Every now and then I read a book that makes me want to stand up and cheer. The latest entry is Who Really Cares by Arthur C. Brooks, professor of public administration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. We’ve become e-mail “pen pals,” and I’m happy to say that Arthur is Roman Catholic.

Brooks has put together one of the most incredible indictments of the finger-pointing left-wing secular elites in recent memory. The same people who never stop lecturing the rest of us on our alleged greed, we learn, turn out to be the stingiest of them all. Others may have said this before, but no one has presented the data like Brooks. His evidence is overwhelming.

Who Really Cares pairs nicely with Paul Johnson’s 1988 best-seller, Intellectuals, and Peter Schweizer’s more recent book, Do As I Say (Not As I Do). Johnson detailed the unbelievable hypocrisy of some of the West’s greatest minds, from Marx and Rousseau to Sartre and Lillian Hellman; Schweizer did the same with today’s celebrities, from Michael Moore and Hillary Clinton to Barbara Streisand and Edward Kennedy.

Unlike the Johnson and Schweizer contributions, Brooks doesn’t focus on the big names—he makes comparisons based on demographic groups—but his rendering is similar: the reader walks away feeling a genuine contempt for the duplicity and arrogance of the lecturing class. And what will be of most interest to the readers ofCatalyst, Brooks makes plain the wholly unearned reputation that secular liberals have in caring for the poor. They may have mastered the rhetoric of caring, but it is religious conservatives who are the champions of actually doing something to help the dispossessed.

Brooks is nothing if not honest. He approached the subject of charitable giving through the lens of his graduate-school years, i.e., he took it as axiomatic that because secular liberals expressed greater interest in the poor, they were necessarily more generous. But as he learned, the data do not support this conclusion. Hence, he changed his mind. The “hence” should not be read flippantly: it is a rare scholar, in my experience, who allows the evidence to affect his conclusions; most are so ideologically driven that they do not let the evidence get in the way of their conclusions.

There are several myths that Brooks explodes in his book. One of them is that the American people are a selfish lot who turn their backs on the poor. Not true. “Private American giving could more than finance the entire annual gross domestic product (GDP) of Sweden, Norway, and Den-mark,” Brooks writes. And contrary to what many people believe, charitable giving cannot be explained by tax breaks afforded by the IRS. Only 20 percent of those who give to charities do so because of a tax deduction; 80 percent give because “those who have more should give to those who have less.”

Charitable giving, as Brooks informs, should not be measured simply by writing checks. Using available data, he calculates time, as well as money. More than half of all Americans, for instance, volunteer their time to help some cause. Others, often the same people as it turns out, give blood; others may baby-sit for a neighbor. And so forth. Interestingly, those who give also appear to be more tolerant and maintain less prejudices that those who do not.

It is commonplace in the halls of academia to assume that conservatives are greedy and liberals are caring. But, in fact, it is conservatives who are by far the most generous—not only with their money, but with their time. It is not as though they are richer: as Brooks shows, “liberal families earn on average 6 percent more per year than conservative families, and conservative families [give] more than liberal families within every income class, from poor to middle class to rich.” Similarly, Republicans give more than Democrats.

Why is the conventional wisdom wrong? Because liberals get brownie points for talking about the poor more than conservatives, even if their idea of “helping” the indigent is through government transfers. Quite frankly, they love to play Robin Hood with other people’s money, having never found an income redistribution scheme they couldn’t endorse. But as Brooks correctly notes, “Government spending is not charity.” (His italics.) The data also allow him to conclude that “People who think the government should redistribute income are less likely to donate to charity than people who don’t think so.”

All of this reminds me of Marx and Rousseau: Marx, the father of socialism, fathered a child out of wedlock (he impregnated his maid) and never gave his child a dime; Rousseau, another radical egalitarian, fathered five illegitimate kids and walked away from his responsibilities (though this didn’t stop him from writing a book on child rearing). For a modern day example of Brooks’ point, consider the Clergy Leadership Network founded by Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson.

For Peterson, “paying taxes is a way of loving thy neighbor,” and for her clergy organization, slashing taxes is “inevitably an appeal to our greed, not to our generosity or compassion.” In other words, those who want to keep the money they’ve earned and spend it the way they choose (often on others) are the greedy ones. Those who want the government to pick the pockets of the rich are the altruists. They actually believe this!

The conventional wisdom is also wrong with regards to the generosity of the faithful vs. the faithless. It is a staple of liberal thought that secularists are more charitable than churchgoers, but the evidence shows just the opposite. “Religious people are far more charitable than nonreligious people,” writes Brooks. Indeed, he says that “In years of research, I have never found a measurable way in which secularists are more charitable than religious people.”

What Brooks found was that the faithful are more charitable across the board. “Religious people are more charitable in every measurable nonreligious way—including secular donations, informal giving, and even acts of kindness and honesty—than secularists.” They give more blood and are 57 percent more likely to give to the homeless than secularists. What is really astounding is that in the aftermath of 9/11, “People who never attended church were 11 percentage points less likely than regular churchgoers to give to a 9/11 cause (56 to 67 percent).”

Brooks drives his point home by comparing the charitable giving of San Franciscans to South Dakotans. Families in both groups give away about $1,300 a year, but because the former make 78 percent more money than the latter, “The average South Dakotan family gives away 75 percent more of its household income each year than the average family in San Francisco.” There’s a reason for this disparity: “Fifty percent of South Dakotans attend their houses of worship every week, versus 14 percent of San Franciscans. On the other hand, 49 percent of San Franciscans never attend church, but the statistic drops to 10 percent for South Dakotans.”

Could it be that those who are religious earn more than secularists, thus accounting for the discrepancy in giving? Not at all. Brooks details that “an average secularist nongiver earns 16 percent more money each year than a religious giver.” (His emphasis.) Yet secular liberals “are 19 percent points less likely to give each year than religious conservatives, and 9 percent less likely than the population in general.”

Family life is also an important explanatory variable. Married people give more than single people; they are also happier. And happiness is “strongly associated with high levels of giving.” To top it off, “American conservatives consistently report higher levels of subjective well-being than liberals.” These factors are all related. “Conservatives tend to enjoy more traditional, religious, and stable families than liberals,” says Brooks, and “these types of families bring ongoing happiness for most people.”

Brooks concludes that “religion, skepticism about the government in economic life, strong families, and personal entrepreneurism” are the four most important qualities that account for charitable giving. Because the poor actually are the most generous of all socio-economic classes—they give proportionately more than the middle class or the upper class—Brooks recommends that their charitable giving be given a tax break even if they don’t itemize. This makes eminently good sense.

As I said at the beginning, it is the non-stop lecturing we get from the educated talking heads in the classroom and in the media about the compassion they have for the poor—unlike those religious conservative types—that galls me most of all. Their idea of helping the poor comes down to higher taxes and soup kitchens, neither of which extracts a whole lot from them.

In the 1970s, I taught in an inner-city Catholic elementary school in Spanish Harlem during the day and went to New York University at night for my Ph.D. in sociology. In one class, after listening to hippie students blaming Exxon for the low achievement of inner-city students (I still haven’t figured that one out), I commended them for their interest in servicing the poor and then asked if they wanted to spare some time on a weekend tutoring my black and Puerto Rican students. No one spoke.

There is more than hypocrisy involved. These hand-wringing leftists are quick to condemn the pro-life community for its alleged fixation on the unborn, yet it is the faithful who are more generous to the poor than the faithless. Yet all Castro has to do is don his fatigues and talk compassionately about the oppressed—all the while grinding his boots into their faces—and he is a saint in their eyes.

Ronald Reagan once defined a conservative as someone who sees someone drowning from a pier, throws him a rope, but intentionally throws one that is a bit short, thus making the needy one work a bit before he’s rescued. A liberal, by contrast, throws a rope that is plenty long enough, and when the needy one picks up his end, the liberal drops his and then goes off to help someone else.

Reagan would have loved Brooks’ book. You most certainly will.

By David R. Carlin

Once upon a time—let’s say from the time of Franklin Roosevelt till the time of Lyndon Johnson—the Democratic Party was the clear party of choice for American Catholics.  The party had a special concern for the urban working classes and for the children and grandchildren of immigrants; its social justice ideas were often very similar to the social justice ideas outlined in papal encyclicals such as Rerum Novarum andQuadrigessimo Anno; it was emphatically patriotic and, like the Vatican, emphatically anti-Communist; it was strong on military defense; and it did almost nothing to defy or to undermine Catholic moral values.  It was a party that Catholics, at least Catholics of the kind that flourished in those long-ago days, could feel very comfortable with.

I myself was one of those Catholic Democrats.  Born in 1938, the second year of FDR’s second term, I first voted for president in 1960, the year that represented the summit of Catholic satisfaction with the Democratic Party, since that was the year John Kennedy was elected president.  I was elected as a Democrat to the Rhode Island Senate in 1980; in 1989-90 I was the Democratic Majority Leader of the Senate; and in 1992 I was the Democratic candidate (alas, a losing candidate) for the United States House of Representatives.

During my political career, despite my prominent position in the party, I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the new direction the national party had taken.  Today I am worse than uncomfortable; I am downright distressed and disillusioned.

The Catholics of the United States have changed greatly since those far-off days of FDR and LBJ.  They used to be, religiously speaking, a relatively homogeneous group, but they are now divided between what may be called “real Catholics” and “nominal Catholics.”  By “real Catholics” I mean those who go to church every weekend, who actually believe the doctrines of the Church, and who make a serious effort (while not always succeeding) to let their lives be guided by the moral rules and moral values endorsed by the Church.

By “nominal Catholics” I mean those who are quite opposite.  They rarely or never attend Mass, and they have a “pick and choose” attitude when it comes to faith and morals.  They are Catholic in the sense that they were baptized Catholic and have not yet sent in a letter of resignation.  And of course there are shades of gray between these two extremes: Catholics who may be called semi-real or semi-nominal.

If Catholics have changed over the last three or four decades, so has the Democratic Party “changed utterly” (to use the words of Yeats).  From being a party that Catholics could feel very comfortable with, it has become a party that Catholics—at least “real Catholics”—feel profoundly uncomfortable with.  Not to put too fine a point on it, the national Democratic Party has become an anti-Christian party.

At about this point some Catholic Democrat will tell me that my assertion is preposterous.  I’ll be told that Catholic politicians who play a leading role in the Democratic Party—for instance, U.S. senators and representatives—are for the most part Sunday churchgoers of good moral character.  No doubt this is true, but the Democrats who sit in Congress are only the tip of the party iceberg:  nearly 90% of the typical iceberg is under water.  That is to say, the relatively invisible people who mainly determine the policies of the party are the political contributors and activists, not to mention those who spread pro-Democratic propaganda from the “command posts” of American culture—by which I mean the press, the entertainment industry, and our leading colleges and universities (including law schools).

Julius Caesar once said that money is the “sinews of war,” and it is most definitely the sinews of modern American politics.  The old local Democratic political “machines” used to deliver the vote for Democratic governors and senators and representatives, but these machines largely vanished decades ago.  And so now the vote has to be delivered (or perhaps a better word would be “incited”) by TV advertising, and it is a notorious fact that TV advertising is colossally expensive.  Politicians running for higher office, then, need great amounts of money, and they therefore have to cater to those who contribute.  (“He who pays the piper calls the tune.”)

The demographic base of the old machines consisted of working-class and lower-middle-class voters; and so, with the waning of the machines, there has been a corresponding waning of influence in the Democratic Party of these voters.  An influence vacuum was created, which was soon filled by upper-middle class professionals with enough disposable income to be able to throw cash at politicians who hold views pleasing to these contributors.  Not only that, but these relatively well-to-do Democratic contributors usually hold an ideology; that is, they are secularists (or semi-secularists) and moral liberals.

Now what do I mean by a “secularist”?  I mean a person with three striking traits:  (1) In his personal life he has no use for religion; he is normally an atheist or agnostic (and if an agnostic, his agnosticism is barely distinguishable from atheism).  (2) He considers religion to be not just useless, but positively harmful; and therefore he is anti-religious, especially anti-Christian.  He doesn’t mind “liberal” Christians all that much, since their Christianity is a kind of semi-secularism; but he detests and fears Christians of a more orthodox kind, whom he suspects of wishing to impose a “theocratic” regime on the United States.  (3) He believes in and promotes a new morality that is intended to replace traditional Christian morality, e.g., the morality of the Ten Commandments.  This is a morality of moral liberalism, whose two fundamental principles are: the Personal Liberty Principle (you are free to do whatever you like provided you don’t harm non-consenting others in a tangible way), and the Tolerance Principle (you must tolerate the conduct of anyone who is not harming others in a tangible way).

The Personal Liberty Principle and the Tolerance Principle have most notably been invoked to justify a new personal morality whose characteristic note is sexual freedom.  In other words, they have been used to justify the sexual revolution: premarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, easy divorce, cheap and readily available contraception, a somewhat lax attitude toward adultery (remember the tolerance moral liberals exhibited toward Bill Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky), abortion, pornography, and homosexuality, including in recent years same-sex marriage.  “How do any of these things hurt innocent bystanders?” asks the moral liberal.  “And if they don’t hurt, then they are morally permissible.”  (It’s a bit puzzling that moral liberalism feels that abortion is justified, since abortion obviously causes harm to another.  Moral liberals get around this difficulty by the clever device of not thinking about it.)

Another way of putting all this is to say that there is a “culture war” going on in the United States between moral liberals and moral conservatives; or more exactly, between secularists and Christians.  The secularists, who hold Christianity in disdain, would like to drive Christianity out of the public arena and into a corner, where those nitwits who like to practice it would still be free to do so, to the infinite amusement of the more “enlightened” people.  Christians of the old-fashioned kind, both Catholic and Protestant, would like to preserve their religion, not just as a private hobby, but as an important factor in the public culture of the United States.  As for the third party in this culture war, the liberal Christians: they have a nostalgic and sentimental attachment to Christianity, but in most of the actual battles between moral liberals and moral conservatives—e.g., battles about abortion and homosexuality— they come down on the side of moral liberalism, although they do so (let it be noted to their credit) with something of a long face.

This culture war has long since spilled over into politics.  And in politics the Democratic Party has allied itself with the secularists/moral liberals, while the Republican Party has decided to ally itself with the Christians/moral conservatives.  I don’t mean to say that the Republican Party has become the Christian party.  For one thing, while the party is anti-secularist, it has many features that are not especially Christian.  For another, as history teaches, it would be very dangerous for Christians to identify their religion with a political party.

But although I won’t say that the Republican Party has become the Christian party, I will say that the Democratic Party has become the anti-Christian party; for to take sides with the secularists/moral liberals in the culture war, as the Democrats have done, is to take sides against Christianity.

And so, the Democratic Party has gone from being a Catholic-friendly working and lower-middle class party to being a secularist and upper-middle class party.  Can a Catholic be a Democrat today?  It is virtually impossible, assuming that the Catholic in question is a “real Catholic,” is acquainted with policies of the party such as its support for abortion and homosexuality, and is capable of reasoning logically.  And this is what is actually happening: Increasingly, “real Catholics” are leaving the Democratic Party, although “nominal Catholics” (who are really semi-secularists) remain.  Since there are millions of “real Catholics” in America, their exodus from the party should cause alarm among party leaders.  But apparently it does not, at least not much, they are so in thrall to their secularist/moral liberal supporters.

Nonetheless I confess (with some embarrassment and perhaps even shame) that I remain a registered Democrat, even though this doesn’t mean that I can be counted on actually to vote for Democrats.  But I feel that my protest against the anti-Christian course the party has taken will be more effective if I remain officially a Democrat.  After all, it was my party before it became the party of the secularists.  Why should I allow them to drive me out?

David R. Carlin is the author of Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?: How the Party I Loved Became the Enemy of My Religion, published by Sophia Institute Press.

by Dan Kurzman

As soon as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was ousted from power on July 25, 1943, Adolf Hitler began hatching a plan to kidnap Pope Pius XII and plunder the Vatican. Clearly, the Fuehrer thought, the “Jew-loving” pope had encouraged King Victor Emanuel II and some rival fascist leaders to overthrow his Italian puppet.

The following day Hitler called for an urgent meeting of his military leaders. They must liberate Mussolini and return him to power, he cried. And “we must occupy Rome” and “destroy the Vatican’s power, capture the pope, and say that we are protecting him.” The pope might even have to be killed.

About six weeks later, on September 13, SS General Karl Wolff, the SS commander in Italy, received a phone call from his boss, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, orchestrator of the Holocaust. Himmler, Wolff told me, bellowed that the Fuehrer wanted to see him urgently.

The general, who had previously served as Himmler’s chief of staff, suspected why. Three days earlier, on September 10, German troops had marched into Rome, and German intelligence soon snatched Mussolini from captivity. The Duce was now to regain power in Nazi-occupied northern Italy, and Wolff would be sent to the capital in Fasano, near Salo, primarily to make sure that Mussolini followed the Nazi line. But Himmler had revealed to Wolff that Hitler had an additional secret mission in mind for him.

According to notes that Wolff told me he had taken during and after the meeting, Hitler barked: “I want you and your troops to occupy Vatican City as soon as possible, secure its files and art treasures, and take the pope and the curia to the north,” probably Liechtenstein.

Referring to the threat of an Allied invasion of Italy, he added: “I do not want the pope to fall into the hands of the Allies or to be under their political pressure and influence.”

Wolff promised to do his best but was conflicted, feeling that such an operation could alienate Italy and the entire Catholic world. Besides, he worshipped power, and the pope, like Hitler, was one of the world’s most powerful leaders. The two men, although holding diametrically contrary views, were to the calculating general like earthly gods. Still, he felt, his mission might be useful—if he could sabotage it and obtain a blessing from Pius for saving his life and the Church itself.  Wolff could perhaps also save his own life if Germany lost the war and he was tried for his war crimes.

But Wolff, who revered the SS, may have been prompted as well by other more sordid details of the kidnap plot that were later discovered in a letter that one Italian fascist leader wrote to another. It was headed Massacre of Pius XII with the Entire Vatican.

According to this message, which repeated what a high SS official (perhaps Wolff) told the fascist writer, the purpose of the plot was to avenge “the papal protest in favor of the Jews”— apparently referring to an expected papal outcry when the Roman Jews were rounded up.

The plan called for soldiers of the SS Florian Geyer Cavalry, disguised in Italian uniforms, to invade the Vatican shielded by  night, kill all members of the curia, and take the pope prisoner. Then troops of the Hermann Goering Panzer Division would surge into the Vatican to “rescue” the pontiff and kill the disguised SS men, assuming they were Italian assassins rather than SS compatriots. Thus, no witnesses.

If the pope tried to escape (or was perceived as trying to), he, too, would be shot. The world, like the panzer soldiers, would be led to believe that the “Italians” were guilty.

