Because of our compassion, is our ‘default-setting’ the unbridled support of subsidies – and so we take it as gospel truth? “The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced on Tuesday that 26 elementary schools and one high school that had received heavy subsidies in recent years because of declining enrollment would be closed at the end of the current school year”, reports the NY Times, Jan 11th.
“The announcement capped a two-year review process and represented the largest school consolidation in the history of the archdiocese, which includes 2.5 million Catholics . . .The 27 schools marked for closing received subsidies totaling $10 million this year. By comparison, the remaining 189 parochial schools in the archdiocese received a total of $13 million in subsidies . . .” (Background: church collections cover these subsidies.)
The bottom line: sustainability is not optional, it’s mandatory – like a red light means stop! While subsidies are a mirage – not a cure-all – even when the leadership is a cardinal? And so New Yorkers went ballistic and in their passion called it unchristian – where is the compassion? What will happen to the teachers and administrators of these schools especially in a high-cost city? Affected children would be accommodated in other parishes but that means a longer commute for the children, including the little ones. Isn’t the church the fortress of compassion?
Does the news go against our grain? We value compassion and inclusion – and by extension we see subsidies as a manifestation of our Christianity? And which explains why we are up in arms whenever there is an increase in toll fees at our expressways? (The writer and the wife are in Manila and people are bending their ears about this supposed ‘anti-poor initiative’ of the administration.) That beyond being anti-poor, it is unchristian? Others say they are raising an all together different issue; and that is, they suspect corruption in major road projects and therefore find increased toll fees adding insult to injury.
They’re raising a fair point about our insidious corruption; yet the fact remains, our economic fundamentals are weak – e.g., our GDP per capital is a minuscule 10% that of developed economies, and can’t arrest poverty. And to rely on subsidies would not cover our shortcomings – because even ‘status quo’ demands dynamism, i.e., it shifts into decline as the rest of the world moves forward and leaves us behind?
Similarly, helping the poor is imperative. And if the CCT would put more children to school, they would have better chances in the future. Yet, great as they sound poverty initiatives would only go so far given budget limitations – precisely why the good Archbishop of New York did what he did; and also the cardinal before him, who had shut down parish churches and their schools for similar unsustainable subsidies – and has since been given a bigger job in Rome.
“Something had gone seriously wrong”, says Lee Kuan Yew. “Millions of Filipino men and women had to leave their country for jobs abroad beneath their level of education. Filipino professionals whom we recruited to work in Singapore are as good as our own. Indeed, their architects, artists, and musicians are more artistic and creative than ours. The difference lies in the culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial.”
Our instincts make us value compassion and inclusion, yet even the Catholic hierarchy of New York sees things differently. Would we be able to embrace sustainability given it demands tough-mindedness – or why Lee Kuan Yew speaks to our soft, forgiving culture? Ergo: we must learn to bite the bullet? We must step-up to the plate and accelerate our efforts to fix our economic fundamentals – and there is no denying, we would be in pain while going through ‘detox’ or national cleansing? Yet building for the future gives us a tangible, uplifting endpoint – unlike the mirage that we’ve embraced for decades, that is, it would yield further economic decline?
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