Saturday, April 05, 2008
MORE DEMONSTRATIONS DURING THE PAPAL VISIT
The gays have planned a demonstration during the Pope's visit. Now a couple of New York Catholic teachers unions are planning to picket, this time over healthcare benefits which they say they can't afford on teacher's salaries, holding up the Church's social teaching ideals as a contrast to things going wrong where the Catholic school shoe leather meets the sidewalk.
From the viewpoint of the diocese, when budgets get out of control by trying to follow Catholic social teaching, the solution is to close something down--like an urban school. The article indicates more than a dozen have already been closed. New York Catholic teachers would like the Pope to become aware of this difficulty, and so they are taking the opportunity provided by the Papal visit to picket when he is around.
I couldn't help, while reading the article, but to consider that family budgets get out of control, too, especially when the Church's social teaching on contraception is being followed; and that closing something down is not an option when the cause is a child. Since both the schools and contraception revolve around children, it seems to me there are interesting parallels here; and that the Church is demonstrating by Her actions how one is supposed to cope with the conflict between Catholic social teaching and financial realities.
