Catholics Battle GOP on School Aid

When Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the fight to get federal money for children in private schools was won. But this year that bill faces its first full congressional review, and congressmen expect a whole new fight. The big question now is how the government can best distribute that aid.

For some leaders in religious education, the question holds more than passing interest. The Roman Catholic hierarchy, along with the influential interfaith parents’ lobby, Citizens for Educational Freedom, is lining up opposition to a Republican measure that would place control of much of the bill’s $3 billion in the hands of state educational officials, instead of Washington.

Under a bill sponsored by Rep. Albert H. Quie (R.-Minn.), a large part of the aid would be given to the states in the form of “block grants” to be distributed as the states wish. Under the administration’s proposal, funds flow directly from Washington to local school districts.

For religious educators, the important question raised by the Quie bill is this: Under which plan will private-school children get the most? As one congressional aide put it: “It’s a matter of who do you trust—the state government or Washington?” Apparently, the private schools trust Washington more than they trust the states.

The threat of state control is clear to Msgr. James C. Donohue, who is leading the fight against the Quie bill for the U. S. Catholic Conference. Said he: “If it is passed, we believe that private-school participation in the federal school-aid program would become all but non-existent.”

The reason for Catholic suspicion of state educational officials, according to Donohue, is that “for the past fifteen or twenty years their association has passed resolutions opposing any kind of participation by private schools.”

Citizens for Educational Freedom, whose 150,000 membership includes parents from all three major faiths, many with children in church schools, has charged that the Quie bill would deny to private-school children some services that would be open to public-school children. “If a bill is going to aid school children,” says Jeremiah D. Buckley, CEF’s executive director, “it should help them all equally.”

A silent partner in opposition to the Quie bill is the National Council of Churches. The NCC’s disapproval is based on the belief that some areas of the Quie bill go too far and that its approval might open a whole new debate on the church-state issue in aid to education. After a week’s study, however, the NCC said it will not publicly fight the bill because it has found that the congressmen it believed it could influence were already against the bill.

The opposition, particularly from Catholics, has caused Republicans to seek accommodation. Since its appearance late last month, the bill has been rewritten at least four times.

To take off the pressure on another front, two Catholic Republican congressmen (Scherle from Iowa and Erlenborn from Illinois) sent letters to the head of every parochial school system rebutting their church’s position and asking support for the bill.

In a statement on his own, Quie promised his bill will “continue every form of assistance now available to private-school pupils and teachers.”

Outwardly, Republicans are interested in the bill because it places control in the hands of the states. Privately, however, some congressmen admit that in addition a victory for the Quie bill would connect the party to an important piece of education legislation while at the same time providing a rebuff to the Great Society.

Democrats emphasize that Quie would reduce by as much as 30 per cent the money for educationally deprived children. Also, directing the money through the states would take away from the bill’s ability to spot and help individual problems at the grass-roots level.

How the vote will go is still unclear. Both parties backed away from a showdown at month’s end. The letter-writing campaigns flooding some congressional offices, particularly from heavily Catholic areas, seems to be changing few minds. Of the twenty-two congressmen, for example, who are both Republican and Roman Catholic, only two have said they will break with their party to oppose the bill.

Protestant Panorama

The “restructure” proposal toward more centralization in the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) has run into enough criticism that the final vote, scheduled for this fall, is likely to be held off until the 1968 convention. Restructure is necessary for ultimate Disciples entry into organic union with other denominations.

The North Carolina Lutheran Synod asked that pastors be given a week’s leave of absence each year for “scholarly studies.” Congregations and church synod agencies were requested to arrange for the furloughs. Actual implementation was left up to local church leaders.

The Southern Baptist Convention Foreign Mission Board has appointed its first Negro career missionary in eighty-four years: Miss Sue Thompson of Missouri, who will work in Nigeria. The SBC has previously sent some Negroes on short-term assignments.

Episcopal Bishop Robert F. Gibson, Jr., told the Consultation on Church Union that similar broad church mergers are under way in twenty-five other nations and that, comparatively speaking, the Americans “are quite far behind in the process.” He was reporting on an April meeting of union leaders sponsored by the World Council of Churches.

Miscellany

A windstorm peeled back the roof of a new warehouse belonging to the Baker Book House religious publishing firm in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A number of books were reported damaged by water. No one was injured.

