Local News
Letters To the Editor
Published: May 27, 2010
1,400 Catholics Help GRACE Scholars
GRACE Scholars is a story that keeps getting better and I want to share with Georgia Bulletin readers our incredible results. This month we will complete our first full year of operation. This year over 1,400 Catholics across Georgia chose to direct part of their state taxes to GRACE Scholars. These actions provided $3 million in tuition support to students entering our Catholic schools this fall. As I write this letter we are issuing checks to 225 deserving parents to help them send their children to the Catholic school of their choice. Our Catholic community has come together to provide life-changing opportunities for deserving children.
I’ll back up at this point to refresh everyone on the “magic of GRACE.” Due to changes in the Georgia tax law in 2008, donations to GRACE Scholars provide a 100 percent tax credit against your Georgia state taxes (i.e., you get it all back!). Additionally, the donation can be a charitable contribution on the federal tax return and reduce your federal taxes as well. This year most GRACE participants realized a reduction in state and federal taxes greater than the contribution they made to GRACE. I have never seen a better charitable opportunity in my life.
The second phase of GRACE Scholars has been even more incredible. As each school worked with parents who demonstrated financial need we witnessed dreams coming true. Students that had no ability to afford Catholic school are now supported by grants ranging from $2,000 to $8,000 per year. And because each grant is a multi-year award we have set aside the money for the “child’s career.” Imagine how happy these parents are, knowing that the annual grant will be there every year.
To say there are happy parents, principals and students floating around today is a giant understatement. … Our principals are astounded at what they have done in year one and see GRACE Scholars as being a “game changer.”
To all who participated in GRACE this year you have done something special. Your charity is changing students’ lives. I would ask that all Catholics visit our website at www.grace scholars.org and find out how to participate in this wonderful program. It is making Catholic education more accessible and affordable (and you get the entire amount back). How can you not help! God bless our children.
Pat Mannelly
Director of GRACE Scholars
Atlanta
Youth Need Southern Catholic College
To the Editor:
I am writing to express my complete frustration at the closing of Southern Catholic College. It was a dream for my daughter to go there. She was able to attend for almost two years. That period of time was life-changing for her and increased her faith so deeply.
My question to all of us Catholics, and especially the diocese of Atlanta, is: Where do the graduating Catholic students from Pinecrest, St. Pius, Blessed Trinity, Holy Spirit, Marist and all the other Catholic high schools in Georgia go to college? Do they all go out of state for Catholic education or to a Baptist, Methodist or non-denominational Christian college in Georgia? Why can’t our huge diocese of Atlanta, all political junk aside, support one Catholic college? There are countless colleges representing other faiths in this state. We are failing our precious young adults who want to not only remain Catholic but be immersed in their faith. … We desperately need a godly, Catholic college to succeed in this “Bible Belt.” …
Southern Catholic College was so good. You could honestly feel it when you entered the campus and many people commented on that. The faculty and the priests knew each and every student and genuinely cared about each and every one. Where can you find that anymore? Not even our high schools are that in touch with their students.
My daughter endured four years of public high school. Each day was a struggle for her, but she was determined to get through it because at the end of those years was her prize—Southern Catholic College. She looked forward to going to SCC ever since its inception. During her time at the college she came home every day loving school and growing deeper in love with her Catholic faith. I am positive that she was the rule, not the exception.
Again, I ask you: Why was this college—so desperately needed—allowed to fail? … Why not one Catholic college in Georgia?
Joanne Powell
Cleveland
To the Editor:
I read with interest James C. Doig’s letter (The Georgia Bulletin, May 13) criticizing Southern Catholic College’s recent advertisement for claiming that its fidelity to Church teaching is “rather uncommon” among “most” Catholic colleges today. Mr. Doig may have a point in that it is quite possible that the assertion took some unfair liberties. Perhaps such fidelity is not “uncommon.” Perhaps the word “most” is a bit exaggerated. But I’m not so sure. My son matriculated at a putatively Catholic university in 2000. At the parent orientation a mother asked whether her daughter would receive any encouragement to attend Mass or participate in the sacraments. She was told quite directly that the university did not think of itself as capital “C” Catholic but instead considered itself to be small “c” catholic. Meanwhile, the students were enjoying their own orientation which included a skit that emphasized the importance of a “woman’s right to choose.” … The list of campus organizations included a pro-choice group, but no pro-life group. I assume that Mr. Doig is as appalled by these facts as I am.
Mike Petrik
Norcross
SCC Is Traditionally Catholic
To the Editor:
In response to a letter in the May 13 edition, I’d like to offer a different perspective.
Universities professing Catholic identity must be “different” from secular teaching institutions.
I earned my degree from a Catholic university back in the “old days” (1961) and I appreciate the changes that have occurred. Southern Catholic’s description of its philosophy is not arrogant or divisive … simply traditionally Catholic.
Sadly, the number of colleges and universities that began in the Catholic tradition, teaching “ex corde ecclesiae,” faithful to the Magisterium, has dropped significantly. Look at the rather short list of Catholic institutions of higher learning that the Newman Society recommends.
Compromising authenticity for reasons of enrollment numbers and/or funding has taken its toll. Once federal funds are accepted the curriculum and much more is affected. In April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI (once a professor) addressed Catholic educators: “Catholic identity … demands and inspires … that every aspect of your learning community reverberates with the ecclesial life of faith.” He reaffirms there must be “public witness to the way of Christ.” Honoring pro-abortion commencement speakers, supporting the “Vagina Monologues” on campus (a couple of examples) … compatible with Roman Catholic guidelines?
Rosemary Bregande
Sandy Springs
‘Uncommon Among Most Catholic Colleges’
To the Editor:
Of over 200 U.S. Catholic colleges, only 21, including Southern Catholic, have answered the 10 questions of thenewmanguide.com survey, founded on concerns of both the USCCB and the Vatican, affirmatively, including; Is the majority of the board of trustees and the faculty Catholic? Do you publicly require all Catholic theology professors to have the mandatum? Do you provide daily Mass? Do you exclude advocates of abortion … as commencement speakers? Do you exclude coed dorms? Do your student health services exclude abortion referrals?
“Uncommon among most Catholic colleges today” defines well the 10 percent who meet these specific standards. To read this phrase as a “critique” of the other 90 percent of Catholic colleges requires one to judge this “diverse” minority voice of Catholic colleges. The school is merely stating the parameters of the academic product it offers. Others choose differently. Guilty, yes, of equivocation, but not certainly of criticism.
Use of the terms “conservative/liberal” is itself divisive. I quote our Archbishop. “… we all belong to Christ and in Him … we must not neglect our individuality. Yet, these differences must never … separate us from Christ or one another.”
John Paul II states, “[E]very Catholic University must [be] a continuing reflection in the light of the Catholic faith upon the growing treasury of human knowledge … [and have a] fidelity to the Christian message as it comes to us through the Church” (Ex Corde Ecclesiae 13). May all diverse Catholic universities, seek not to separate us from the Truth, but seek and teach us the Truth to which we all belong.
Rev. Joseph Peek
Norcross
