By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic
AVENTURA | Archbishop Thomas Wenski commented on the lawsuit against Florida Tax Credit Scholarship during an Oct. 26 event honoring 10 “Women of Faith” for their service to the Catholic Church.
He noted that Catholic education, which many of the honorees are involved in, is vitally important. In recent years, enrollment at Catholic school has been bolstered the coporate tax credit scholarships (commonly known as Step Up for Students), which offer school choice to needy families.
“We know that there are attempts at the state to eliminate that by challenging its constitutionality, so I ask you all to pray that those attempts do not meet with any success,” Archbishop Wenski said.
He added that nearly 5,000 students in the archdiocese receive these scholarships. “It would be a tremendous loss for them not to be able to continue, and our Catholic schools benefit from the education that we offer (those youths),” he said.
A special guest speaker at the luncheon was St. Brendan High School student Mariana Ramirez, 15, who told the gathering she was born in Colombia and continued her Catholic education here in Florida at the age of seven. Ramirez said she has been battling Hodgkin's lymphoma since last March.
“My Catholic education saved my life, and made me what I am today. Catholic teaching is about giving children the tools to turn bad experiences and turn it into something good,” she said. “It only takes one child to be taught this to save a whole generation; their children and their grandchildren will grow up with this mindset.”
