Office for Public Policy and Development

HARRISBURG, PA, January 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the midst of a
raging battle in Pennsylvania over school vouchers, Harrisburg Bishop Joseph
McFadden had some tough words about the nation’s public school system.

“In totalitarian governments, they would love our system,” he told an
ABC affiliate. “This is what Hitler and Mussolini and all those tried to
establish - a monolith so all the children would be educated in one set of
beliefs and one way of doing things.”

Bishop McFadden is a longtime advocate of school vouchers, which would
enable parents to apply some of their tax money towards a private school
education for their children.

The Pennsylvania state legislature voted against a school voucher program
this past December, but the Church hierarchy in the state is hoping to keep
the issue alive.

“All parents should be allowed to use their tax dollars to send their
child to a school of their choice,” Bishop McFadden wrote in an Op-Ed
printed in the Patriot-News this past November. “To say that only public
schools have a claim on educational tax dollars or that allowing a monopoly
in education is the best way to use these funds flies in the face of the
American ideal of freedom of expression and ideas.”

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, widely considered a pro-life
champion, has also been a vocal supporter of school choice.

In a recent statement, he blamed the failure of the voucher program for
Catholic school closings in Philadelphia.

“It’s useful to wonder how many of our schools might have been saved if,
over the last decade, Catholics had fought for vouchers as loudly and
vigorously as they now grieve about school closings,” he wrote.

The archbishop added: “Some Catholics, too many, seem to find it easier to
criticize their own leaders than to face the fact that they’re
discriminated against every day of the year. They pay once for public
schools; then they pay again for the Catholic schools.”

Dr. Bowes as Master of Ceremonies at the EITC birthday in May 2010

School Choice demonstration in State Capitol