Vatican official decries lack of public funding for Catholic schools

Published: 2005-09-16

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The lack of public funding for religiously sponsored schools in the United States is an injustice and an "incredible anomaly" in the world, a Vatican education official said Sept. 14. Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, said Europeans "are absolutely amazed at the situation in the United States," one of the few nations in the world that provides little or no public funding for the education of children in religiously run schools. That policy puts the United States "in the company of Mexico, North Korea, China and Cuba," he said. Citing "the enormous contribution to society made by Catholic schools," he said providing public funding for that service is a matter of distributive justice. Archbishop Miller, a Canadian who was president of St. Thomas University in Houston for six years before his appointment to the education congregation in 2003, was the keynote speaker at a conference on Catholic elementary and secondary education held at The Catholic University of America.

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