Thursday, April 30, 2009

Do you have a copy of Policy Options 2009?

As you know, the Archdiocese is looking to close more Catholic elementary schools. They have hit DC and southern Maryland. Now there target is Montgomery County. I have been saying this for months.

In order to do this, they need to get "buy in" from the members of the Archdiocese with a series of meetings currently being held around the diocese until May 9th.

Since I was not invited to these meetings, I wrote to the Archdiocese requesting a copy of Policy Options 2009 and received the following reply:

Thank you for your e-mail request; currently our draft policy options are for review by those formally invited to attend regional consultation meetings by their pastors. I ask that you please let us know your name and parish, and after we have the support of your pastor we would be happy to send you a copy for review. Thank you

Catholic Schools Office
Archdiocese of Washington
P.O. Box 29260
Washington, DC 20017-0260
schools@adw.org

From a practical standpoint, even if I sent in a letter and they get it by May 1st, who knows how long it will take to hear back from the pastor and then. It can easily take one or weeks.

So, do you have a copy of the document? Would you like to send me a copy of it? Send it to awashingtondccatholic@gmail.com. Your name and email address will be kept confidential.

Now, I wonder who is being selected to review this document?

- How many reviewers have children in Catholic elementary school?
- How many have had children in Catholic elementary schools?
- How many are members of Parish Councils?
- How many are faithful to the Church or are they cafeteria Catholics?
- How many are part of the Social Justice crowd, interested more in social programs than education?


According to one source, who attended one of these meetings, out of the entire meeting only one or two had children currently enrolled in Catholic schools. Only one or two! (I will provide more details about the meeting tomorrow but it is a real scandal.)

Take a moment to request a copy of the document!

More tomorrow on this.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why does it matter if the policy 'reviewers' do or do not have children in Catholic schools? The Church has never qualified their authority based on experience. How many pastors give advice on child rearing and family or make decisions about parish finances without any training or experience with either?

Anonymous said...

The point is these "consultations" appear to be highly controlled. If a disproportionate number of people who do not have children in Catholic schools show up for these meetings, then it probably tells you something about who was doing the invitations to these meetings. I have seen no information about these meetings in our church bulletin. I can tell you if Thomas Burnford is involved, the decision has already been made, and these meetings are a sham. The Archbishop wants to be able to say there were wide consultations, when in fact , there were not. This was the same method used to pull off the charter school conversion foolishness.