Got caught up with some newspaper reading and ran across Kevin Cullen’s June 1st article in regards to the closing of St. Anne’s School in Hyde Park. boston globe
I was a product of 12 years of Catholic education and it has served me well. I was a lapsed Catholic for 30 years and only recently came back to the Church for personal reasons. Here in the western ‘burbs Hudson Catholic High School is also closing. As in St. Anne’s, the pastor (Fr. Ron Calhoun) in Hudson held a meeting, announced the school was closing in June and there would be no further discussion.
What I fail to understand is the Church leadership still seems to be in the 19th century! The clergy’s word is final. End of story. If the Catholic Church is getting out of the education business, why do they have a Superintendent (Mary Grassa O’Neil) making $325,000. Her legal counsel is making $200,000+.
In both cases the parents and alumni have stepped up to the plate with money but the Church could care less. I understand the economy is raising havoc with Catholic schools, declining enrollment over the past few years. If the leadership had asked a couple of years ago support could have been raised to try to keep these schools open.
While I am a strong supporter of public education, it is always good to have other education alternatives for parents. In my opinion the Church is shooting itself in the foot. Closing Catholic schools will only lead to fewer Catholics contributing to some of the worthy pursuits of the Church.
I know there are many products of Catholic schools on this blog and supporters of education choices. Just curious how people interpret these school closings.
The powers that be in the Church look at the declining enrollment as proof of their waning influence, and are cutting their losses. Rather than “think outside the box” – they’re closing schools down left and right.
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p>It’s the wrong approach. Now is the time to create new partnerships to keep the schools alive. Unfortunately, due to the mostly decentralized management of the schools (think of them as little fiefdoms) pastors (who are often older and out of touch) of the parishes with schools in them make the decisions. Very often, economies of scale aren’t realized through centralized purchasing – purchasing is done by each school. The teachers was not nearly as well paid as their public school colleagues, so there’s a lot of turnover. It’s a headache for these old guys and it’s easier to let them go than to figure out an alternative.
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p>It’s terribly sad.
Thanks for the comment Justice. I agree it is sad. I also think you hit the nail on the head about the older out of touch pastors. It is the wrong approach and I fear when they realize that, Catholic elementary and secondary education will no longer exist
The costs of running a school is rising, as noted, enrollment is dwindling, and the income of the local dioceses are not growing at a rate large enough to support the schools. I think this is due to increased competition in the Christianity market.
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p>Back in the day, it was more common to see concentrated communities and neighborhoods of practicing Catholics. Today, there is a Catholic diaspora of sorts, and once heavily Catholic neighborhoods and towns are populated with other varieties of Christians, non-practicing Catholics, and people of other faiths and the increasing number of people openly admitting to adhering to no faith.
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p>Furthermore, as far as Christianity in America goes, it’s now a wild and free open market. In these city neighborhoods I speak of, the Catholic church was one of the few games in town. You’d have your catholic parish and down the street you’d have your smaller Congregationalist church. And every once in a while you find an Episcopal and a Baptist church. Nowadays, you have all those same churches, plus you have churches opening up in old super markets, former 7-11s, storefronts, old schools, etc. Immigrant communities that have been traditionally Catholic are now more diverse flavors of Christianity; there are significant number of Haitian SDAs, evangelical Churches that have spanish language services, and whole Pentecostal churches that are Spanish language-based. It’s as if McDonalds was the only burger joint in town but then Wendy’s, Burger King, Arby’s, In & Out, Taco Bell, and D’Angelo’s moved in.
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p>Additionally, competing with your local Catholic parish’s school now are a crop of new Christian schools, private Christian education run by non-Catholic, mostly evangelical Christians. I’ve met quite a few non-Catholics who were educated in Catholic schools; but now non-Catholics have more options for parochial education.
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p>I think, in short, the Catholic Church and Catholic schools aren’t the big fish in the small pond anymore. The pond has gotten bigger and more diverse and the Catholic Church/Schools haven’t adapted to the competition. People now have far more places to find Jesus and to parochially educate their kids, therefore money and resources that formally went to the Catholic parishes and dioceses are being diverted elsewhere.