Teaching the Pope a Lesson?

Sidewalks with Tom Deignan

Teaching the Pope a Lesson?

April 14, 2008

by Tom Deignan

NEXT week, amidst ceremonies both solemn and celebratory, Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in the U.S. The pontiff will spend five days here, in Washington, D.C. and New York. He is scheduled to visit Ground Zero and also say mass at Yankee Stadium.

You might say the Pope has already been blessed. Angry Catholic school teachers in New York who had been planning to strike have instead decided to go back to the bargaining table. For now, it does not appear the labor issue will arise while the Pope is visiting.

But make no mistake about it, in many ways, this on-again, off-again teacher’s strike cuts right to the heart of a certain kind of crisis for the Irish — and all other Catholics — in the U.S.

True, an issue such as this will never generate the headlines that abortion or sex scandals do. However, over the long haul, the issue at the center of the teachers strike is perhaps the most profound of all — money.

Now, I don’t want to come off as one of those people who gripes about the church only being interested in money. The celebration of the Mass is a wonderful thing, and educating a child with religious values even more so.

But, the fact is, churches require heating and maintenance. Schools need books and paint jobs. These things cost money, as many a priest has reminded us, gently or otherwise, before passing around the collection basket.

That’s just a fact of life. I can live with that.

Now, enter the Catholic school teachers, who are working with 30 or more kids a day for seven hours, then going home and grading papers and planning lessons, and doing all this for roughly half of what New York’s public school teachers make.

Full disclosure here — I am one of those New York City public school teachers. Believe me, this is not work I would be too thrilled to do if you cut my salary in half.

But to illustrate the broader point about the problems facing the church, let me point to another personal fact of my life. I have four children, the oldest of whom, Maggie, turns seven this month.

Maggie, and my oldest son, T.J., are enrolled in public school. Although I deeply wanted to send my children to Catholic school, it was never really even considered.

I simply could not afford it. The math didn’t add up.

Take a moment and think about this. At this point in time, quite a few Irish Americans have strayed from their Catholic roots.

Maybe, like Pulitzer-prize winning author James Carroll, interviewed in this week’s Craic section, it was the 1960s, amidst contentious battles over birth control.

Maybe, for guys like Malachy McCourt, religion in general is the problem. Or as is the case with so many others, they simply did not absorb religion the way their parents and grandparents did, and so maybe they only go to church on Ash Wednes-day and Palm Sunday -– “A & P” Catholics, as we call them.

So, a substantial portion of the flock has already strayed. I, on the other hand, did not go that route.

In spite of the many problems its critics have noted, I still want to be part of the church, particularly as it pertains to the education of my children. But there is still that unavoidable math and money problem.

And yet, even with the high cost of monthly Catholic school tuition, the Archdiocese still cannot afford to pay its teachers much more than half of what public school teachers are paid.

That, friends, is a serious problem. In the days of $4 gallons of gas and million dollar one bedroom homes, you can’t ask teachers to accept low wages, and you can’t expect parents to refinance their mortgage to cover Catholic school tuition costs.

Where does the church go from here, on the eve of the Pope’s visit?

To say the church is in crisis is a bit of an overstatement. A large number of the new immigrants coming to the U.S. these days are Roman Catholics.

So, despite the numbers of Irish, Italian, Polish and other white ethnic Catholics who are dying off or leaving the church, the numbers of Catholics in the U.S. has remained stable.

Of course, immigrants generally are poor, so who knows how they are going to put their kids into Catholic school for (at least) $300 a month.

That’s a problem that even a math teacher would have trouble solving. It might even take a Pope.

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