Despite recent debate, Associated Students of Madison voted last night to continue the funding of the Roman Catholic Foundation.
The RCF was founded in 1883 for students who wanted to combine their faith and academics and is now comprised of 10,000 students on campus, said UW-Madison junior and RCF office manager and bookkeeper Beth Czarnecki.
RCF is the only Catholic organization on campus, added Czarnecki.
The RCF found itself in the middle of a debate concerning whether the organization meets the eligibility criteria to receive funds from the Student Services Financial Committee.
One eligibility criterion that probed dispute was whether or not the RCF is inclusive of all students on campus.
When the RCF bylaws were first written in the early 1900s, they stated Catholic students, faculty and staff could be a part of the RCF, according to Czarnecki.
Czarnecki added that these early bylaws assumed only Catholics would be interested in the RCF but were never interpreted by the organization as excluding non-Catholics.
This organization does have the right to interpret its own bylaws, said ASM representative Zach Frey. 'RCF has shown that they've been interpreting [their bylaws] to be inclusive the entire time that this organization has existed,' Frey said. 'I think that is what's important.'
'UWRCF accepts all students regardless of religious beliefs, sexual orientation, whatever,' Czarnecki said. 'We won't ask when you come in.'
A second area of concern was whether the RCF had filled out the eligibility application completely and accurately since the organization had revised its bylaws earlier this year.
ASM representative Sree Atluru expressed her reservations on the application process.
'I don't know if it was [filled out accurately],' Atluru said, 'because the representatives have stated that they have revised the bylaws. The bylaws that are in front of us are not the bylaws that they follow.'
However, ASM Rep. Zach Frey had no such reservations.
'The bottom line is they turned in to SSFC on the deadline date the current bylaws, which means that they were complete and accurate at the time the application was filled out,' Frey said.
The council voted 15-1 to continue with SSFC funding of the RCF.