Meanwhile, Wolff described Hitler’s order to Rudolf Rahn, the German ambassador to Italy, who was to be transferred from Rome to Fasano as the emissary to Mussolini’s new republic. Rahn then joined in a conspiracy with Wolff and several other like-minded German officials against the plot and went to see Hitler. If the people learned that their pope had been abducted, Rahn told the Fuehrer and his chief lieutenants, they might rise up against the Germans.

Most of Hitler’s men seemed cool to an attack, fearing such a reaction. Even Himmler, who had been meeting secretly with the German Resistance, was uncertain; he had to choose between striking the Church, which he hated, and seeking to improve his image in Allied eyes in case Germany lost the war.

The only one present who strongly supported an attack was Martin Bormann, Hitler’s ruthless secretary, who wanted to replace Christianity with a new religion headed by the Fuehrer. Bormann, Rahn told me, turned beet-red with anger as he, the ambassador, made his plea. But Hitler trusted his secretary most, and it appeared that his advice would be taken.

Meanwhile, General Wolff revealed to the Vatican that Pius was in danger. The pope loathed Hitler. And Hitler loathed him, viewing him as an obstacle to his —and Bormann’s—grandiose plan to capture the minds and souls of much of mankind after a victorious war.

In 1939, realizing what was at stake, Pius had actually joined in a conspiracy by some German generals to overthrow Hitler and, if necessary, a high Vatican official told me, to kill him. The risks, he said, to both the pope personally and the Church were incalculable. But in the end the plot fell through.

In 1943, as the tension between the two men grew, Monsignor Domenica Tardini, the Vatican’s assistant secretary of state, told the cardinals to “keep a suitcase ready because we might be deported at any time.” The pope himself called a meeting of cardinals to choose a possible successor in case he was kidnapped. And friends of the pope prepared a plan for him to flee to Spain if necessary, though he vowed to remain in the Vatican unless he was carried out.

Ernst von Weizsaecker, the German ambassador to the Vatican, another anti-Hitler conspirator, tried to convince Pius that he should remain silent when the Nazis rounded up the Jews of Rome. The Pope, until then, had felt that if he spoke out strongly against the Jewish genocide, Hitler would not only attack the Vatican but would drag out the hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Vatican institutions in which they were hiding throughout occupied Europe, as well as their Christian protectors.

But the German diplomats were afraid that he would nevertheless speak out publicly if the Roman Jews, his neighbors, were deported. If he did, they argued, there was virtually no chance that Hitler would cancel his kidnap plan. And on October 16, the Gestapo in Rome began rounding up the Jews.

That rainy morning, Princess Enza Pignatelli Aragona, a friend of Pius, was awakened by a phone call from a friend, who informed her of the arrests. The princess told me she rushed to the Vatican and, interrupting a papal mass, blurted the news to the pope, crying, “Only you can stop them!”

“But they promised me that they would not touch the Jews in Rome!” Pius exclaimed. He then ordered Cardinal Luigi Maglione, his secretary of state, to summon Ambassador Weizsaecker urgently and protest the action. As the princess departed, the pope promised, “I’ll do all I can.”

When Weizsaecker arrived for a meeting with Maglione, he said he would “try to do something for these poor Jews.” But, he asked, “what would the Holy See do if these things were to continue?”

“The Holy See would not want to be faced with the need to express its disapproval,” the cardinal answered …”If the Holy See were forced to [protest], it would trust the consequences to Divine Providence.” In other words, he would speak out publicly if the roundup of Jews continued.

Shaken, the ambassador responded, “I think of the consequences that a protest by the Holy See might precipitate.”

Clearly, the word “kidnap” was on both their minds.

Meanwhile, other German diplomats—and, the Vatican would say, the pope’s nephew—urged an eminent priest, whom Berlin trusted, to write an urgent note to a cooperative German commander in Italy that was to be wired to Berlin echoing Cardinal Maglione’s warning.

At the same time, in Germany, General Wolff managed to convince Hitler that he would have a hard time suppressing an uprising in Italy if the pope felt forced to speak out and had to be dethroned. So, finally, Himmler ordered that the roundup stop after only about 1,000 of the 8,000 Roman Jews were picked up. And the pope, who had apparently been prepared to publicly condemn the roundup, felt there was no longer a need to do so now.

Several months later, in May 1944, Wolff secretly met with Pius, who, having learned of the general’s role in helping to sabotage the kidnap plot, felt that the man must have some good in him, whatever his background.

Both men agreed that the war would best end in an Allied-German alliance, without Hitler, to halt the Soviet advance on Europe. And Wolff assured the pope that he would try to frustrate any new plot against him.

Wolff was overwhelmed when the pope then blessed him. He now had the full confidence of both the Vicar of Christ and the Antichrist, an incredible interworld feat. The general rose, clicked his heels together—and raised his arm in the Nazi salute! The pope smiled forbearingly. His visitor had simply confused his gods. But he would eventually betray one of them—surrendering the entire German army in Italy, on his own, to the Americans.

The kidnap plot had failed, but it had helped to shape the policies and attitudes of the pope, Hitler, and their subordinates during a most important segment of World War II history.

Award-winning author Dan Kurzman is the only journalist who ever interviewed General Karl Wolff.  His newly released book, A Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII, is available from Da Capo Press.

by David French

Emily Brooker is a recent honors graduate in social work from Missouri State University. A bright and attractive young woman, she has a ready smile, a heart for serving the poor, and an enduring stain on an otherwise sterling academic record.

University of Florida student Christine Miller is one of the most engaging people you will ever encounter. Compassionate, intelligent, and intellectually curious, she serves her classmates as an R.A., and by all accounts she is widely admired. She, too, is living with a stain on her record.

Scott Savage is a pacifist. He is gentle in speech, slow to anger, and almost painfully thoughtful in conversations. He is a librarian at The Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus, and the dark cloud of a faculty-initiated harassment investigation hovers over him still.

From the threats of violence directed against Ruth Malhotra at Georgia Tech, to the attempted expulsion of Ed Swan at Washington State, and the actual expulsion of Scott McConnell at Le Moyne College, the stories goon and on—one of the great underreported scandals of higher education. It is as if the academic establishment has collectively decided a certain group of people is so reprehensible and abhorrent that they must change or be cast aside, relegated to the dustbin of history along with the racists of the Old South.

And who are Emily, Christine, Scott, and the others? They are certainly not violent or radicals of any stripe. In fact, their political views vary widely—they have different views about the Iraq war, on economic programs, and even social issues. They do, however, share a single, defining characteristic: they are theologically conservative Christians, who believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God .

For Emily Brooker, it all started when one of her professors gave her class an assignment to draft a joint letter that was intended to express public support for same-sex adoption. While she has no problem exploring alternative views in class, she drew the line at drafting and signing a public document expressing a viewpoint that violated her deeply held beliefs. For her respectful moral stand, she was investigated by the socialwork department and charged with ethics violations.

Christine Miller made the mistake of expressing a Biblically orthodox view of sexual morality—that sex should be reserved for a man and woman within marriage. She was reprimanded by a university housing department who saw that view as incompatible with its own expressed “solidarity” with the university’s “GLBT community.”

Scott Savage’s case is even more bizarre. He volunteered to serve on a book selection committee for the “First Year Reading Experience”—suggesting book options for freshman students. After the other members of the committee suggested a series of books from a leftist perspective, Scott suggested the students read a series of conservative books, including one, The Marketing of Evil, by David Kupelian, that refers to homosexual sexual behavior as “sinful” or “evil.” Acting on complaints from homosexual faculty that the book recommendation made them feel “unsafe” on campus, the faculty assembly voted without dissent to accuse Scott of “sexual harassment.” Later, several professors—acting with the full knowledge and express approval of the faculty—filed formal charges against Scott.

And what of Ruth Malhotra, Ed Swan, and Scott McConnell? Ruth was threatened after challenging Georgia Tech’s unconstitutional policies in court. Ed was almost denied a degree after he expressed opposition to same-sex adoption and affirmative action during classroom discussions. Scott was actually expelled after writing a paper in which he decried the multicultural orthodoxy of the school and noted that corporal punishment could be an appropriate method of school discipline.

While a few anecdotes do not necessarily describe a trend, or even a crisis, the anecdotes keep coming and coming. In the last six years, approximately 50 colleges and universities have either expelled or attempted to expel Christian student groups from campus. These actions have led to multiple lawsuits as Christians struggle to maintain ministries that have—in some cases—existed for decades. Student groups have sued Rutgers, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ohio State University, Southern Illinois University, Penn State, the University of Minnesota, Washburn University, Arizona State, the University of California at Hastings, Cal State Long Beach, and San Diego State all in the effort to maintain a presence on campus.

Aside from the actual violation of their rights, Christian students widely report their faith being mocked by professors and fellow students alike. A January 2005,article in the Christian Science Monitor documented some of these stories. The article begins:

When Chris Gruener moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to begin graduate school, he looked forward to experiencing the region’s renowned tolerance of all people and lifestyles.

Mr. Gruener was raised in a devout Christian family near Seattle and attended a Baptist high school and a Christian college, where he studied business. His passion, however, was literature, and so he was excited to begin a master’s program in English at Sonoma State University. But during his first semester, a classroom incident put a damper on Gruener’s ardor.

While lecturing on James Joyce’s rejection of the church, a professor drew two mountains with a valley between them on the chalkboard, explaining that Joyce’s church believed one mountain was man and the other mountain was God.

