THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

After viewing the Toronto trustee "sock puppets" in action at the Toronto Separate School Board last August 31st I have become convinced that Catholics in this Province need to ask some hard questions about whether the exercise of "denominational rights" is really worth the effort. Clearly the separate school system does not serve parents, teachers and students. Rather it is designed to benefit administrators, superintendents, directors, bureaucrats, and aspiring liberal party hacks. In other words, a parasitic caste of "professional Catholics". These state-supported Catholic bureaucrats owe their loyalty to the government not to the Faith or to the parents who they purportedly serve. When you take Caesar's money, Caesar tells you what to do. When you let the government pay for the education of your children, the government will tell you what and how to teach. Granted, upper management and staff dictating terms to an elected body is a phenomena observable in other contexts, but it becomes much worse when backed up by the coercive power of the state. The Catholic community in this province needs to get over its devotion to "denominational rights" and look to other more faithful and cost effective models to provide for their children's education. The parochial system in the U.S. and those schools in Ontario who refused to take Bill Davis' money come to mind.