Church leaders seek relief money for Catholic schools, citing Supreme Court decision

While Congress wrangles over how to dole out the next round of coronavirus relief money, Catholic leaders are using a recent Supreme Court decision to argue that parents should be given federal aid to apply toward religious education.

The bishops representing New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, cities that have some of the highest concentrations of Catholics in the United States, in a Thursday op-ed urged lawmakers to free up scholarship money for needy parents. That money, they said, could then be put toward Catholic or other religious schools, a use the Supreme Court recently affirmed in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue.