Florida Company Gives $1 Million for Parochial Tuition

ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, April 18 — Mike Fernandez, chief executive officer of Physicians Health Care Plans, has offered $1 million to Florida's Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program for low-income children, the Florida daily reported.

The Cuban-born Fernandez was raised in the Bronx, where he went to Catholic schools on scholarship. In gratitude for his own education, Fernandez decided to help other impoverished students attend parochial schools.

Said Fernandez, “People are enTITLEd to choice and options.”

The Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program allows companies to make donations and receive an equivalent tax credit. The program has garnered around $30 million from 15 Florida companies.

Teachers unions and many Democrat politicians want to abolish the program, which they say drains money from public schools, and have targeted some of the companies for protests.

But the Times pointed out that “a recent analysis by the nonprofit Collins Center for Public Policy concluded that the program does not divert money from public schools … [T]he center found that the maximum scholarship of $3,500 is smaller than the amount spent on a typical pupil in the public schools.”

St. Patrick's Rector Calls for Straight Seminaries

ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 22 — On April 21, as Cardinal Edward Egan of New York prepared to travel to Rome along with other American cardinals to consult with Pope John Paul II and his staff about the handling of sexual abuse cases, his regular Sunday Mass was left to the cathedral rector, Msgr. Eugene Clark. Msgr. Clark used that pulpit to offer a stinging analysis of contemporary threats to the priesthood, the news service reported.

The rector reminded parishioners of the Church's teaching that “The tendency to homosexuality is a disorder, not a sin. … But the practice of homosexuality is truly sinful.” American society is “very protective” of homosexual conduct, he said, adding that men with that temptation ought not to be ordained.

Msgr. Clark also discussed reasons why clerical celibacy might be hard to practice in America, pointing to the sexualization of the mass media and suggesting that the United States is “probably the most immoral country, certainly in the Western Hemisphere.”

The remarks sparked controversy in the New York and national press, and on April 22 Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the New York Archdiocese, noted that Msgr. Clark had been speaking on his own behalf. However, Zwilling's quoted remarks did not suggest that Msgr. Clark's comments were in any way at variance with Church teachings

Intact Marriage Is Safest for Women and Children

CULTURE FACTS, April 18 — In its biweekly newsletter, the Family Research Council reported on a study of the incidence of abuse in various family types.

The study, conducted by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, found that never-married women who have children are more than twice as likely to suffer domestic abuse as married mothers. They are also nearly three times as likely to be victims of violent crime.

As well, children living with their mother and a man who is not their father are 33 times more likely to be victims of child abuse than those raised by married, biological parents, the study found. The child abuse rate is 20 times higher for cohabiting-biological families, 14 times higher in single-mother families, and six times higher in step-families.

The study's author, Patrick Fagan, commented: ”It's time for the government to adopt policies that reflect this knowledge and rebuild — rather than undermine — the institution of marriage.”