Archbishop Wenski: US Supreme Court ruling 'a great thing for religious liberty'

By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday against a Montana state constitutional provision that barred aid to religiously-affiliated schools solely because of their religious character.

This ruling means that states cannot cut religious schools out of programs that send public money to private education. It also opens the door to parents in Montana seeking to use a tax credit scholarship program to send their children to private schools.

U.S. Bishops laud Supreme Court ruling on funding for religiously-affiliated schools

The 5 – 4  Supreme Court ruling in the case of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue has been lauded by U.S. Bishops as “good news” which promotes the “common good.”

In an interview with Vatican News, the Chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference Committee for Religious Liberty, Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami, speaks on the recent decision.

The Supreme court ruling

Welcoming the ruling, Archbishop Wenski said it is “a great thing for religious liberty” as it “strengthens the position” of those in support of funding to religious schools.

He explained that the ruling basically set aside the “Blaine language” present in the constitution of the state of Montana and about thirty-seven other states. 

Providing some background to the “Blaine Amendment”, Archbishop Wenski said that Blaine was a 19^th century U.S. senator and presidential candidate who almost succeeded in passing a “no aid” amendment to the U.S. constitution as regards funding for sectarian schools.

He further noted that the Blaine Amendment discriminated against Catholic schools because most of the public schools at that time were protestant in their administration. He described them as a “vestige of bigotry from another age” which portrayed “anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant nativist sentiments” that prevailed in the U.S. in the nineteenth century.

According to Archbishop Wenski, Tuesday’s ruling “underscores the right of people of faith to serve their communities and also to serve it in the way of education. It also upholds the rights of parents to be the first ones who determine who should or how their children should be educated.”