Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Calgary Catholic schools are back where they started. Those Catholic schools
currently raising cash through gambling still don't have a date to stop
sucking up casino and bingo bucks after a school board task force couldn't
come to a decision. But Catholic school board chair Cathie Williams says the
board will now huddle and decide on a date later this month. "We have to
come up with a date. It has to be resolved," says Cathie. "I would think
within a month we'll have this all wrapped up. We can't leave it open. Our
schools can't continue to keep doing what they're doing. We know where the
bishop wants us to be." Schools are all over the map about when they want to
stop making money off casinos and bingos, some desiring as much as seven
years to wean themselves off the loot. This isn't easy stuff. Recall the
argy-bargy leading to a handshake between Bishop Fred Henry and the board
last September? To many souls it probably seemed a curious conflict. When
you can fit the accumulated consistency of most so-called leaders into a
thimble, Bishop Fred actually has a backbone. Like him or loathe him, the
words he speaks mean something. In this situation, Bishop Fred drew the line
in the theological sand. Stop taking gambling money to raise funds for
schools. It is immoral, he said. It preys on the vulnerable, he continued.
Schools need money. The provincial Tories do not put sufficient dollars into
education. But the end does not justify the means. Catholic schools must act
Catholic. Otherwise what is it to be a Catholic? The bishop was willing to
give wiggle room on the date when schools had to stop taking the moolah. But
they had to quit the cash. The bishop is one tough cookie. He's taken on the
likes of Ralph and Conrad Black and got grief from the Alberta Human Rights
Commission. Bringing the local Catholic school board back into the fold
should have been a piece of cake. It wasn't. The school board disagreed with
the bishop. They insisted they were taking the money for the good of
students. The bishop was not amused. He didn't celebrate the district mass
marking the opening of the school year. He threatened to pull priests out of
schools not toeing the line. He talked of stripping the Catholic designation
from schools defying his position. The bishop and board talked and last
September there finally was a deal. A board task force would set a Get Out
of Gambling date in early 2007. Hello, early 2007. There was supposed to be
"disengagement" from gambling "as quickly as possible." Well, the task force
asked schools when they were willing to exit from the proceeds of gambling.
Elementary and junior highs wanted a five year maximum reprieve and senior
high schools wanted seven.
Six out of 10 schools expected to opt out of bingos and casinos earlier, by
June 2009, but some wanted to drag things out until June 2014. The task
force waffled. Some members wanted schools to decide for themselves within
the five-year and seven-year suggested deadlines.

Others agreed but also wanted to "encourage" schools to go faster.

A third group backed the bishop and, according to this week's task force
report, "expressed the view bingos and casinos are immoral and therefore
schools should get out of them right away."

For them, "there is a strong desire to disassociate the Church from an
activity that is seen as morally problematic."

The only puzzler. What were all the others thinking?

As for a district target date to be out of casinos and bingos, numbers were
thrown around, with no agreement.

Now, it's up to the trustees.

"We always wanted to work with the bishop," says Cathie, insisting there
will soon be "a reasonable ending" to end the aggravation on this issue.

"Our difficulty was in doing what the bishop wants us to do without harming
the schools."

Last fall, Williams and Bishop Fred did a grip-and-grin for the cameras,
cementing their agreement to come up with a no-gambling date.

"We're there," said Cathie at the time to the bishop.

Yesterday, she's not backing away much.

"We'll get there," she says.