Too much faith

By How Albany Pols Double-Crossed The Church On Tax Credits
New York Daily News
April 9, 2014

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/faith-article-1.1749990

A cardinal and nine bishops walk into the state Capitol — and the very bad joke was on them.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn and Bishop William Murphy of Long Island were among the Catholic prelates who traveled to Albany to seek tax credits for private school donations.

It was their top priority, a crucial step toward rescuing financially troubled parochial schools. In a year when lawmakers were focusing on education , the cardinal and bishops had reason to believe their timing was right.

They met with Gov. Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate co-leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein. The elected officials smiled and nodded and gave assurances.

And the bishops came away feeling suckered. The politicians led them to believe one thing, then did another.

“No guts in Albany,” was the suitably stinging headline in The Tablet, the newspaper of the Brooklyn Diocese. “Though Gov. Andrew Cuomo had indicated he would support (education tax credits), in the midst of closed-door horse trading, he meekly backed away from the effort ,” a Tablet editorial read. Also righteously angry was Catholic New York, the newspaper of Dolan’s archdiocese.

“Winter may finally be over, but Catholic schools and Catholic school families are still out in the cold as far as Gov. Cuomo and state lawmakers are concerned,” the editors wrote.

“We’re at a loss to understand why this tax credit was left out of the budget,” they added. “It had the support of 80% of lawmakers, of the governor, and some 80 other organizations, including faith groups, business leaders and labor unions.”

In his column for The Long Island Catholic, Murphy, too, was puzzled as to why the needs of Catholic and other private schools were “thrown under the bus.”

“We do know that, to the end, Sen. Skelos was firm in his commitment and in his support arguing for the education tax credit.

“We do know that Speaker Silver offered ‘extra help’ in giving us money we already are owed. He did not support the education tax credit.

“We do know that the public teachers unions are politically very strong and continue to have a visceral negative attitude to any school that is not a government school.

“And we also know that the governor verbally supported us whenever the bishops of New York spoke with him (last on March 18) or the cardinal contacted him.”

Now these men of faith also know better than to have faith in the men who run New York.