Next he drew a cross in the valley, touching both peaks—a visual metaphor Gruener knew from childhood—and explained that this was Christ on the cross connecting man to God. Then the professor broke into peals of mocking laughter. The rest of the class joined in.

Stories like this are not uncommon. Spend any time at all with a Christian fellowship group at a secular university and you will hear similar tales. If the students are fortunate, their experience is limited to mere mockery. All too often, however, the mockery moves into actual action, and the students face the censorship, punishment, and threats outlined above.

Beyond the anecdotes are the statistics, which show that Christian faculty are profoundly underrepresented in higher education and that Christian students dramatically abandon faith practice as they progress through college. According to Stanley Rothman, Robert Lichter, and Neil Nevitte’s recent analysis of the role of politics and ideology in faculty professional advancement, “religiously observant Christians are disadvantaged in their placement in the institutional hierarchy” even “after taking their professional achievements into account … Republicans, women, and practicing Christians fare significantly worse than their colleagues at similar levels of achievement.”

Clearly, when it comes to religion, the campus culture wars are building to a climax. Not content with cleansing our secular universities of an institutional religious presence, the academic left moves now to remove any meaningful individual religious voice. Why?

The answer lies in an important article by Maggie Gallagher in the 15 June 2006 issue of the Weekly Standard. In “Banned in Boston,” Gallagher outlined the next phase of the constitutional conflict: the assault on fundamental civil liberties in the name of civil rights for homosexuals.

Now, if same-sex marriage and gay rights” are the next great civil rights struggle, then campus administrators and faculty are cast in the role of Martin Luther King and those who defend traditional sexual morality take the role of Eugene “Bull” Connor. To the campus establishment, there is no functional or moral difference between an evangelical Christian proponent of traditional Judeo-Christian sexual morality and George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door.

When viewed through this prism, each of the cases discussed above makes sense. Emily Brooker and Ed Swan opposed same-sex adoption; Christine Miller and Scott Savage think that homosexual sex is sinful. Ruth Malhotra opposed speech codes designed to protect homosexuals from “hate speech,” and even Scott McConnell’s opposition to “multiculturalism” can be read as a stand-in for moral opposition to the university’s agenda. And for each of the Christian fellowships booted from campus, the issue is their alleged “discrimination” when they choose to reserve membership and leadership of Christian organizations for practicing Christians. As cases at Tufts University, Hastings, Southern Illinois, Ohio State University, and elsewhere make clear, the real university concern is not whether groups like Muslims or Jews can join Campus Crusade for Christ but instead whether practicing homosexuals have the opportunity to join (or even lead).

What is also crucial to note is that none of the Christians in any of the cases above had taken any action whatsoever to censor, silence, or deprive any homosexual student of their rights recognized by law. It is not as if Christian student groups are asking that they be permitted to organize while “gay rights” groups stand on the sidelines. Ruth Malhotra’s opposition to speech codes would have the practical effect of granting greater free-speech rights to everyone. Scott Savage was not asking that any member of the faculty be silenced. He simply made a book recommendation.

The campus culture wars will continue until one side triumphs. There is too much at stake for our side not to win.

David French is a senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the former president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. He served as counsel to the students mentioned. This is an excerpt of an article from the Spring 2006 edition of Academic Questions. It is reprinted here with the permission of Mr. French and the publisher.

“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.”

This quote, attributed to the 18th-century British philosopher Edmund Burke, is often used as a rallying cry when it comes to attacks against the Catholic Church. Perhaps we can fine-tune the quote this way for our purposes: “All that is necessary for anti-Catholicism to succeed is that good Catholics do nothing.”

This quote appropriately exhorts all of us to fight against the vices of laziness and cowardice and do our part in standing up for the Church. However, there is another implied exhortation embedded in this quote: We can’t take for granted that any of us, let alone the majority of Catholics, are “good.” While we might disagree as to what precisely constitutes a “good” Catholic, we can say that ordinarily a “good” Catholic would not sit by idly while the Church is attacked. And even if he or she did so temporarily, that person should easily be stirred to action when confronted with the reality of anti-Catholicism. But, given the inroads anti-Catholicism has made in our culture with relatively little resistance, it’s fair to ask, are the “good” Catholics doing nothing, or are many Catholics not as “good” as we’re called to be? At the end of the day, what is a “good” Catholic?

A theology professor once asked his class, “What’s the biggest problem in the Church today, ignorance or apathy?” One student flippantly responded, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

The student’s answer, upon further examination, is very close to the mark. Ignorance refers to a defect in the virtue of faith, and apathy refers to a defect in the virtue of charity. With the virtue of hope, these three theological virtues are the necessary building blocks of a thriving Catholic life and culture. I suggest that we need to renew this foundation, in ourselves and collectively as the Church, as the necessary prerequisite for effectively addressing anti-Catholic forces in society.

We are approaching the 40th anniversary of the publication of Pope Paul VI’s Credo of the People of God (1968), issued at the conclusion of the “year of faith.” The Holy Father recognized the crisis of faith in the Church, and he issued his Credo to articulate orthodox Catholic teaching to counteract the rise of ignorance and confusion regarding our faith.

Forty years later, while we see some promising signs of renewal, we have also witnessed the devastating effects of the “crisis of faith” that has ravaged two, going on three, generations of Catholics in our midst.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that “‘ignorance of God’ is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations” (no. 2087), and it further describes several sins against the faith, including heresy, which are routinely ignored today. We are all too familiar with widespread rejection of key Church teachings, from the papacy and Real Presence to the hot button morality issues that challenge men and women to turn away from deviant, immoral behaviors.

We can never lose sight of the fact that our faith is not merely a moral code or abstract body of teachings, but rather a dynamic relationship with the living God. Even so, our faith in the person of Jesus Christ necessarily implies a content of faith. For example, when Our Lord sent out His apostles to make disciples of all nations, He told them to teach all men and women “to observe all that He has commanded” (Mt. 28:20). Similarly, Our Lord also said, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Lk. 6:46). Our Lord denies knowing those who claim to be His followers yet do not accept and put into practice His teachings, communicated through His Church (see also Mt. 7:21-24; Lk. 10:16).

Organizations that are serious about their principles will not tolerate views within their own ranks that undermine their efforts. Imagine the NAACP allowing members to push for “separate but equal” facilities, or Planned Parenthood allowing its representatives to publicize the harmful effects of abortion on women and to admit that it’s a form of homicide. It’s not going to happen.

Yet, we have to admit that our Catholic faith has not been adequately taught and embraced in recent decades, such that outright dissent is simply considered an alternative opinion. The deposit of apostolic faith is one of the central bonds of unity that unites Catholics (cf. Catechism, no. 815), but today many people see the Church as a vague cultural reality, not demanding more than loyalty to Notre Dame football and wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. That’s why abortion-rights advocates such as Frances Kissling or Ted Kennedy can get away with holding themselves out as Catholics in good standing. If we’re not serious about what we believe, how can we expect the “world”—which is the sworn enemy of the Gospel anyway—to treat our beliefs with respect?

In response, we must pray for the grace to live this passage from the Catechism: “The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it” (no. 1816).

Meanwhile, the virtue of hope is all about putting our trust in the Lord and His promises, especially when the going gets tough. In the midst of attacks from without and scandals from within, many Catholics might be tempted to despair. They may well conclude that the Church is going to hell in a hand basket, and they wring their hands of any responsibility for setting things aright. Or, in the midst of their despair, they may conclude that the project of Christianity is no match for the relentless secularism of our culture. The best that we can hope for is to get in a good kick to the shins here or a minor victory there, but the war is lost. Clearly such a mindset betrays a lack of trust in the living God.

As significant of a problem as despair is, the alternate failure of hope—presumption—can be just as deadly. Presumption denies the need to seek God’s grace—either because we think we can save ourselves or because God will give us His grace no matter how we conduct our lives. We commonly see this latter mindset in funerals today, which often seem to be “mini-canonizations.”

An objective observer could easily conclude that it really doesn’t matter how one lives, because everyone seems to end up in a “better place.” Many poorly formed Catholics embrace just such an implicit universalism. There are probably many reasons why people think that way, including the natural desire that our loved ones make it to heaven. Yet, when we give in to such presumption, then we are not really serious about the claims our faith makes on us. And if we’re not willing to go to the mat for our faith, if we’re not willing to admit the practical reality and consequences of mortal sin, then we’re not going to get worked up about attacks on the Catholic Church. A mushy, uncommitted Catholicism is no match for the anti-Catholic forces that have been unleashed against the Church.

The Catechism identifies two of the principal sins against charity as being indifference and lukewarmness (no. 2094). These sins reveal a lack a passion and zeal in our commitment to God and neighbor. How we respond to attacks against the ones we love can vary greatly, but a failure to respond at all is unacceptable. When we encounter a bully we need to have sufficient self-esteem to defend ourselves the best we can. And what husband would not go ballistic if someone attempted to harm his wife or children? That’s why it’s so scandalous when some Church leaders have failed to show sufficient outrage when their spiritual children have been abused.

In today’s culture, many people want Christ without His Church. They want “spirituality” without the demands and perceived corruption of “organized religion.” (Some might respond that the Catholic Church is not all that organized!) Clearly the work of the new evangelization is to help men and women rediscover the intimate, saving connection between Christ the King and His Kingdom, the Church. We must rekindle love for the Church among her members—manifested not as a spineless tolerance, but as a Christ-centered desire for the good of all.

