{"id":2769,"date":"2008-09-28T23:51:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-28T23:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/i-dont-have-room-for-all-the-catholics-who-want-to-be-here.html"},"modified":"2008-09-28T23:51:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-28T23:51:00","slug":"i-dont-have-room-for-all-the-catholics-who-want-to-be-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/i-dont-have-room-for-all-the-catholics-who-want-to-be-here.html","title":{"rendered":"“I don’t have room for all the Catholics who want to be here”"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Right In My Own Backyard Desk, we have this interesting report<\/a> on the only all-boys Catholic high school on Long Island: <\/p>\n

<\/a>Unlike most Roman Catholic schools in the New York area, which embrace students regardless of their religion, Chaminade High School here requires a baptismal certificate to register.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo exception,\u201d said the Rev. James C. Williams, a cherub-faced priest who is the school\u2019s president. \u201cWe advertise that pretty clearly because this is who we are. I don\u2019t have room for all the Catholics who want to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, more than 1,600 boys from as far as Manhattan and Westchester County applied last year for 425 freshman seats at Chaminade, which many consider one of Long Island\u2019s premier private schools and a relative bargain at $6,660 a year. Chaminade, founded in 1930 and now the Island\u2019s only all-boys Catholic school, has thrived by staying unabashedly Catholic and traditional.<\/p>\n

As the school year began this month, Chaminade students bowed their heads for a 10-minute morning prayer, repeated in an abbreviated version before every class. \u201cHere I Am, Lord,\u201d drifted through the hallways as the glee club practiced for a school Mass. Shortly before noon, the chapel filled with teenagers for a lunchtime prayer service.<\/p>\n

No talk here of squaring Catholic teachings with secular realities. In 2005, out of concern over excessive materialism and alcohol consumption, Chaminade canceled its prom and later replaced it with a modest dinner cruise around Manhattan. There is a strict dress code that also prohibits facial hair.<\/p>\n

Despite a recent haircut, Dominic DaRocha, a freshman, spent an hour during the first week of classes cleaning up the school library because his dark brown mop fell below ear level \u2014 a violation. \u201cI thought I kind of deserved it,\u201d Dominic, 13, said after a second haircut. \u201cI know it\u2019s a good school, and that\u2019s all that really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enrollment at Long Island\u2019s 11 Catholic high schools is up about 7 percent since 2002, to nearly 13,000 (though down about 20 percent at elementary schools), according to officials with the Rockville Centre Diocese, which covers Long Island.<\/p>\n

Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the diocese, said, \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing anecdotally is that people are saving their money and saying we can\u2019t do both, so we\u2019re going to put them in public elementary school and then put them in Catholic high school.\u201d<\/p>\n

But perhaps no place is more popular than Chaminade, which has top-notch academic and athletic programs and last summer expanded its campus with a $20 million sports and activities complex. Donations from a high-powered alumni network that includes former Senator Alfonse M. D\u2019Amato, County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi and the television commentator Bill O\u2019Reilly paid for the project.<\/p>\n

Parents like Gina and James McGovern pay school taxes of more than $10,000 a year in Merrick but switched their 14-year-old son, Terence, to Chaminade this year so he could discuss issues like poverty, social justice and respect for life from a Catholic perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not proselytizing or preaching, we\u2019re simply looking for an opportunity to have a school system that supports the lessons we\u2019re teaching in our home,\u201d said Mrs. McGovern, a former PTA president. \u201cI think the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that it makes religious expression difficult or uncomfortable in public school.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As always, you can find more at the link<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Photo: by Uli Seit for the New York Times<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Right In My Own Backyard Desk, we have this interesting report on the only all-boys Catholic high school on Long Island: Unlike most Roman Catholic schools in the New York area, which embrace students regardless of their religion, Chaminade High School here requires a baptismal certificate to register. \u201cNo exception,\u201d said the Rev.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-the-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\n"I don't have room for all the Catholics who want to be here" - 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\/2008\/09\/i-dont-have-room-for-all-the-catholics-who-want-to-be-here.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""I don't have room for all the Catholics who want to be here" - 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}