Chicago Schools Share the Wealth

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, Jan. 26 — The Archdiocese of Chicago announced a plan to rally its struggling schools, the Chicago daily reported.

The new plan calls for a “tuition covenant.” Parishes are asked to consider billing parents for the actual cost of educating their children, rather than the artificially low tuition parents pay today. With the additional revenues, parishes would create tuition assistance funds for families who find it hard to scrape up the cash. Parents in need would be able to apply for the same subsidy they used to receive, or even a higher one; wealthier parents, however, would pay full price.

The new plan also includes a yearlong advertising blitz for the schools.

The “tuition covenant” would especially benefit the poorest schools, where few parents are able to pay full price. Catholic school systems in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., already use this plan, reported the Sun-Times.

At least two schools in Chicago are closing this year and the archdiocese needed to find a new plan because it has to slash its subsidy to schools next year due to severe financial pressures.

Play Canceled for Sexual Message

THE OBSERVER, Jan. 25 — St. Mary's College nixed a student performance of a play that used obscenity and positively depicted statutory rape, the University of Notre Dame student daily reported.

When the college told students that “The Vagina Monologues” could not be performed on campus, students and faculty who disagreed with the decsion charged that the school was censoring its students and alienating potential professors.

However, many students, parents and alumnae objected to the play's depiction of illicit sexual acts, including sexual contact between an adult woman and an underage girl. Proceeds from the play would have benefited campus anti-rape groups, but the administration suggested that students find other ways to fight rape.

Student Group Defunded Over Homosexual Stance

THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, Feb. 2 — The United Methodist Church in Virginia has refused to fund a student group at Mary Washington College because the group supports homosexual activism, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.

The college's Campus Christian Community is run jointly by Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and United Methodists. But last month, the Methodist college ministries board began to cut its ties to the group, announcing that it would start its own campus ministry at Mary Washington and cut off funding for the larger group. It also took its building back from the Campus Christian Community.

The group's previous pastor had performed a homosexual union ceremony and placed a basketful of condoms in the group's offices. The new pastor removed the basket and a certificate from a pro-homosexual Lutheran group, but many Methodists still felt the group was engaged in homosexual activism.