As The Tablet went to press, the final details of the New York State budget were being announced in Albany.
But the Education Tax Credit, which was a priority of the New York State Bishops, was left out of the final deal.
A diocesan representative said, “Speaker (Carl) Heastie chose not to help us. The State Assembly chose not to help our schools, teachers, and families. They decided that instead, we would have to settle for payments on mandated services that were already owed to our schools. That’s not good enough.”
We will have the full story and commentary in next week’s edition of The Tablet.
Failure again! Isn’t it about time, our church officials get the word out that the Democratic Party is a secularist party adverse to Catholic interests? Numerous Catholics in this Diocese vote lockstep with the Democrats and then complain about Catholic school tuition. The State Assembly, controlled by Democrats, have prevented perfectly constitutional means of aiding non-pulbic schools. There is a string of Supreme Court rulings affirming means of assisting children in non-public schools. For the last 40 years, the Democratic Party has been taking a secularist line and Catholics keep voting for them. It’s ironic that people put a few dollars to support projects for Catholic schools and then circulate nominating petitions for Democratic candidates.
Politicians view Catholics as stupid politically and they are correct. What did we get from the State? We received a few crumbs in the form of mandated services which those who opposed the Education Investment Tax Credits opposed throughout the 1970s until the Court ruled them constitutional in 1980.
Continue voting for Democrats and we will fail again.
One wishes that we had prelates like the late Cardinal Francis Spellman who took on Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and her anti-Catholic friends in 1949. He drew the line and at least Catholic people knew who their enemies were.