Why Did This School Want $75,000 To Install a Donated Ten Commandments Monument?

This is a story of pure schadenfreude.

Back in February, a long-running lawsuit involving a Ten Commandments monument outside Valley High School in New Kensington (PA) finally came to an end. Atheist Marie Schaub and her daughter sued to remove it and the case was eventually settled with the public school district promising to remove the display and pay out $163,500 in attorneys’ fees.

It’s not like that monument was going to be destroyed, though. Instead, it was donated to the Mary Queen of Apostles School, operated by the archdiocese in Greenburg.

That’s perfectly fine. But it takes money to create a proper setting for the monument… so the school decided to raise an absurdly high $75,000 to take care of everything:

… To do this well will be costly. A professional team will help to create a concept for the monument and sign, which will need to be designed, erected, lit and landscaped.

The ability to pass on to the next generation the basic ethical and moral principles that we inherited is important to us. We ask you to support our efforts to proclaim that the Ten Commandments are an inspiration to live by and are not offensive in our community. A digital reader board will feature one of the Ten Commandments each day as well as relevant announcements.

Any additional funds that we receive over our goal will be welcome and helpful and will be used to help replace the school’s roof, renovate the gymnasium and provide tuition assistance to qualifying families.

That’s… a lot of wasted money.

They could’ve just created a cheap place to set the monument, but they wanted all the bells and whistles. Plus a digital sign would that would read “Thou shalt not commit adultery” every two weeks.

Sure, they have a roof that needs to be replaced, and a gymnasium that needs to be renovated, and students who need tuition assistance — but this is God’s Word etched in stone, dammit! Priorities, people!

So how did that fundraiser go?

In three months, they raised a measly $4,500. Now they have to rethink their life choices.

Jerry Zufelt, Catholic Diocese of Greensburg spokesman, said the campaign will need to change considering the response.

“The scope of the project is being revisited, and we’ll have an update for people soon,” he said.

…

In the interim, the campaign organizers have lowered their fundraising goal to $25,000.

For what it’s worth, that’s about how much the Ten Commandments monument cost that was outside the Arkansas capitol building… and they had to start that one from scratch.

These Catholics initially wanted three times as much even though they were getting the monument for free.

I guess they’ll have to focus on the students and the school building itself now that their #1 priority doesn’t have the support they expected.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)