Christ Himself teaches us about this intimate connection. When Saul of Tarsus encountered Our Lord on the road to Damascus, He said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” (Acts 9:4). Christ had already ascended to the Father at that time. Saul had never even met Our Lord. Rather, he was persecuting His followers. Yet Our Lord took this very personally. Indeed, Christ from the earliest days identified Himself with His Church, His beloved bride. Attack the Church, and you attack Christ Himself.

Do we experience attacks against the Church as attacks against Our Lord? If more of us did, anti-Catholicism would meet the decisive, unified resistance that has been lacking in our time.

The Catechism says that in every age “saints have always been the source and origin of renewal in the most difficult moments in the Church’s history” (Catechism, no. 828). Everyday saints like you and me are called to be the difference-makers. For Catholicism to succeed, we need “good” Catholics to live with God’s grace the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, thus radiating the light of Christ in an otherwise dark, hostile world.

Leon J. Suprenant, Jr. is the president of Catholics United for the Faith (CUF) and Emmaus Road Publishing and the publisher of Lay Witness magazine, all based in Steubenville, Ohio. His email address is leon@cuf.org.

By Ronald J. Rychlak

Eugenio Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in 1939, after having spent nine years as Cardinal Secretary of State. Prior to that, he had been the Vatican’s representative in Germany. During his lifetime, Pius XII’s opposition to Hitler was well known. Nazis condemned him, Jews thanked him, and rescuers identified him as their inspiration. More recently, however, some writers have raised questions about how actively he opposed the Nazis. One even dubbed him “Hitler’s Pope.”

Critics often claim that the Vatican is hiding evidence of the Pope’s activities during the Holocaust because, like most nations, the Holy See keeps diplomatic records sealed for a number of years. This respects the confidentiality of people who are still living, protects state secrets, and gives archivists time to index and catalog documents. The Vatican has, however, tried to accommodate the researchers.

In the 1960s, Pope Paul VI appointed a team of four Jesuits to cull through the archives for relevant documents from the Holocaust era. By 1980, they had produced and made public 11 thick volumes of documents. This did not satisfy the critics, because the actual archives containing post-1922 documents remained closed to outsiders.

In 2003, some archives from the years 1922-1939 were opened, and in 2006 more were opened. These archives cover the years during which the Nazis came to power and during which the future Pope Pius XII was very involved in German-Vatican diplomacy. Even though these archives (not to mention the 11 volumes prepared by the Jesuits) have not been fully mined, many researches, some with personal agendas, continue to clamor for more access.

Recently, 35 such researchers petitioned the Vatican to open all Holocaust-era archives. One of the petitioners, Seymour Reich, wrote toJewish Week complaining that the beatification of Pius XII before all archives were open would cause “serious problems with the Jewish community’s attitude toward the Vatican.”

One wonders whether these petitioners are aware of the new archival evidence. One piece of recently discovered evidence is a letter written in 1923, when Hitler was just emerging as a force within Germany, in which papal representative Pacelli reports that “followers of Hitler” are persecuting Jews and Catholics. The future Pope refers negatively to this group (not yet known as Nazis) as “right-wing radicals.” He also praises the “learned and zealous” Cardinal Archbishop Michael Faulhaber of Munich whom the radicals attacked because he “had denounced the persecutions against the Jews.”

It had long been known that philosopher Edith Stein (recently canonized as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) wrote to Pope Pius XI in 1933 concerning the Nazis and their treatment of Jews. The precise words she used, however, were not known. It had been assumed that she asked for an encyclical—a formal papal document—condemning Naziism. It turns out there was no such request.

The reply letter to Stein, which was not seen until the new archives were opened, came from Secretary of State Pacelli. The future Pius XII assured Stein that the Vatican shared her concerns and that the Church would ultimately score a “final victory” over Nazism. The newly opened archives also show that even before Stein sent her letter to Rome, the Vatican had instructed its representative in Berlin to intervene with the German government on behalf of the Jews. Upon reviewing these documents, CNN’s Vatican correspondent concluded that its release “resolves a historical debate in favor of the Vatican’s position.”

An event that took place in 2003 shows why the Vatican is so concerned about archiving and indexing the documents. Shortly after new archives were opened, an Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, claimed that a 1934 letter had been found in which a Jesuit priest named Friederich Muckermann accused Secretary of State Pacelli of collaboration with the Nazis. The paper reprinted what it claimed was the actual letter.

After reading the article, officials from the Congregation For the Causes of Saints called the reporter to find out where he got his information. The reporter had not seen the letter; it had been read to him over the phone by a researcher who had been given access to the archives. Vatican officials pulled the files that the researcher had been using. Not long thereafter, they found the original letter.

As printed in the newspaper the letter was about 550 words long. The letter Fr. Muckermann wrote, however, was almost three times that long. The newspaper had changed words (“unjust” charges against the Holy See were published as “just” charges) and omitted entire passages (“The whole world knows that the German Bishops have done much” against Hitler) without any indication that the letter had been edited. Obviously, someone wanted to cast the Church in a bad light, and sloppy reporting let that happen. Fortunately, the Vatican was able to issue a correction not long after the story was first published precisely because of the care it had taken with the archives.

A similar mistranslation hit the press in 2005, when the New York Times ran an article based on an unsigned document, not on Vatican letterhead and in the wrong language, that reportedly had been found in a Paris archive. According to the Times, this was a directive from Pius XII instructing Catholics who had taken Jewish children into their households during the Nazi occupation. Supposedly, the Pope told these rescuers not to return the children to their parents if the youngsters had been baptized.

Within a week, thanks again to careful archiving, the Pope’s original instruction was found, and it was quite different from the news reports. The Pope actually said that Catholic parents had an on-going duty to the Jewish families. They were instructed not to dump these children on the first charity group that approached them. They should, of course, return the children to their parents.

The current charge is that Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, was critical of Pius XII because he did not assist Roncalli’s efforts on behalf of Turkish Jews. This is not new. As early as 1968, there were several false charges that John was a critic of Pius. Archbishop Loris Capovilla, John’s private secretary, has expressly answered this claim:

With regard to the actions in favor of the Jews, affected particularly in Istanbul in the years 1935-1944, which was recognized and praised by Hebrew communities in Jerusalem, Istanbul, and the United States, it is obligatory to recognize that Roncalli was and declared himself the executor of the thought and the directives of Pius XII. He repeated, in fact “The papal representative is the eye, the ear, the mouth, the heart and the effective hand of the Pope.”

Capovilla said that Roncalli’s rescue efforts on behalf of Jews make sense “only if they are referred above everything else to Pius XII, of whom Roncalli was the careful and most faithful interpreter. Any strictly personal action, even though it be heroic, of Roncalli himself, would otherwise be inconceivable.”

Throughout his life, John praised Pius. Before he was made Pope, John was offered thanks for his wartime efforts to save Jewish refugees. He replied: “In all these painful matters I have referred to the Holy See and simply carried out [Pius XII’s] orders—first and foremost to save human lives.” When Pius died, the future John XXIII said that Pius had been like a “public fountain” pouring forth good waters at which all the world, great and lowly, could profitably drink. As one reporter of the times wrote: “In the autumn of 1958 the world showed little doubt that one of its great ones had departed, and none showed less doubt than Angelo Roncalli.”

As Pope, John prayed monthly before Pius XII’s tomb and even considered taking the name “Pius XIII.” One of the first things he did upon becoming Pope was to place a photo of Pius XII on his desk. He also had his predecessor’s photograph published with a prayer on the back asking for his canonization. The prayer called Pius “a fearless defender of the Faith, a courageous struggler for justice and peace… a shining model of charity and of every virtue.” A million of these cards were soon in circulation.

In his first Christmas broadcast, Pope John said that Pius XII’s doctrinal and pastoral teaching “assure a place in posterity for the name of Pius XII. Even apart from any official declaration, which would be premature, the triple title of ‘Most excellent Doctor, Light of Holy Church, Lover of the divine law’ evokes the sacred memory of this pontiff in whom our times were blessed indeed.” It should be noted that only a saint can be declared a Doctor of the Church.

It is true that some archives remains sealed, and historians do not have all of the evidence. At the same time, the evidence that we already have shows conclusively that Pope Pius XII intervened frequently; encouraged rescue efforts; and tried to comfort all victims, including persecuted Jews. During and after the war Pius XII’s efforts were recognized by virtually everyone. As more archives are opened, after they have been properly cataloged and indexed, we can be confident that the reputation that he once enjoyed—as a firm opponent of the Nazis—will be reconfirmed. Catholics should all take pride in knowing that Pope Pius XII stood tall in a time of great difficulty.

Ronald J. Rychlak is the MDLA Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Hitler, the War, and the Pope (Our Sunday Visitor Press) and Righteous Gentiles: How Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews from the Nazis (Spence Publishing).

Dinesh D’Souza

This article is adapted from Dinesh D’Souza’s new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, just published by Doubleday. 

Is Osama Bin Laden right when he alleges that America is a pagan society, the “leading power of the unbelievers”? Bin Laden and the Islamic radicals point to America’s policy of separation of church and state to prove their point. To many Americans, of course, this charge is ridiculous. Even so, it is worth asking why America is so committed to such a systematic exclusion of religion from government and public life. Even European countries, where religious belief and practice is much lower than in the United States, treat religion more sympathetically and provide recognition and support to religious institutions and religious schools.

So why is America virtually alone in the world dedicated to strict separation of church and state? Many Americans have become convinced that religion represents, as author Sam Harris puts it in The End of Faith, “the most potent source of human conflict, past and present.” Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. “The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries.” In a recent book, Richard Dawkins contends that most of the recent conflicts in the world—in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, in Sri Lanka—show the continued vitality of the murderous impulse that seems inherent in religion.

The problem with this expose is that it exaggerates the crimes of religion, while ignoring the vastly greater offenses of secular or atheist fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem Witch Trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, nineteen. Yet the event continues to haunt the liberal imagination.

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular people rail against the Crusaders’ and Inquisitors’ misdeeds of more than five hundred years ago. Ironically these religious zealots did not come close to killing the number of people murdered by secular tyrants of our own era. How many people were killed in the Spanish Inquisition? The actual number sentenced to death appears to be around 10,000. This figure is tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time.

But even taking that difference into account, the death tolls of the Inquisition are miniscule compared to those produced by the secular despotisms of the twentieth century. In the name of creating their version of a secular utopia, Hitler, Stalin and Mao produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.

Moreover, many of the conflicts that liberals count as “religious wars” were not fought over religion. They were mainly fought over rival claims to territory and power. Can the wars between England and France be counted as religious wars because the English were Protestants and the French were Catholics? Hardly. The same is true today. The contemporary conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is not, at its core, a religious one. It arises out of a dispute over self-determination and land. Hamas and the extreme orthodox parties in Israel may advance theological claims—”God gave us this land” and so forth—but even without these religious motives the conflict would remain essentially the same. Ethnic rivalry, not religion, is the source of the tension in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.

“While the motivations of the Tamil Tigers are not explicitly religious,” Harris informs us, “they are Hindus who undoubtedly believe many improbable things about the nature of life and death.” In other words, while the Tigers see themselves as fighting for land and the right to rule themselves—in other words, as combatants in a secular political struggle—Harris detects a religious motive because these people happen to be Hindu and surely there must be some underlying religious craziness that explains their fanaticism.

It’s obvious that Harris can go on forever in this vein. Seeking to exonerate secularism and atheism from the horrors perpetrated in their name, he argues that Stalinism and Maoism were in reality “little more than a political religion.” As for Nazism, “while the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, it was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity.” Indeed, “The holocaust marked the culmination of…two thousand years of Christian fulminating against the Jews.”

Is anyone fooled by this rhetorical legerdemain? For Harris to call twentieth-century atheist ideologies “religion” is to render the term meaningless. Should religion now be responsible not only for the sins of believers, but also those of atheists? Moreover, Harris does not explain why, if Nazism was directly descended from medieval Christianity, medieval Christianity did not produce a Hitler. How can a self-proclaimed atheist ideology, advanced by Hitler as a repudiation of Christianity, be a “culmination” of two thousand years of Christianity? Harris is employing a transparent slight-of-hand that holds Christianity responsible for the crimes committed in its name, while exonerating secularism and atheism for the greater crimes committed in their name.

A second justification for America’s church-state jurisprudence is the claim that the founders enshrined secularism in the Constitution as the basis for their “new order for the ages.” In her book Freethinkers, Susan Jacoby argues that it was precisely to establish such a framework that the founders declined to make America a Christian nation and instead gave us “a nation founded on the separation of church and state.” Jacoby credits the founders with “creating the first secular government in the world.”

But consider this anomaly. The idea of separating religion and government was not an American idea, it was a Christian idea. It was Christ, not Jefferson, who said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” The American founders institutionalized this Christian idea—admittedly an idea ignored for much of medieval history—in the Constitution.

The framers’ understanding of separation, however, was very different from that of today’s ACLU. From the founding through the middle of the twentieth century, America had religious displays on public property, congressionally-designated religious services and holidays, government-funded chaplains, and prayer in public schools. So entrenched was religion in American private and public life that, writing in the early nineteenth century, Tocqueville called it the first of America’s political institutions. In a unanimous ruling in 1892, the Supreme Court declared that if one takes “a view of American life as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs, and its society, we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth…that this is a Christian nation.”

Virtually all of the actions that secular liberals claim are forbidden by the no-establishment clause of the First Amendment were permitted for most of American history. Thus liberals like Jacoby are in the peculiar position of claiming that the religion provisions of the Constitution were misunderstood by the founders and by everyone else for a hundred and fifty years, until finally they were accurately comprehended by liberals. The arrogance of this claim is exceeded only by its implausibility.

Finally some people defend church-state separation by pointing to the religious diversity of America. Historian Diana Eck has a recent book titledA New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation. Since America is no longer religiously homogenous, Eck’s argument goes, there is a pressing need to adopt constitutional rules that permit minorities to freely practice their religion. We frequently hear that nativity displays, monuments with the Ten Commandments, and prayers at high school graduations all make the multitudes of American non-Christians feel extremely uncomfortable.

But where is the evidence for this? It is not the Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist immigrants who press for radical secularism, it is the liberal activist groups. So the mantra of “diversity” seems to be secular ruse to undermine all religious expression in the public sphere. Moreover, the factual premise is unsound. Contrary to Eck, America is not the world’s most diverse nation. Surprising though it may seem, the total number of non-Christians in America adds up to less than 10 million people, which is around 3 percent of the population. Many Asian and African countries have religious minorities that make up 15 to 20 percent of the population.

In terms of religious background, America is no more diverse today than it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. How is this possible? Because today’s immigrants come mostly from Mexico and Latin and South America, and virtually all of them are Christians. So not only does America remain a Christian country, but as historian Philip Jenkins points out, its Christian population relative to non-Christians is growing. Jenkins notes that the real story of America should be titled, “How this Christian country has become an even-more-Christian country.”

My conclusion is that the radical Muslims are wrong about America but they are right about separation of church and state. America’s church-state doctrine, in its current form, is a fraud. It is built on a bogus historical, constitutional and sociological foundation. The real purpose of its advocates is to marginalize traditional religion and traditional morality, so that the public sphere can be monopolized by their ideological agenda. It is time to dismantle the anti-religious scaffolding erected by the party of secularism.

Dinesh D’Souza is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution and is on the Board of Advisers of the Catholic League.

By Kiera McCaffrey

The Catholic League would never defend the indefensible. That is why we praised the media for putting the spotlight on the Church’s sex-abuse scandal in 2002. Without journalists breaking the story, the Church may have been slower to clean house and a greater number of adolescents may have been harmed. Similarly, we have never criticized those victims of abuse who file legitimate lawsuits against the church, or lay groups that truly are focused on helping the reform process. Nevertheless, recent events have forced us to reconsider our earlier assessment.

It is obvious to us that there is a growing problem of late with trial lawyers, advocacy groups, certain segments of the media and even lawmakers seeing the sex abuse scandal not as a problem that has largely been corrected, but as an unending supplier of money, ratings and attention. Moreover, individuals from these various fields are joining forces, not to protect young people—if that were the goal, calls for reform would begin with the public schools—but to bludgeon the Catholic Church.

Ideally, victims’ groups provide an atmosphere of support for those who were molested as minors and suggest ways in which the Church can ensure the safety of others. However, two elements, bitterness and lust for power, have corrupted many of these groups, which have taken up a new agenda of stripping the Church and her priests of the same rights enjoyed by the rest of America.

The bitterness comes from a projection of the acts of a few onto the entire Church. The lust for power comes not from problems within the Church, but from reforms made subsequently. When the scandal first came to light, the media looked to victims’ groups for commentary and background information. Now, at the twilight of the scandal, when abuse cases have declined, the media have less cause to seek out the spokesmen of such groups. Accustomed to the limelight, these organizations are finding it harder to stay in the public eye without becoming increasingly extremist in their endeavors. They often turn to allies for help with such work.

The ethics behind victims’ groups accepting donations from lawyers who represent group members in the wake of traumatic events are questionable. Some advocates for abuse victims realize this and act accordingly. Survivors First, a Boston-based group created in the aftermath of the scandal, has a policy that it will not “accept money from anti-gay groups, anti-Catholic groups or plaintiff lawyers.” However, as Forbesmagazine’s Daniel Lyons first made clear in 2003, such scruples are not shared by other organizations.

For instance, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) touts itself as “the nation’s largest, oldest and most active support group for women and men wounded by religious authority figures…an independent and confidential organization with no connections with the church or church officials.” Notice this statement says absolutely nothing about SNAP’s connections to trial lawyers.

David Clohessy, SNAP’s national director, admitted this year that approximately 18% of the group’s $500,000 to $600,000 budget comes from lawyers’ donations. Jeffrey Anderson, notorious for his outrageously broad-sweeping suits against the Church (e.g., filing suit against the Vatican and every single U.S. bishop), is one of those hefty donors. Anderson has made tens of millions of dollars from lawsuits against the Church. And each time he takes a cut from a settlement he negotiates or trial he wins (attorneys may receive between 25% and 40% of the money awarded in each ruling), he is in a better position to write the big checks to his friends at SNAP. And SNAP, of course, is often on hand to support him in his legal efforts.

One way for attorneys and victims’ groups to open the Church to more suits is to ask judges to demand the Church turn over personnel files. Digging through these confidential documents, they may discover or claim to discover new incidents of crimes or cover-up. However, it is not only through the courts that they can ensure the Church is more vulnerable to lawsuits; changes in legislation can make it possible to file suit for abuses that allegedly happened many years ago. And a whole slew of folks are working to see that such changes in fact come about.

SNAP spends 10% of its annual budget to promote legislation the group deems in its interest. Just this October, SNAP joined the newly-formed Foundation to Abolish Sex Abuse in urging the Pennsylvania legislature to pass a bill which would give those alleging they were sexually abused before the age of consent until their fiftieth birthdays to file charges. (Current law allows individuals to file suit only until their thirtieth birthdays.) The group has petitioned for similar changes in statute of limitation laws in many other states.

