Campaign aims to increase hispanics in Catholic schools

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I am angry. Maybe I shouldn’t be. When my kids were little all I wanted was to be able to give them a Catholic education. I supplemented thier public school education as much as I could as a single parent. I called my diocese, but they told me that poor people didn’t live in my city. In fact, the diocese was subsidising young black children who were not catholics, just because they lived in the poorer section of the diocese.

When I saw this article today in my diocesan paper, it made me cry. I have no problem with helping people, but for some reason, the church has become blind to individuals and seems to support certain groups.

One of my sons is now an atheist. He wanted to be a priest when he was a kid. I find the catholic school aid beaurocracy guilty.

The church needs to stop looking at people as groups, and look at people as individuals.
 
Sadly unsurprisingly. The article cites Notre Dame as a major force behind the effort. Again, no surprise. As long as the church plays according to evil’s rules, it will continue to lose. Racism is racism. The goal should be to boost enrollment of any and all kids.
 
That’s pretty racist. Mexicans get on my nerves but I don’t try to destroy their faith by sending them to Catholic schools or anything like that, I hope for them to be better Catholics.
 
The proposal is not to do anything too dramatic. If we look at the percentages, they’re talking about increasing the number of Hispanic children from 3% to 6%. That’s not a take over of Catholic schools.

I think that another consideration is the fact that Catholic schools in the USA were founded for poor children. When Elizabeth Ann Seton founded the Catholic School system it was part of a campaign on the part of Bishop John Carrol to ensure that Catholics got a free education, because there were not schools for them to get a good education that was within their means. The Catholics at the time were mostly Irish and English farmers.

Today, the poorest Catholic sector is the Latino sector. This continues an American Catholic tradition of educating the poorest Catholics.

I think that what happened was that Catholic schools became the privilege of the wealthy, not just in the USA, but in many countries in the Americas. There is a real need to recover the original missionary role of the Catholic school. That role was to poor kids.

The three great founders of Catholic education: Don Bosco, John Baptist de La Salle and Elizabeth Ann Seton had a vision of Catholic schools educating the masses of the poor, not the middle classes or higher. If we stop to think of who makes up the poorest group of Catholics in the USA, it is the Latino and the Haitian population.

So, raising the number of students from 3% to 6% is not that much of a miracle. It sounds like a lot, but it’s really not.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
My only real point is that they are picking people based on race or where they live rather than choosing people based on individual situations.
 
rhmom said:
My only real point is that they are picking people based on race or where they live rather than choosing people based on individual situations.
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As Hispanic Catholics are often among the poorest of the poor, and many of them are lost to fundamentalist churches, instituting programs to encourage and enable more Hispanic youngsters to attend Catholic schools seems like an eminently good idea.

By the way, “Hispanic” is not a “race”, but rather an ethnic group.
 
Dixie: I agree with you - if they were also giving money to others in a not so racist manner. But they aren’t at least around here.
 
Children in my diocese Catholic schools are maybe 25% Catholic. What happens is that the diocese has a teaching ministry.

I don’t see anything wrong in reaching out to under-represented groups of Catholic kids to get them into parochial schools. Isn’t that where are Catholic adults will be grown?
 
Like I said I wouldn’t have a problem if they would give money to people like my kids - white people who need the money also. In my diocese, at least when I needed the money - about 20 years ago, 95% of the scholorship money in the diocese was given to black baptists. The diocese told me that they believed it was thier christian duty to help the kids in the worst schools. I will never forget what they told me - “There aren’t any poor people in this diocese outside of Oakland” The woman basically was calling me a liar. This is why I’m so passionate about this.
 
Beau_Ouiville said:
I don’t see anything wrong in reaching out to under-represented groups of Catholic kids to get them into parochial schools. Isn’t that where are Catholic adults will be grown?
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The most under-represented group in Catholic schools is probably the white anglo children who are rich in material possessions but spiritually impoverished. They’re probably actually the ones who need it the most, i.m.o. experience as educator and Catholic school parent.
 
white_sheep said:
That’s pretty racist. Mexicans get on my nerves but I don’t try to destroy their faith by sending them to Catholic schools or anything like that, I hope for them to be better Catholics.
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Why do we ALL Mexicans get on your nerves? Are all Mexicans not good Catholics?
 
That sucks and it isn’t fair. Hopefully you no longer attend their services and have taken matters into your own hands. Since all these people care about is numbers and promoting ethnicity you can make your point by staying at home/going elsewhere. It sounds like this church no longer values your service or membership so why be there, right?

As for your son, as long as you maintain a relationship with the religion and your God why wouldn’t he see the error in his logic? It sounds like he’s angry at the system not the God.
 
white_sheep said:
That’s pretty racist. Mexicans get on my nerves but I don’t try to destroy their faith by sending them to Catholic schools or anything like that, I hope for them to be better Catholics.
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I found this a wierd post also. No particular race should get on anyone’s nerves.
 
dixieagle said:
As Hispanic Catholics are often among the poorest of the poor, and many of them are lost to fundamentalist churches, instituting programs to encourage and enable more Hispanic youngsters to attend Catholic schools seems like an eminently good idea.

By the way, “Hispanic” is not a “race”, but rather an ethnic group.
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I agree…👍
 
Elizabeth502 said:
The most under-represented group in Catholic schools is probably the white anglo children who are rich in material possessions but spiritually impoverished. They’re probably actually the ones who need it the most, i.m.o. experience as educator and Catholic school parent.
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Oh please. Most anglo children come from 2 parent homes. In the Hispanic communities it’s lucky if 2 out of 4 childrent come from 2 parent families. The resources for most middle class and upper class for scholarships are early available then those from underprivileged communities (regardless of race).
 
Lynx, I was pretty angry when I first posted - and I am not sure that it is really the diocese’s fault. However, we don’t belong to Jesus’ church because some people in the diocese (the one’s who run the fund, who are not priests, btw) do things we don’t like.
 
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