I was always a big advocate for vouchers for education. Boy, was I wrong. What convinced me I was wrong? The news about President Obama and GM CEO Rick Wagoner.

Rick Wagoner was the CEO of GM and was just forced to resign by…Barack Obama in a move that nearly everyone believes was simply “political theater” to appease a bailout-weary public.

Obama can now point to a villain of the bailout and say he forced him out. Never mind, that Wagoner is no villain and his biggest mistake seems to be taking money from the government bailout.

So this is exactly why I’m thinking that vouchers might be a bad idea. Once the government starts funding even indirectly) they can then use the amount as leverage to get private schools to do what they want. In short, money means regulation.

I fear the vouchers could lead to mass secularization of Catholic schools across the country. First, it could start with forcing non-discriminatory policies on hiring, then it would be removing crucifixes from the classroom, then it would be balancing Catholicism with other points of view…and so on until the schools were secularized beyond recognition.

The worst in government would attack what’s best in our culture. Every time the government didn’t get its way, they would threaten to remove funding and many of the schools would relent.

And if some principal stands up to them, they simply make the money contigent on the school getting rid of that principal.

I worry greatly about the fate of our Catholic schools but am becoming ever more fearful of secularization.