More Aid for the Common Good

CHURCH & STATE

The tenor of recent major U.S. court decisions has been that public aid to religious institutions is permissible so long as the primary purpose is to perform a useful social service. Increasingly, the nation's legislators appear to be adopting a similar philosophy toward extending assistance to church-related schools, hospitals and agencies that contribute to the common good.

In half a dozen states, a spate of bills have been introduced this year to initiate or expand taxpayer support for parochial schools. A proposed amendment to Wisconsin's constitution, permitting the use of public funds to transport private-school students, has cleared the legislature's lower house. In Minnesota, where Catholics have tried futilely for years to win passage of a bussing-aid bill, new Republican Governor Harold Le Vander, a Lutheran, announced that he might favor such a proposal; already under debate in the state legislature is a measure that would authorize aid to public schools offering part-time classes to parochial students. New Jersey's legislature is considering a bill under which parochial pupils would be bussed at state expense directly to their school door. Michigan law already requires public schools to extend auxiliary services--including student physical examination and street-crossing guards --to private schools in their districts.

Currently, all 50 states and 95% of the nation's school districts are accepting aid under the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which requires recipients to share the benefits with parochial schools. Moreover, an ever-growing roll call of communities have chosen church-related institutions to administer or share in local antipoverty programs; in some cities, such as San Antonio, church groups dominate community efforts. In all, religious organizations receive $50 million a year for programs sponsored by the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity.

Such organizations as the American Jewish Congress and the American Civil Liberties Union are deeply disturbed about the coalescing of church and state, and several of the new parochial-school aid bills are certain to face court tests if they are signed into law. Nonetheless, many state legislators agree that state aid to parochial schools makes practical as well as legal sense; if these schools were to collapse because of higher operating costs, the result would be an overwhelming student load placed on public education facilities. Even more strongly, a growing number of churchmen believe that their institutions have a right and duty to share in the war on poverty. Last week the general board of the National Council of Churches passed a resolution declaring that "effective participation by churches is indispensable" if such programs are to work.

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