Funding Catholic schools that prepare citizens for success should be a no-brainer

by John Klar

“Some critics of religious charter schools complain that taxpayer dollars shouldn’t fund religious education. But they don’t object to taxpayers being forced to fund the leftist indoctrination that permeates so many government-run schools. Such one-sided complaints show that these critics aren’t concerned for taxpayers but instead want to discriminate against religion.”

— Jim Campbell, lead SCOTUS counsel from Alliance Defending Freedom.

Secular liberals are exhibiting an odd hypocrisy. The same leftwing voices objecting to using government funds to teach American children how to read and write in Catholic schools howl in complaint that DOGE cut USAID funding to Catholic charities that supported illegal immigrants—this odd hypocrisy highlights the growing tension within the Holy See.

The high-profile dispute before the U.S. Supreme Court in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond addresses the question of whether states may financially support Catholic schools with public funds to teach students core learning subjects. Does this violate the principles of separation of church and state, or is excluding Catholic schools a violation of their rights to free exercise of their faith?

A U.S. government amicus brief before the SCOTUS argues earnestly for the latter concern:

The Constitution forbids States from attempting to carve out religious schools from a program that generally permits private entities to receive public funds.

Excluding charter schools like St. Isidore from otherwise available funding programs based solely on their religious exercise violates the Free Exercise Clause.

Oklahoma has thus put schools and families to the choice of forgoing religious exercise or forgoing government funding.

A State ‘need not subsidize’ charter schools, but once it ‘decides to do so, it cannot disqualify’ some schools ‘solely because they are religious.’ Carson, 596 U.S. at 785 (citation omitted).

During oral arguments in the Oklahoma battle, Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that excluding sectarian schools from operating charter schools while leaving the program open to nonsectarian institutions seems like “rank discrimination” based on religion. In contrast, the three liberal justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned whether allowing a Catholic charter school to teach using public funds would pierce the wall between church and state.

If funding Catholic charities that harbor illegal immigrants is acceptable, funding Catholic schools that prepare citizens for success should be a no-brainer.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has terminated funding through USAID of Catholic charities that were clearly using public funds not to educate young American citizens but to feed and house illegal immigrants, and in some cases, coach them on how to avoid ICE. Conservatives, including orthodox Catholics, have cried foul about this abuse of public funds to flout important laws, while many on the Left have complained against suspending this Catholic funding. Catholic schools are being paid to teach core subjects, not religion. Catholic charities supporting illegals, however, specifically invoke their religious views as justification and motivation.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have suggested border non-profits have played a role in actively assisting illegals to enter the United States or hide from authorities. The FBI alleges that Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan — who had formerly served for nearly three years as executive director of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee — actively sheltered Mexican national Eduardo Flores-Ruiz from apprehension. Flores-Ruiz was present illegally in the United States, and had been charged in Milwaukee with domestic battery.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a statement that Catholic nonprofit organizations are not “complicit in human trafficking, smuggling, harboring, or child exploitation through the country’s southern border.” Yet the statement suggests that implicit in the organization’s creed is the same social justice ideology embraced by the deceased Pope Francis:

‘Catholic doctrine distinguishes between persons and their actions,’ the statement read. ‘Each person — whether native-born or immigrant, documented or undocumented — is imbued by God with equal dignity. Catholics are compelled by sacred Scripture and Church doctrine to recognize all as brothers and sisters and serve them accordingly [emphasis added].’

Prior to the Catholic Church selection of Robert Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV, the world watched as the theological battle lines were drawn between social justice and the Rule of Law. Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini recently stated:

‘It’s a duty of conscience for the cardinals, now that we have the responsibility to name a new pope, that we don’t lose sight that we’ve been coming along a path and this path needs to continue to grow and grow and grow,’ Ramazzini told The Associated Press on Saturday, four days before Catholic cardinals gather to elect Francis’ successor. ‘I’m talking about supporting, welcoming, and protecting the rights of migrants.’

‘But this we haven’t achieved,’ Ramazzini said. ‘We didn’t achieve it with Clinton, we didn’t achieve with Obama, we didn’t achieve it with Biden, and far, far less will we succeed with Mr. Trump.’

The Cardinal does not distinguish between legal migrants and drug-dealing illegals, or illegal migrants who are active members in gangs, sex traffickers, or dangerous criminals. He also does not favor effective border security (Trump), and is overtly political in saying so. For Catholics of this view, there is no distinction in the Gospels between people who break the law to enter a country and those who abide by the Rule of Law: rape victims be damned.

Meanwhile, the odd, ugly duckling Tim Walz, the Democrat party’s naked emperor jostling for POTUS 2028, offered comments at a Harvard University event (at 57:18) that displayed an interesting dichotomy:

The access to quality public education that I think is under threat, and this idea that there was indoctrination happening. The irony of this is that we have to give vouchers to our parents because they’re indoctrinating our kids in public schools so those parents can use those vouchers to go to religious schools to indoctrinate them into this ideology. Our goal is to make sure everyone is welcome at our public schools.

Walz is saying the quiet secular part out loud: He denies public schools are indoctrinating children, while calling traditional religious teachings indoctrination. This appears to be a growing problem with the separation of the secular state from the secular church: teaching children in schools that guns should be banned, and abortions are a moral good; detailed sexual education, homosexuality and transgenderism are important values to be taught in kindergarten, while test scores in math and reading plummet. This is left-wing political indoctrination.

Walz has exhibited persistent animosity toward people of Christian faith, barring students from schools that required students to submit a letter of faith from participating in a program that allowed high school students to earn college credits, and opposing school choice policies such as education savings accounts. Many parents object to being compelled to pay through taxes for secular public schools that are hostile to their religious traditions. Walz obscenely turned this on its head, opposing parental freedom in school choice because: “[What] we end up doing is subsidizing folks who are already attending private religious schools … or home schooling.”

Teaching children math and reading in Catholic schools in Oklahoma may not be such a bad idea. Test scores in core subjects tend to be higher for Catholic school students, and the schools aren’t harboring illegal criminals on the taxpayers’ dime. If funding Catholic charities that harbor illegal immigrants is acceptable, funding Catholic schools that prepare citizens for success should be a no-brainer.

The author is a Brookfield best-selling author, lawyer, farmer and pastor.