Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 31, 2022 / 09:38 am (CNA).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reversed a policy that would have required Catholic schools that participate in a federal free lunch program to comply with the Biden administration’s LGBTQ mandates.
Nevertheless, some Catholic schools, such as those of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, are choosing to drop out of the program.
Earlier this year the Biden administration re-interpreted Title IX’s federal ban on sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation or gender identity.” Religious freedom and free speech advocates warn that the change could be used to enforce mandates on hiring, bathrooms, using preferred pronouns, and dress codes.
The broadened definition also applies to the National School Lunch Program, a federally funded meal assistance program administered by the Department of Agriculture that provides subsidized or free lunches to more than 30 million public and private school students from low-income households.
On Aug. 12, the department published a memo saying that although the rule applies to most public and private schools across the country, it includes an exception for schools to “be exempt on religious grounds if there is a conflict between Title IX and a school’s governing religious tenets.”
The memo states that the Title IX regulations “do not require a religious educational institution to submit a written request for a Title IX exemption in order to claim that exemption.”
The guidance also adds that schools wishing to receive “assurance” of their religious exemptions can submit a written request to the USDA’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.
Administration backtracks after religious liberty lawsuit
Earlier this month, CNA reported that Catholic schools who participate in the federally-funded NSLP were threatened by the Biden administration’s revised rule.
At the time, a private Christian school in Tampa, Florida, had to file a lawsuit against the administration in order to secure a religious exemption from the rule, which could have forced the school to comply with policies on bathrooms, pronouns, hiring, and dress codes.
Represented by ADF, the school was granted an exemption by the state’s agricultural department, restoring the funds for its school lunch program.
Erica Steinmiller-Perdomo, legal counsel at ADF, told CNA in an email that it took a lawsuit for the administration to backtrack on forcing religious schools to comply with its “radical push to redefine what it means to be male or female in federal law.”
“After ADF’s lawsuit, USDA made clear that they will automatically respect religious exemptions under Title IX for religious schools—for now,” Steinmiller-Perdomo said.
“But public schools, charter schools, and secular private schools are not protected and remain under threat. Plus, other federal laws that lack religious exemptions may also apply. As long as the Biden Administration seeks to redefine what it means to be male or female in all federal laws, religious schools risk being punished just for maintaining Christian beliefs,” she added.
Fifty-two percent of U.S. Catholic schools participate in the federal lunch program, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.
Archdiocese of St. Louis withdraws from NSLP
Despite the USDA’s clarification, the Archdiocese of St. Louis released a private memo on Aug. 16 telling archdiocesan schools to drop out of the lunch program.
Brecht Mulvihill, the archdiocese’s executive director of communications, told CNA in an email that the archdiocese decided not to participate in both the NSLP and the similar USDA Special Milk Program.
“As with any federal subsidy, schools that participate in these programs are subject to a wide variety of federal mandates, which could ultimately impact decisions concerning admissions, extracurricular activities, facilities, and logistics,” Mulvihill wrote, adding: “In some circumstances, these mandates would impede a school’s ability to faithfully carry out the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
There are around one dozen archdiocesan elementary and high schools that have participated in the programs in the past that will be affected.
“The Archdiocese of St. Louis is working to provide similar meal service or reduced-cost options on which our students and their families rely. In the meantime, there will be no interruption of these important services,” Mulvihill said.
When CNA asked if the USDA’s reinstatement of the broad religious exemption would change the archdiocese’s decision to withdraw from the program, Mulvihill responded that “accepting any federal subsidy would subject archdiocesan schools to federal mandates that could impede a school’s ability to faithfully carry out the teachings of the Catholic Church. Our decision to withdraw from these programs is not due to one specific rule, law, or mandate.”
A USDA official told CNA Aug. 30 that although the Title IX regulations apply to a “wide array” of schools, the law includes some exceptions, “including one permitting an institution to be exempt on religious grounds if there is a conflict between Title IX and a school’s governing religious tenets.”
The spokesperson said that “USDA regulations do not require a religious educational institution to submit a written request for a Title IX exemption in order to claim that exemption,” adding: “USDA’s recent guidance is meant to clarify this process.”
The official also said that the department works with all of its partners to “ensure that the applicable laws against discrimination are properly understood and implemented.”
“We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind,” the spokesperson added.
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If this is true for Catholic schools, isn’t it true for Catholic NGO’s like Catholic Charities, USA, and Catholic Relief Services?
Together, they receive over a billion dollars a year from the taxpayer, thanks to their largest benefactor – the Federal Government.
What “impediments” have these agencies been required to accept in return for the government funding? In Pope Francis’ words, have they become “just another NGO”?
