Denver Catholic

6 AUGUST 12-25, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Around the Archdiocese Independent Living Assisted Living Adult Day Services 2835 West 32nd Avenue Denver, CO 80211 Home is here. Call 303.964.3804 and ask about this month's move-in special. homeishere.org Deacon Ronald Michieli The parishioners of Saint Anthony Parish in Sterling, Sacred Heart Parish in Peetz, Saint Catherine Parish in Iliff, in great gratitude, thank you for your faithful service. Deacon Michieli with his wife, Barb h O n July 18, the Colorado Advisory Committee to the U.S. Com- mission on Civil Rights held a public briefi ng to examine the Blaine Amendment as a civil rights issue based on its discrimination against Catholics and freedom of school choice. But the amendment is a nearly 150-year-old-law. In 1875, a time when immigration was changing the face of the nation, the then-speaker of the House of Represen- tatives, James Blaine, Republican U.S. Representative from Maine, proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It may seem harmless on paper, but the intention behind the amendment — which passed in the House 180 to 7 and just missed passing in the Senate, only short by two votes — was to target Catholic schools and block them from government funding. While it didn't pass federally, 38 states implemented this amendment. Now known as the Blaine Amend- ment, the law states, "Neither the gen- eral assembly, nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other public corporation, shall ever make any appro- priation, or pay from any public fund or moneys whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian society, or for any sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientifi c institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination what- soever" (Colorado Const. Art. IX, § 7). "Sectarian"? Read: Catholic. At the time that the amendment took e¡ ect, the country was faced with wide- spread immigration, especially from the Irish, who were predominantly Catholic. This threatened the primarily Prot- estant Americans, who saw the Irish Catholics as anti-American when the immigrants began forming their own Catholic schools to avoid Protestant teaching in the public schools. Philip Hamburger, in an arti- cle titled, "Prejudice and the Blaine Amendments," published in June by Intended against Catholic schools, amendment blocks public funding Want school choice? Oppose the Blaine Amendment BY THERESE BUSSEN therese.bussen@archden.org @ThereseBussen

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