It is a sign of our hyper-polarized times that, even before Pope Francis lands in America, his visit is stirring controversy and conflict. The chance that he will repeat his attacks on capitalism and denounce fossil fuels in a speech to Congress threatens to make his trip divisive.
One member of the House, a Republican Catholic, even says he will boycott the speech if it’s going to focus on climate change. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona wrote in an op-ed that if Francis is going to “act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one.”
Yet there is at least one stop on the pontiff’s itinerary that should be unifying to all Americans. It is to Our Lady Queen of Angels, a Catholic elementary and middle school in East Harlem, the only school on the pope’s US schedule.
Plans for Friday’s visit call for him to be greeted by 250 children outside the East 112th Street building and to meet 24 fourth-grade students and their principals inside. They include six students from each of the four local archdiocese schools who have been working on gifts and projects to show the pope.
The audience also will include an unusual group of adults, some of whom won’t be Catholic. They are deep-pocketed donors who make a Catholic-school education possible for many poor city children.
And those inner-city schools often work miracles. Nine out of 10 students are nonwhite, and 53 percent live with a single parent. Most households are below the official poverty line, yet almost all the students graduate from high school and go to college. The donors are a key link.
“From our point of view, the big picture is Catholic and non-Catholic business leaders supporting these schools,” said Susan George, executive director of the Inner-City Scholarship Fund. “The fact that these very busy people are donating time and money to Catholic schools, regardless of their personal faith, speaks volumes about the first-rate education the students are receiving.”
The scholarship fund has just closed the books on a remarkable year, raising a record $22 million in contributions, George said. Hundreds of donors support one or two students each by paying as much as 75 percent of their tuition, which averages about $4,500 a year. There are 78 schools in the inner-city network, with about 7,000 of the 29,000 students getting financial aid.
But because all families must pay something, empty seats are a perennial threat. A recent round of painful closings of archdiocese schools made a dent, but the rise of excellent charter schools in poor neighborhoods is proving to be stiff competition. The charters are free of charge because they are public, while even a reduced tuition at Catholic schools can be too big a burden for low-income families.
George, then, is hoping for two outcomes from the pope’s visit to Our Lady Queen of Angels: that it will spur more parents to send their kids to Catholic schools, and more donors to step up. She’d like to give financial aid to another 4,000 students, saying that would put the system in the “sweet spot” where attrition would be low and the schools would be stable.
It is not my usual habit to recommend specific charities, but the Inner-City Scholarship Fund is an exception. It is beyond worthy and a win-win for both the students and New York.
Many of the students who get financial aid eventually enroll in the City University colleges but, unlike so many public-school students, they don’t need remedial help.
Their demanding high-school teachers get them ready for college, making Catholic-school grads a bargain for taxpayers and putting them in line for good-paying jobs and careers of the kind that hold the city together.
As Susan George puts it, “Our students become the productive middle class of New York City.”
You can’t say no to that.
Trump is the life of party
Lots of conservatives are praying for a grand moment when Donald Trump implodes and quits the presidential race. They should be careful what they wish for.
Do they really think 23 million people would have tuned into the CNN debate if Trump wasn’t on the stage? How many do they think would have watched the first debate on Fox, which drew 25 million?
In important ways, Trump has been very, very good for the Republican Party and his opponents. He’s the straw that stirs the drink, but the whole diverse lineup of accomplished candidates is getting a chance to impress far more voters than would otherwise be possible.
Carly Fiorina is Exhibit A. As she said after her stirring performance last week, “When I went into the debate, almost half the audience didn’t know my name. And I introduced myself successfully.”
And it’s not just the size of the crowds that matter. Because Trump leads in the polls and because of his bully style, the others are being graded by how effectively they respond to his attacks or how their answers compare to his. Marco Rubio scored big, for example, by being much sharper than Trump on the dangers of the Iran nuke deal.
The dynamics would be very different without Trump. Would Ben Carson’s cerebral style still be appealing without a blustery counterpoint? Would Chris Christie seem too hot if he were the hottest candidate on the stage?
For sure, the prospect of Trump winning the nomination can be unsettling. But it’s still early, and the nervous Nellies should save some of their angst for the possibility they won’t always have him to kick around.
After all, boredom never elected anybody.
De Blasio’s reality gap
A friend describes Mayor Putz this way: “He burns his hand on a hot stove, then does it again. His reaction is, ‘There’s something wrong with the stove.’”
The image came to mind after de Blasio’s reaction to sinking poll numbers, with only 37 percent of New Yorkers approving of his performance. He told an interviewer his only regret was that he didn’t blow his horn louder and more often.
“There’s a gap between reality and perception,” he insisted.
Indeed there is — it’s a gap between his perception and voters’ reality.
Oh, fuhgeddaboudit!
Defense lawyers aim to bar any potential jurors from an upcoming Brooklyn mob trial if they’ve ever seen “The Godfather,” “Goodfellas,” “The Sopranos” or “Scarface.”
Good luck with that. Even if the lawyers can find New Yorkers who didn’t see those classics, they still won’t be able to use them on the jury. It’ll mean they’re from another planet.
A losing game
Headline: “Pentagon war games Russia in Baltic.”
In other words, Obama orders commanders to distribute the white flags.