In April of last year, I reported that the schools in southern Maryland were targeted for closing.
In October, I stated that the Archbishop must be preping us for some serious closings.
In December, I once again spoke about the southern Maryland schools.
Well, the Catholic Standard has reported that two schools may close:
The schools that may close are Holy Angels-Sacred Heart School in Avenue, and St. Mary, Star of the Sea School in Indian Head. The pastors from those schools are seeking permission from the archdiocese to close at the end of this school year, after considering options on remaining open. Archbishop Wuerl will review those proposals and decide what action should be taken.
Now, we have been prepped for this for the last few months, with the pronouncement in on Catholic Education by the Archbishop and the stories in the Catholic Standard.
To be honest, how many pastors really want to see the school associated with their parish to close? They know that a school, even with all of the financial costs, helps to build a sense of community.
The bottom line is that the Archdiocese has decided, for financial reasons, to close these schools.
My source tells me that the some of the Catholic schools in the Silver Spring area of Montgomery County are next.
4 comments:
Last year I tried to sound the alarm when the Archbishop closed 15! schools. Now two more and next year perhaps 5 more. Where does Archbishop Wuerl think the next generation of Catholics will come from? Without the formation that comes from a Catholic school and the identity that comes from attending a Catholic school, we will not have a future of committed Catholics. If Wuerl thinks he has a hard time generating funds for The Archbishop's Appeal now, where does think the future donors will come from? Most likly 90% of current donors have attend a Catholic school or college. For Wuerl, the short term gain is a long term loss.
Unless your "source" is the Superintendent of schools, I suggest you keep rumors off of this blog. Rumors hurt schools.
Rumors are the only "Heads up" most parishoners ever get before the boom is lowered. That is how the imperial Archdiocese works!
The February 5th Catholic Standard ,which detailed the possible closing of two Catholic schools in Southern Maryland, presented some extremely dubious information about another Catholic school, St. Thomas More school in Southeast Washington DC. According to the school's principal, Bridget Coates, 40% of the the school's students are Catholic. The article also asserted that there were about 200 students at the school. Simple math tells us that 40% of 200 is 80. Who in their right mind believes that there are 8o Catholic students at this school? It has admittedly been awhile since I have had access to Archdiocesan statistics, eight years to be exact, but there is no real possibility that there are 80 Catholic students at this school. As of January 2001, the Archdiocese recorded only 322 families in this parish. It is not likely that a parish in Southeast DC would have experienced much growth in the last eight years. In fact, it is likely that a parish in that section of the city would probably have fewer families now. You will not have 80 Catholic children in your school if you only have 322 or so families in your parish. You can take that to the bank. For some reason, the Archdiocese is using the Catholic Standard to give a distorted view of this school.
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