecrated hosts on fire in front of you, do you imagine prayer will put the fire out? Would you really do NOTHING?? I personally am tired of the kid glove treatment given to the 2020 rioters,serial shoplifters who KNOW they will neither be arrested or prosecuted, and those who vandalize our churches while police say those acts will NOT be treated as hate crimes. Now we have threats not only to our secular judges but ( I saw the video) people threatening to set the Eucharist on fire. When evil people KNOW they will never pay ANY price for their deeds, they will not only continue the behaviors, but they will escalate them. I will never be anyone’s willing victim. I am a Catholic and I believe in prayer. I am also an American and will not stand by meekly if attacked, nor allow my civil right to worship, to be stolen by people who have the IQ of a potato.To telegraph the idea one will not fight back to defend what they believe is a grave mistake, and it actively invites further attacks.The suppression of religion touted by the left was one of the reasons this nation spent decades physically fighting Communism all around the world. Peace at any price is NOT peace. It is simply capitulation.
Additionally LJ I certainly agree we cannot roll over in the face of violence directed against the innocent. That I can assure you I’ve always held.
Thats good to hear, Father. When raising my sons I always told them I NEVER wanted to be told by a teacher or parent that they had ever attacked another child or struck the first blow in any situation. But I always told them, if someone hits YOU first, hit them back as hard as you can. Once when one of my children was about 5 years old I was chatting with an acquaintance at a local pool. Her son was big for his age and was aggressively physical with other children. As we chatted, this child several times, unprovoked,roughly pushed my son down into the water. The boy’s mother said nothing, but I was about to. Finally my son (also big but not confrontational by nature) , got up out of the water and punched the boy so hard that he loosened a tooth. Needless to say that boy never attacked my son again. Its a hard lesson to learn, but not every maladjusted or bullying personality can be coaxed into appropriate behavior by “niceness” or prayer. These types of people are frequently the ones who end up in jail as adults. Sometimes you are forced to defend yourself physically. Its surprising how often that sort of push-back resolves the issue.The bully always counts on making their opponent cower in the corner.They count on fear to prevent resistance. In the case of our freedom of religion, we dare not allow such a thing.
I’m pleased LJ. At first I misunderstood until I gave further thought that it wasn’t intended personally.
Do they really think that helps their cause to slaughter innocent human beings? Fools.
hmm….
– here we thought it was the 4th Easter Sunday….silly us 
This would not happen at a Mosque. Just sayin’
It was Catholics-In-Name-Only Biden and Pelosi who encouraged these disruptions. And yet they are not excommunicated for it. Do we have to wait before these pagans desecrate the Host itself that the Church authority do something about these wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Would it not be nice if just one prominent American prelate put Biden on notice that we expect him to expend all necessary resources to protect churches and the faithful from these demonic hooligans and vandals? Yet again, their silence convicts them. And from the Vatican, all we hear are more condemnations of the rigorists. With shepherds like these, they mind as well as put out a sign saying it’s open season on the flock. Just so long as the federal money keeps flowing to Catholic Charities, all is fine at the chanceries. One day, that will get pulled too.