Voice of the Faithful is another organization that targets clergy at frequent occasions. Formed in 2002, the group purports to seek a “Spirit-driven dialogue toward a stronger Catholic Church.” However, as is evident from an amicus brief the group filed with SNAP in a case in Maine, Voice’s idea of a stronger Catholic Church evidently means one where the Church is forced to turn over files on deceased priests who have had molestation claims made against them. Besides stripping rights away from priests, Voice has been criticized for advancing ideas that go against Church teaching. Though the group’s spokesman, John Moynihan, has stated they are “neutral” on the issues of abortion, homosexuality and the all-male priesthood—troubling enough for a supposedly Catholic flock—Voice meetings and literature have played host to speakers and articles espousing heterodox views time and again.

Another group, Healing Alliance (formerly known as Linkup), turned to Jeffrey Anderson to educate them about effective lobbying techniques. Those gathered at the 2003 annual meeting of the victims’ support group were instructed by the lawyer-turned-showman that teddy bears are the key to influencing elected officials. He told them that, should an advocate call on a legislator who is not in his office, the advocate only needs to leave one of the stuffed toys with a staffer in order to turn a missed opportunity into a successful appeal: “You tell them it represents the innocence of a child—the innocence that’s been stolen—and I guarantee they’ll remember you.”

But when it comes to changing public policy, Anderson isn’t content to give a few pointers and then leave the driving to the advocates. He and Larry Drivon, another attorney specializing in claims against the Church, helped draft a bill in California that opened a one-year window during which the statute of limitations for bringing civil suits on sex-abuses cases was abolished.

Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald later based her own legislation, which would have opened a two-year window and would have permitted civil actions to be brought against those who are “deceased or incapacitated,” on Anderson and Drivon’s work. Helping Fitz-Gerald draft this legislation was another attorney, Marci Hamilton. Hamilton, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, was referred to Fitz-Gerald by SNAP; she works for the group as an expert on behalf of victims and is a strident critic of the Catholic Church.

Victims’ groups have lobbied for similar legislation in other states as well. Despite the fact that witnesses die and memories fade, there is a continued push to do away with the safeguards built into our laws. It is not only statute of limitation laws that are targeted by legislators; several states have considered bills that would mandate priests to report cases of molestation learned in the confessional. Though none has become law, the fact that legislators, lawyers and advocacy groups have even advanced the idea is testament to their hostility toward the Church.

If Catholic officials even speak up about such matters, they make themselves vulnerable to a volley of criticism. The Colorado Catholic Conference learned this when it argued that the Fitz-Gerald bill should apply uniformly to all institutions, including public schools. Despite the fact that it was opposition from public schools that sunk the bill, Catholics bore the brunt of the blame. Favoring soundbite over substance, state Senator Ron Teck whined that “the phrase ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ was being ignored [by the Church] for the sake of secular society and benefit.'”

People like Teck know that such trite clichés have a certain appeal, much like Anderson’s teddy bear shtick. Not only do they sway the folks at home, but for the newsmen, they make great copy. And the media are always hungry for a story about abuse in the Church: no sooner had the scandal broke when the papers showed their own interest in getting a look at confidential clergy personnel files. Papers such as theBoston Globe, the New York Times, the Hartford Courant and the Washington Postappealed to judges to release confidential documents related to civil lawsuits against the Church.

Catholic leaders have seriously undertaken the good work of protecting minors in recent years (for which the bishops have received little credit). When the media, lawyers, lawmakers and advocacy groups are able to look past the desire to punish the Church—which is increasingly hard to do as they become more and more dependent on it for their livelihoods—they can help with that good work as they have in the past.

Instead, the reputations of these victims’ advocates are seriously tarnished. Since they are entangled with trial lawyers out to make a buck or advance positions inconsistent with Catholic teaching, groups like SNAP and Voice of the Faithful can only be viewed with suspicion. When politicians turn to money-hungry attorneys to craft the laws, it’s hard to trust that they’re really looking out for the best interests of their constituents. And when the media cares as much about filing news-making lawsuits as reporting the news, there are few places for people to learn the straight facts.

The Catholic Church has cleaned up its act. Many others need to follow suit.

by Sister Margherita Marchione, Ph.D.

Sister Margherita Marchione is the author of several books on Pope Pius XII, the latest being Crusade of Charity: Pius XII And POW’s 1939-1945.

Below the portrait of Pope Pius XII in the Israeli Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem, there is a statement which is contrary to the truth and is unjust. It must be repudiated. I contacted the director of Yad Vashem and asked him to consider the efforts of the Pope who helped save hundreds of thousands of Jews and other victims of the Nazis. But will Yad Vashem at least correct the errors beneath his photo?

The statement includes:

“Pius XII’s reaction toward the killing of Jews during the period of the Holocaust is controversial. In 1933, as the Vatican Secretary of State, in order to maintain the rights of the Church in Germany, he signed a Concordat with the Nazi regime even at the price of recognizing the racist Nazi regime. When he was elected Pope in 1939, he put aside an encyclical against racism and anti-Semitism prepared by his predecessor.”

     ● Pius XII wrote his own encyclical, “Summi Pontificatus,” which did deal with racism. 

“Although reports about the assassination of Jews reached the Vatican, the Pope did not protest either by speaking out or in writing.”

     ● This is not true. Whenever Pius XII spoke out, there was immediate retaliation by the Nazis. There were more than 60 protests!

“In December of 1942, he did not participate in the condemnation by members of the Allies regarding the killing of Jews. Even when the Jews were being deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the Pope did not intervene.”

      ● The Pope did indeed intervene. After that first day, the SS were ordered to stop the deportation of the Jews in Rome.

“He maintained a neutral position except toward the end of the war when he appealed on behalf of the government of Hungary and of Slovakia. His silence and the absence of directives obliged the clergy in Europe to decide independently how they should behave toward the persecuted Jews.”

      ● This is not true. Members of the Church were ordered to protect all refugees and Jews. 

Pius XII’s sanctity has been recorded. There are many volumes of depositions for his beatification. He was a humble person who did not want his accomplishments and many good works revealed. Respecting his wishes, Sister Pascalina Lehnert—his housekeeper—implemented the Pope’s charitable works and served him faithfully from 1923-1958.

In her deposition, Sister Pascalina clearly stated that Pius XII did not issue a formal condemnation of Nazism because the German and Austrian bishops feared increased retaliation and dissuaded him from making additional protests that would undoubtedly irritate Hitler. And there was retaliation. During the persecution against Catholics, the Nazis not only destroyed churches and closed schools, but also arrested priests and Catholic leaders who were sent to concentration camps. All the protests of the Holy See were reported in a volume published in Germany in 1965.

Michael Tagliacozzo, a Jewish historian responsible for Beth Lohame Haghettaot Center in Italy, praised Pope Pius XII’s wartime efforts. He recently provided the following information from Hashavua, the magazine of “Beth Alpha”:

     ● Maurizio Zarfati, a resident in Acco, Hativath Golani St., wrote December 7, 1994, that he was saved with his parents, brother and sister in the monastery of the Augustinian Oblates of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori in via Garibaldi. To permit men to enter, the Holy Father exempted them from rules of cloister. The Sisters gave up their rooms and moved to restricted quarters. … There were 103 Jews in that convent.

     ● Soldier Eliyahu Lubisky, a member of the “Kibuz Beth Alpha,” wrote on August 4, 1944, in the weekly Hashavua, that “he found more than 10,000 Jews in Rome. The refugees praised the Vatican for their help. Priests endangered their lives to save the Jews.”

In general, while begging for help, the Jews who were in contact with Pope Pius XII insisted that he avoid any public action. Sister Pascalina wrote: “The Pope not only opened the doors of the Vatican to protect the persecuted, but he encouraged convents and monasteries to offer hospitality. The Vatican provided provisions for these people. He ordered me to spend his inheritance and personal funds to provide for those who wished to leave Italy and go to Canada, Brazil, or elsewhere. Note that $800 was needed for each person who emigrated. Many times the Pope would ask me to deliver to Jewish families a sealed envelope containing $1,000 or more.”

In 1944, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Anton Zolli, gave an interview to the American Hebrew (July 14, 1944). Rabbi Zolli, who had been hidden in the Vatican during the German occupation of Rome, told the paper, “The Vatican has always helped the Jews and the Jews are very grateful for the charitable work of the Vatican, all done without distinction of race.”

In his book Antisemitismo, Rabbi Zolli would later write: “World Jewry owes a great debt of gratitude to Pius XII for his repeated and pressing appeals for justice on behalf of the Jews and, when these did not prevail, for his strong protests against evil laws and procedures…. No hero in all of history was more militant, more fought against, none more heroic than Pius XII in pursuing the work of true charity!… and this on behalf of all the suffering children of God.”

It is well known that Zolli converted to Catholicism after the war, taking as his baptismal name the pope’s, Eugenio. As Zolli would write in his memoirs: “The Holy Father sent by hand a letter to the bishops instructing them to lift the enclosure from convents and monasteries, so that they could become refuges for the Jews. I know of a convent where the Sisters slept in the basement, giving up their beds to Jewish refugees.”

