{"id":1200,"date":"2009-01-18T08:56:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-18T08:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/a-country-without-catholic-schools.html"},"modified":"2009-01-18T08:56:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-18T08:56:00","slug":"a-country-without-catholic-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/a-country-without-catholic-schools.html","title":{"rendered":"A country without Catholic schools?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hot on the heels of this news in the Diocese of Brooklyn<\/a> last week, the New York Times has taken a longer view<\/a> of what’s happening in Catholic schools around the country: <\/p>\n

It is a familiar drill in nearly all of the nation\u2019s Roman Catholic school systems: a new alarm every few years over falling enrollment; church leaders huddling over what to do; parents rallying to save their schools. And then the bad news.<\/p>\n

When the Diocese of Brooklyn last week proposed closing 14 more elementary schools, it was not the deepest but only the latest of a thousand cuts suffered, one tearful closing announcement at a time, as enrollment in the nation\u2019s Catholic schools has steadily dropped by more than half from its peak of five million 40 years ago.<\/p>\n

But recently, after years of what frustrated parents describe as inertia in the church hierarchy, a sense of urgency seems to be gripping many Catholics who suddenly see in the shrinking enrollment a once unimaginable prospect: a country without Catholic schools.<\/p>\n

From the ranks of national church leaders to the faithful in the pews, there are dozens of local efforts to forge a new future for parochial education by rescuing the remaining schools or, if need be, reinventing them. The efforts are all being driven, in one way or another, by a question in a University of Notre Dame task force report in 2006: \u201cWill it be said of our generation that we presided over the demise\u201d of Catholic schools?<\/p>\n

The Archdiocese of Chicago and dioceses in Memphis and Wichita, Kan., have begun or expanded radical experiments in recruiting new students and financing their educations. Administrators in a dozen dioceses, including Brooklyn\u2019s, are rethinking the century-old norms of parish-run schools, where overworked priests have until recently been the single-handed bosses. These dioceses are now recruiting parents and alumni to play a bigger decision-making role.<\/p>\n

A series of major studies in the past few years, including one by the White House Domestic Policy Council, have described the dwindling presence of parochial schools as a crisis not just for Catholics but for society.<\/p>\n

The losses have already been deeply felt in impoverished urban neighborhoods, where parochial schools have attracted poor and minority students \u2014 including non-Catholics \u2014 seeking havens of safety and order from troubled public schools. Roughly 20 percent of parochial school students are not Catholic, according to experts.<\/p>\n

The Archdiocese of Washington was so desperate to save seven struggling parochial schools last year that it opted for a solution that shook Catholic educators to the core. It took down the crucifixes, hauled away the statues of the Virgin Mary, and \u2014 in its own word \u2014 \u201cconverted\u201d the schools in the nation\u2019s capital into city charter schools.<\/p>\n

The Washington choice seemed to limn in its most extreme form the predicament facing Catholic education: How to maintain a Catholic school tradition of no-frills educational rigor, religious teaching and character-building \u2014 a system that has helped shape generations of America\u2019s striving classes since the turn of the last century \u2014 when Catholics are no longer signing up their children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was taken for granted for a long time that Catholic schools would always be there,\u201d said Dr. Karen M. Ristau, president of the National Catholic Educational Association, a lobbying group. \u201cPeople are beginning to realize that this is a false assumption.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read more at the Times link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Photo: Students at St. Ignatius Loyola School in Manhattan. By Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot on the heels of this news in the Diocese of Brooklyn last week, the New York Times has taken a longer view of what’s happening in Catholic schools around the country: It is a familiar drill in nearly all of the nation\u2019s Roman Catholic school systems: a new alarm every few years over falling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nA country without Catholic schools? - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/a-country-without-catholic-schools.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A country without Catholic schools? 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