CNA Staff, Aug 9, 2024 / 14:26 pm (CNA).
Catholic schools will be excluded from Maine’s tuition grant program, a Maine district court affirmed on Thursday.
The court ruled that while the plaintiffs “are raising important legal questions,” they are “not entitled to a preliminary injunction,” according to the 75-page order.
Maine’s tuition program is designed to fund tuition for students in rural areas to attend nearby private or public schools in lieu of the state maintaining its own schools in those areas. Maine also funds tuition for out-of-state and out-of-country schools including schools in Quebec and Massachusetts.
The program was designed to enable parents to have their children educated at private schools in rural school districts lacking public schools, but in 1982, Maine began disqualifying religious schools for being sectarian.
Though the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision Carson v. Makin affirmed that the “sectarian exclusion” violates the free exercise clause because it excludes schools on the basis of their religious exercise, Maine instituted another law that more indirectly prevents religious schools from being approved for the tuition program.
One of those religious schools is St. Dominic Academy, a K–12 Catholic school with campuses in Lewiston and Auburn, where Keith and Valori Radonis, organic rural farmers, wanted to send their children.
After Maine amended the tuition assistance program with a “human rights” law that kept out schools like St. Dominic, the Radonis family, St. Dominic, and the Diocese of Portland turned to religious liberty law firm Becket to combat the law.
“Maine officials are keeping religious families and schools out in the cold,” Adèle Auxier Keim, senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement shared with CNA. “The district court’s decision allows the state to continue paying for all-girls boarding schools in Massachusetts while denying benefits to rural families that want to attend St. Dominic, which has been serving Mainers for more than 80 years.”
“Maine’s new laws block schools that receive tuition funds from allowing any religious expression unless they allow every kind — meaning that a Catholic school like St. Dominic can’t have Mass unless it also allows a Baptist revival meeting,” the Becket press release from June 2023 explained.
“It also gives the state’s Human Rights Commission — not parents and schools — the final word on how the school teaches students to live out Catholic beliefs regarding marriage, gender, and family life,” it continued. “As a result, faith-based schools are still being barred from serving rural families through the program.”
The new restrictions are largely viewed on both sides as a way around the Supreme Court decision.
On the day the Supreme Court decided to include religious schools in tuition programs, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey stated in a press release: “I am terribly disappointed and disheartened by today’s decision … I intend to explore … statutory amendments to address the court’s decision and ensure that public money is not used to promote discrimination, intolerance, and bigotry.”
As evidence of religious targeting, Becket pointed to public social media posts by Maine officials saying that Maine “anticipated the ludicrous decision from the far-right SCOTUS” by amending the tuition program, the Aug. 8 court order noted.
“We will continue to push back against Maine’s transparent efforts to evade Carson v. Makin and make an end run around the Supreme Court,” Keim said.
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“Maine’s new laws block schools that receive tuition funds from allowing any religious expression unless they allow every kind — meaning that a Catholic school like St. Dominic can’t have Mass unless it also allows a Baptist revival meeting.”
I don’t think this is such a bad idea!
Why not, if it means getting back the money that we have paid in taxes to the state in good faith that it will be used to educate our children and grandchildren?
There are plenty of non-Catholics who attend Catholic schools because of the excellent teaching and educational opportunities and although some convert, there are plenty who do NOT convert to Catholicism, in spite of attending various required classes in religion, along with regular Masses, and learning all about Catholicism.
So it is unlikely that Catholic children and teens would become Baptist or Lutheran or any other non-Catholic faith because they are educated about and exposed to church practices that are different than the Catholic Mass.
So let the schools go ahead do a traditional Baptist revival–and an African American gathering (a short version, as these usually last several hours!)–and a liturgical traditional Lutheran service (Missouri Synod, please)–and a typical contemporary non-denominational Praise and Worship service. (Just stay away from the spiritualism, seances, WICCA, yoga, and all the weird New Age stuff that certain mainline Protestant denominations are offering in a desperate attempt to get people to come to their church so they can pay their bills!).
I see no harm. It’s basically educating children about other Christian religions, not just by lecturing and reading, but by demonstration. If it makes traditional Catholics uncomfortable, then invite the parents to come and sit with their children.
As a convert from dynamic Evangelical Protestant churches, I’ve seen many Catholics visit a Protestant (Evangelical) church for VBS, a wedding or funeral, a Ladies Bible study, a Men’s Camping Trip, etc.–and end up abandoning their Catholic church because of all the stuff that they experienced that is new, exciting, dynamic, fun, challenging, Bible-centered, and frankly, reverent, too. In one of the Evangelical churches that my late husband and I attended, over half the members were converts from Catholicism!
Perhaps if they had been EDUCATED about the differences between these “dynamic” Protestant churches while they were young (especially in the middle and high school years), they would have recognized that, while the church they were visiting certainly had a lot of exciting activities, it did not have Jesus, Truly Present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in the Holy Eucharist. (I realize that a poor catechesis while growing up also contributed to their ignorance about their Catholic Church teachings.)
I know quite a few faithful and devoted Catholics who attend Mass–and then head for a joyful Praise and Worship service at a non-denominational fellowship (mainly singing and praising the Lord with contemporary Christian music, which often includes beloved old hymns that have new melodies) because they like the music better than the bland singing and instrumentals that so many non-urban Catholic churches continue to offer.
These families don’t convert to Protestantism–they just enjoy the music that they don’t get in their Catholic parishes.
Catholic children and teens (older, not pre-school) should be educated about what different Christians do in their churches. So go ahead and invite a local CCM group to present a P and W time, or bring in a Baptist evangelist to conduct a “Revival Crusade” or an Evangelical pastor to offer the One-Hour Evangelical Teaching Sermon (common still in Evangelical fellowships), or an African American worship leader to present the “Circle Dance” and various African American spirituals–and explain the differences between these various Christian church gatherings and the Catholic Mass, pointing out that only the Catholic Church offers JESUS, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in the Eucharist, as Jesus Himself taught the disciples at the Last Supper.
Great music, dancing, and dynamic sermons are really nice extras, but JESUS is Who will satisfy our every need. TEACH THIS–and educate the children about other church traditions–and then collect the money from the State that we taxpayers have handed over that we deserve to get back to educate our children!