Pope Pius XII made abundantly clear his judgment of the German aggression. In its front-page caption, the New York Times announced: “Pope Condemns Dictators, Treaty Violators, Racism; Urges Restoring of Poland.” The paper printed the entire text of Pius XII’s encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, on pages 8 and 9. It was a powerful attack on totalitarianism and racism. Pius XII condemned racism not only by publicly defending his Jewish brethren and explicitly using the word “Jew,” but did so by quoting Saint Paul (Col. 3:10-11).

During his first year as pope, he created a special department for Jews in the German section of the Vatican Information Office. According to the Canadian Jewish Chronicleand other Jewish publications, some 36,877 papers were processed on behalf of Jewish refugees. In view of the plight of the Jewish people of Europe, resolutions were adopted at the January 1939 meeting of the Jewish Congress in Geneva. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman, stated: “We record the Jewish people’s deep appreciation of the stand taken by the Vatican against the advance of resurgent paganism which challenges all traditional values of religion as well as inalienable human rights upon which alone enduring civilization can be found.”

Pius did more than protest. He immediately issued directives to all convents and monasteries to open their doors to protect Jews and other refugees. Some 80 percent of Italian Jews would survive the war, a much higher percentage than in many other nations. Refugees, mostly women and children, were even housed in the papal apartments at Castelgandolfo, where 28 children were born during the spring of 1944. Over 12,000 people found refuge in this papal villa. Day and night, Vatican trucks bearing the yellow and white flag brought food and other necessities to Castelgandolfo. After the war, as an expression of their gratitude, these refugees placed a memorial tablet “To Pope Pius XII, the Angelic Shepherd…” in the tower of the papal palace.

Tibor Baransky, a board member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and a Yad Vashem honoree, recalls that “Papal Nuncios helped the Jews. They got the orders straight from the Pope.” He recounted that, while working at the age of 22 as a special representative of Angelo Rotta, the papal nuncio in Hungary, he heard from Jewish leaders who asked the pope not to raise a public outcry over the Nazi atrocities—since it would likely only increase their ferocity. (The Nazis had solidified their power in the early 1930s, and ferocious retaliation had been the typical response to every other Vatican protest.)

Working with Rotta—Pius XII’s personal emissary in Hungary—Baransky carried blank documents, forged protective passes, and faked baptismal certificates to save as many Jewish lives as possible; when Nazis and their local sympathizers ignored these documents, Rotta sent Baransky to retrieve them.

In July 1944, the American Jewish Committee and other Jewish organizations organized a rally in Manhattan, New York, to protest the deportation of Hungarian Jews. In his discourse, Judge Joseph Proskauer, president of the American Jewish Committee, said: “We have seen how great was the work of the Holy Father in saving the Jews in Italy. We also learned from various sources that this great Pope has tried to help and save the lives of Jews in Hungary.”

The anti-papal polemics of ex-seminarians like Garry Wills [Papal Sin], and John Cornwell [Hitler’s Pope], of ex-priests like James Carroll [Constantine’s Sword], and other lapsed or angry liberal Catholics exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today.

Recently, John Cornwell conceded that he was wrong to have ascribed evil motives to Pius XII and now finds it “impossible to judge” him. Indeed, those who have slandered him contradict the words of Holocaust survivors, the founders of Israel, and the contemporary record of the New York Times. In short, Pius XII deserves to be honored, not castigated, at Yad Vashem.

By Jay P. Greene

The following article is an excerpt from a longer piece that appeared in the July/August edition of The American Enterprise (the flagship publication of the American Enterprise Institute) titled, “Education Myths” (Greene has published a book by that name).

Greene, who runs the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has written widely on the subject of school reform. Armed with persuasive evidence, Greene contends that there are many myths afloat about what ails education in the U.S. There is a “money myth,” a “teacher pay myth,” a “class size myth,” a “certification myth,” a “rich-school myth” and an “ineffective school voucher myth”; the latter two myths touch on Catholic schools and therefore were selected for publication in Catalyst.

Bill Donohue highly recommends Greene’s book, Education Myths, and would like to thank both Jay Greene and The American Enterprise for giving us permission to reprint the following article.

The rich-school myth

A popular myth says that private schools do better than public schools only because they have more money, recruit high-performing students, and expel low-performing students. The conventional wisdom is captured in one Michigan newspaper’s warning that “a voucher system would force penniless public schools to shut down while channeling more and more money into wealthy private schools.”

There is no question that, on average, students in private schools demonstrate significantly greater achievement. For example, on the eighth-grade reading portion of the NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress] test, 53 percent of private school students perform at or above the level defined as “proficient,” compared to only 30 percent of public school students. In eighth-grade math, only 27 percent of public-school students perform at the “proficient” level, compared to 43 percent of private-school students. Interestingly, twice as many private-school eighth graders go on to earn a bachelor’s degree as their public-school counterparts, in percentage terms.

However: it simply isn’t true that public schools are penniless while private schools are wealthy. In fact, the opposite is closer to the truth. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the average private school charged $4,689 per student in tuition for the 1999-2000 school year. That same year, the average public school spent $8,032 per pupil. Among Catholic schools (which educate 49 percent of all private-school students), the average tuition was only $3,236. The vast majority of private-school students actually have less than half as much funding behind them as public-school students.

Some point out that private schools don’t always provide all the services that public schools do: transportation, special ed classes, lunch, counseling. But in an analysis comparing public-school and Catholic-school costs in New York, D.C., Dayton, and San Antonio, researchers found that excluding all of these services plus administration costs from the public-school ledger still left public schools with significantly more resources than Catholic schools. Besides, if public schools provide additional services, then those services should contribute to their students’ educational outcomes. All spending is ultimately relevant to the question of a school’s cost-effectiveness.

Just as lack of money cannot be blamed for poor outcomes in public schools, neither can differences in selectivity be held responsible. Surprising as it may be, most private schools are not very selective. A study of the nation’s Catholic schools concluded that the typical institution accepted 88 percent of the students who applied. Other research in D.C., Dayton, and New York private schools found that only 1 percent of parents reported their children were denied admission because of a failed admissions test. Moreover, the academic and demographic backgrounds of students who use vouchers to attend private school across the country are very similar to those who don’t.

Private schools don’t significantly alter their student populations by expelling low-achieving or troublesome students, either. One study found that “Catholic high schools dismiss fewer than two students per year” on average. While it is true that every student is officially entitled to a publicly funded education, students in public schools are regularly expelled. According to the U.S. Department of Education, roughly 1 percent of all public school students are expelled in a year, and an additional 0.6 percent are segregated into specialized academies. That’s more than in Catholic and other private schools. Moreover, public schools actually contract out 1.3 percent of their disabled students to private schools.

In any case, numerous studies have compared what happens when students with identical backgrounds attend private versus public schools. And consistently, in study after study, the matched peers who remain in public schools do less well than children who shift to private schools. Higher student achievement is clearly attributable to some difference in the way private schools instruct—and not to more money, or simple exclusion of difficult students.

The myth of ineffective school vouchers

When reporting on school vouchers—programs that give parents money they can use to send their children to private schools—the media almost always describe research on vouchers’ effects as inconclusive. The New York Times, for instance, responded to a Supreme Court decision approving vouchers by declaring: “All this is happening without a clear answer to the fundamental question of whether school choice has improved American education. The debate… remains heated, defined more by conflicting studies than by real conclusions.”

In reality, though, the research on vouchers isn’t mixed or inconclusive at all. High quality research shows consistently that vouchers have positive effects for students who receive them. The only place where results are mixed is in regard to the magnitude of vouchers’ benefits.

There have been eight random-assignment studies of school voucher programs, and in seven of them, the benefits for voucher recipients were statistically significant. In Milwaukee, for example, a study I conducted with two researchers from Harvard found that students awarded vouchers to attend private schools outperformed a matched control group of students in Milwaukee public schools. After four years, the voucher students had reading scores six percentile points above the control group, and standardized math results 11 percentile points higher. All of the students in this study (which is mirrored by other research) were low-income and Hispanic or African American.

In a study of a different program based in Charlotte, North Carolina, I found that recipients of privately funded vouchers outperformed peers who did not receive a voucher by six percentile points after one year. All of the students studied were from low-income households. In New York City, a privately funded school choice program has been the subject of many careful studies. One found that African-American voucher recipients outperformed the control group by 9 percentile points after three years in the program. Another analysis found a difference of 5 percentile points in math. A similar program in Washington, D.C. resulted in African-American students outperforming peers without vouchers by 9 percentile points after two years.

Every one of the voucher programs studied resulted in enthusiastic support from parents as well. And all this was achieved in private schools that expend a mere fraction of the amount spent per student in public schools. The most generously funded of the five voucher programs studied, the Milwaukee program, provides students with only 60 percent of the $10,112 spent per pupil in that city’s public schools. The privately funded voucher programs spend less than half what public schools spend per pupil. Better performances, happier parents, for about half the cost: if similar results were produced for a method of fighting cancer, academics and reporters would be elated.

Spread the truth

Over the past 30 years, many of our education policies have been based on beliefs that clear-eyed research has recently shown to be false. Virtually every area of school functioning has been distorted by entrenched myths. Disentangling popular misconceptions from our education system—and establishing fresh policies based on facts that are supported by hard evidence—will be the work of at least a generation.

That work will be especially difficult because powerful interest groups with reasons to protect and extend the prevailing mythology will oppose any rethinking. But with time, and diligent effort by truth-tellers, reality and reason have triumphed over mythology in many other fields. There is no reason they can’t prevail in schoolhouses as well.

Jay P. Greene, Education Myths: What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools and Why it Isn’t So. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 280 pages