An international art talent contest among orphans and needy children between the ages of six and eighteen will be sponsored by World Vision. The children will use whatever media is available, from oils to charcoal.

Orissa State in India will pay $15,000 for rebuilding of four churches in Berhampur damaged in a riot last fall.

Ethiopian and Coptic Orthodox pilgrims clashed briefly in Jerusalem during an Orthodox Holy Saturday procession April 29. The violence, according to reports, was the result of a long-standing dispute between the two churches over ownership of a monastery. Coptic Orthodox Archbishop Basilius was slightly injured.

The Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 to kill three obscenity convictions on the sale of “girlie” magazines and paperbacks. The court said that the cases did not involve the “pandering” aspects that led it to convict Ralph Ginzburg (see April 15, 1966, issue, page 44), and that prosecutors made no appeals for protection of “juveniles.”

Personalia

The first woman moderator of a presbytery in the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. is Dr. Janie McGaughey of Atlanta. She was elected head of the local presbytery by a voice vote. Dr. McGaughey is a ruling elder at Druid Hills Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.

Dr. James Ralph Scales was chosen president of Wake Forest College (Baptist), succeeding Dr. Harold W. Tribble, who is retiring. Dr. Scales formerly headed Oklahoma Baptist University and more recently has been a dean at Oklahoma State University.

The Rev. Carlyle Marney resigned as pastor of the 11,000-member Myers Park Baptist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina, to become director of Interpreter’s House, an ecumenical center at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.

Benjamin F. Payton, first Negro to head the religion and race department of the National Council of Churches, will become president of Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, in July. The first of this year, NCC amalgamated its seven social-justice agencies under Payton’s direction. Benedict, which has 1,100 students, is a Negro college related to four Baptist conventions.

Colin W. Williams, associate secretary of the National Council of Churches’ Division of Christian Life and Mission, will become director of the Doctor of Ministry program at the University of Chicago Divinity School this fall. He succeeds the late Robert W. Spike in that post. Williams, a 45-year-old Australian Methodist who has nettled conservatives in the NCC fold with his new-evangelism ideas, says his departure does not indicate a redirection of the NCC program.

The Rev. Charles L. Warren was appointed executive director of the Council of Churches of Greater Washington, D. C. Warren is presently a district superintendent in the New York Conference of The Methodist Church. He is the first Negro to hold the influential ecclesiastical post in Washington.

Monsignor William W. Baum, quiet, friendly ecumenical officer for U. S. Roman Catholics, becomes chancellor of the Kansas City diocese in July. In little more than two years in the pioneering post he has traveled 150,000 miles and attended a broad range of Protestant meetings.

Dr. Fred E. Young was appointed dean of Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Kansas. Young, professor of Old Testament since 1955, has been acting dean since January 1.

The Rev. Ralph C. Chandler was elected secretary for international affairs in the United Presbyterian Office of Church and Society.

Allan M. Parrent, former U. S. foreign service officer, was named director of program in the Washington, D. C., office of the National Council of Churches’ Department of International Affairs.

Anniversaries

The Presbyterian Journal marked its twenty-fifth anniversary with a special issue dated May 3. The magazine, founded by Dr. L. Nelson Bell as a monthly, now appears as a weekly with a circulation larger than that of any other independent Presbyterian or Reformed publication in the world.

Air Force Chief of Staff General J. P. McConnell threw a quiet over the fiftieth anniversary dinner of the General Commission on Chaplains by telling chaplains that “they need to spend less time in their offices and more time down with the boys.” McConnell, a Protestant, said “Catholic chaplains are best. I don’t know why, but they are.”

Groups in more than two dozen cities gathered for simple meals last month to observe the fiftieth anniversary of the American Friends Service Committee. Justin Kaplan, winner of the 1967 Pulitzer prize for biography, announced he would donate his $500 prize to the Quaker organization as an expression of his dissent from U. S. policy toward Viet Nam.

Deaths

PETRUS OLOF BERSELL, 84, retired president of the Augustana Lutheran Church; in Minneapolis.

ROBERT NATHANIAL MONTGOMERY, 66, president emeritus of Muskingum College and last moderator of the United Presbyterian Church of North America; in New York.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.