A Catholic Proposal

In England and Wales, as in the U.S., the Roman Catholic Church has long maintained a school system of its own, to give children church doctrine along with their Three Rs. Last week, Catholic Parents' Associations in Britain were rallying support for a drastic change: they wanted to persuade the government to take over the Catholic schools. Nobody was happy about it. To the crisis-goaded government it would mean an added financial drain; to British Catholics it might be a dangerous surrender. But there seemed to be no other way out.

English Catholics had winced when the 1944 Education Act was passed. Under its provisions for new schools, better buildings and an extra year of compulsory education (to age 15), the total cost for Catholics was estimated at -L-10 million--over & above the regular taxes paid to support government schools. Catholic bishops duly informed education officials that they could not pick up so big a burden. Since then, soaring building costs and various other factors have upped the original estimates to somewhere between -L-50 and -L-60 million.

The Strings. Last month, Britain's Catholic hierarchy came forward with its counterproposal. Under its provisions, all Catholic schools could be leased to the local education authority "at a rent which would allow for mortgage interest or redemption." The government would then support Catholic schools out of taxes, in return would have sole power to regulate school curricula and appoint teachers. Beyond the fact that the proposal would still leave the ownership of the schools in church hands, there was another big string tied to it: the teachers would be subject to Catholic approval "as regards religious belief, character and fitness, and the religious education provided in the school would continue unchanged."

In Britain, the offer kicked up less excitement than such a proposal would make in the U.S. Since 1944 many English and Welsh church schools, Catholic and non-Catholic, have been receiving government financial aid, to keep them up to the standards prescribed by the Ministry of Education in its campaign to improve primary education. In Scotland since 1918, Roman Catholic schools have been sold or leased to the government, and have been operating under a teaching agreement like the new proposal of England's bishops.

The Blunt Fact. The Catholics of England and Wales (2,528,200 in a population of 43,534,000) are organizing their forces to make each candidate in next spring's General Election publicly commit himself for or against their plan. Last week the Labor government made it a sharp issue: Minister of Education George Tomlinson.flatly, rejected the bishops' proposal, and issued a memorandum to Labor Party members explaining why. Questioning the accuracy of the bishops' -L-60 million estimate of the Act's cost to Catholics, the memorandum asserted: "The Roman Catholic hierarchy have always aimed at throwing the whole cost of their schools upon public funds, and have not ceased to do so."

The memorandum also cited the English and Welsh tradition against government financing of denominational teaching, and the injustice of giving one denomination more favorable treatment than others. "No skill and courtesy in the presentation of the bishops' proposals," said the memorandum, "can conceal the blunt fact that the Roman Catholic community is asking for substantial further subvention of rates and taxes toward the cost of their schools. Whether secured by the means suggested or other means, the effect would be completely to destroy the basis on which provisions of the 1944 Education Act were found acceptable to other interests concerned."

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