“As with any federal subsidy, schools that participate in these programs are subject to a wide variety of federal mandates, which could ultimately impact decisions concerning admissions, extracurricular activities, facilities, and logistics,” Mulvihill wrote, adding: “In some circumstances, these mandates would impede a school’s ability to faithfully carry out the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
I read, or heard, that Canada denies humanitarian aid to poor starving countries who do not adapt their laws to Canada’s immoral standards. This is no different than one hundred years ago when white Canadians killed all those indigenous Canadian children who did not accept their Fascist Imperialist culture.
Now we have American President Joe Biden trying to starve our children to death for not accepting his Fascist tyranny.
No one will actually starve if Catholic schools are denied government funded lunch funds.
Catholic schools need to consider that government programs come with strings attached.
For many American children, their school lunch may be the only real meal they can get. In poor districts these children suffer during the summer months when there is no food from school. There are many families which are not only poor, but where the parents are dysfunctional and do no care for their children as necessary, often due to parental drug and alcohol use. I visited a school in the deep south about 3 years ago where 2/3 of the children’s families were on welfare and food stamps. Often the children took home food from school, and had little to eat over the weekends.. On Indian reservations this is also a huge problem. For Bidens ghouls to threaten the welfare of children with food blackmail is beyond despicable, and can only be described as amoral and evil. This in order to force the normalization and social acceptance of deviant sexual behaviors which only a few years ago would have been seen as mental illness. Given the high suicide rate among such persons, its clear it is indeed a mental illness.
I live in the Deep South & seriously, there’s enough food to go around. Our food banks are generously stocked by Walmart & other businesses. In fact, one food bank I’m acquainted with gives away items to their volunteers to make shelf room for newer grocery donations. They only have so much room.
Food stamps in our state are pretty easy to qualify for if you have children. Ditto for Medicaid- & I’m speaking from personal experience. Our entire school district now qualifies for free meals now because of our low-income levels. We may have some schools where virtually everyone’s on food stamps. This is the 2nd poorest state in the nation. We have “Summer Feeding Programs” in the park that offer free lunches when schools are closed.
But it’s true that some families fall through the cracks due to drug abuse, mental health troubles, etc. Just because you have food stamps doesn’t mean you feed or care for your child properly. We had a terribly sad case recently where a 2-year-old overdosed on his mom’s drugs. Somehow the fentanyl had got into his cereal. This was the 2nd time the baby had overdosed & his mother had still retained custody.
🙁
In better scenarios, Child Protective Services gets called by a school or community in time to investigate & actually does their job. There are some very broken & dysfunctional families out there for sure. Kids are unlikely to starve but they can certainly suffer in other ways.
I have 8 children & was widowed when my youngest was in 2nd Grade. We more than qualified for free school meals when my children were young, but I figured if I couldn’t slap together a couple slices of bread & peanut butter for them to take to school something was wrong. And older children should be able to do that for themselves. I want my children to learn to be strong & resilient. Not enable learned helplessness.
I’m not begrudging children meals & certainly think this USDA issue was fueled by religious discrimination, but I’ve seen what happened in my own family- the difference in outcomes when people accept handouts & when they try to stand on their own feet. And I just don’t think Catholic schools should be involved with govt. programs in the first place.
Just my 2 cents from having been there & doing some of this.
God bless!
The abuse of indigenous peoples in Canada (not quite “indigenous Canadians”: this is the oxymoron) was in depriving them of their personal histories and culture, not the fact of fatal disease and lack of immunity, etc. But yes, it was a policy of the Canadian government.
Now, as for Biden, he’s not quite a racist Fascist, either, but rather he’s the one who abandoned the Afghans to the worst of their own culture (the Taliban). And, today he’s not really interested in “starv[ing] our children to death;” he’s just a hollow-suit marionette trying to stay in step with his masters. Not all that is stupid is Fascist.
We are living in a country in which one party has usurped our rights and used the power of our government police agencies to do so. They have weaponized the schools to teach the same leftist philosophy and gathered the cooperation of major private social networks to pander the same party line to the uninformed. In the last few years my conservative leaning ( non-racial, non-violent) posts have been prevented from public posting by media entities such as AOL many, many times. They have also attempted to foist their sick sexual perspective on religious institutions as well, such as the Little Sisters of the poor, and recently this threat to the free lunches. This IS fascism, whether or not we say so. We might as well speak the truth and say so. The stupidity lies on the part of the uninformed American minions who offer these bottom feeders their votes. The Fascists however, know exactly what they are doing.
As far as the food we eat, we’ve become, at least in the United States, a population dependent on the can or the bag or plastic container for our food. Growing and storing some of the staples in your diet is becoming somewhat of a lost art. Cooking in bulk is still a great way to meet nutritional needs versus buying ready to eat meals. For example, a 50 lb bag of potatoes can go a long way, although a little hand labor may be necessary.
St. Louis archdiocese has the right idea. Any time the government doles out taxpayer funding to anyone, there are strings attached. Too bad taxpayers cannot attach strings to their “donations” that require the government to spend our money morally. Our congressional representatives are supposed to protect us from supporting immoral activities, but too often they don’t.