Priest: You've contracepted our parochial school out of existence

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I read this and I agree with the priest. Our parish school closed 5 years ago due to low enrollment and poor financial management. We have 5 other Catholic Schools in neighborhoods nearby. The competition for students is stiff. Many schools are nothing more than private schools that teach religion and go to Mass once a week. It is really quite simple, no babies, no future parishioners, and no students for schools. The baby boom is a bust.
 
manualman said:
Based on the rest of your post, youre aren’t old enough then. In the thriving days, they simply didn’t turn people away due to money issues. They didn’t have to.

I went to catholic schools with kids whose family was fed off government cheese and powdered milk. The pastor waived their tuition, but the family volunteered to cut grass and tend flower beds at the parish. They didn’t just take, they gave to the best of their ability.

What this priest gets that many people don’t is that contraception does MORE than just prevent conception. It causes (or arguably the desire for it is an effect of) selfishness that spreads throughout the soul. All those selfish attitudes in society these days that undermine generous parenthood didn’t arise in a vacuum. Contraceptive mentality is a part of all that.

My favorite soapbox: Sins aren’t just actions on an arbitrary list, folks. Sins are things that DAMAGE us and others. Contraception is a sin. It damages the human soul and that damage manifests in many and surprising ways (just like all other sins do).
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I’m not sure how sending dozens of kids to school that can’t afford tuition is going to solve their economic problems and keep the school open. Mowing the Church lawn isn’t going to solve that either.

If you’re referring to the time shortly after WWII, that was a different time. We’re not going back to that anytime soon, even if we all have 20 kids. We’re a mature, aging economy with tons of competition. After WWII we were a rapidly growing economy with virtually no competition. China is effectively going through the same type of economy now as we did almost 70 years ago. And as economies grow, people have less children. That’s true whether we’re dealing with Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, or atheists.
 
bcuster said:
I read this and I agree with the priest. Our parish school closed 5 years ago due to low enrollment and poor financial management. We have 5 other Catholic Schools in neighborhoods nearby. The competition for students is stiff. Many schools are nothing more than private schools that teach religion and go to Mass once a week. It is really quite simple, no babies, no future parishioners, and no students for schools. The baby boom is a bust.
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As noted earlier, population is still increasing, just not at the rates immediately following WWII. But there are still way, way more children today in total numbers than in the past. Public schools by me are expanding, and a few new ones were recently built. During that same time, several Catholic elementary schools closed down. It’s not just contraception, because the number of Catholic children now are much greater than when these schools opened decades ago.
 
Lastly, a very basic question has to be asked. Is the Catholic school better than the public school? If it isn’t, then people are going to send their children there, contraception or not. Catholic elementary schools are having a major problem here; Catholic high schools are not. Not only that, some parents are sending their children ridiculous distances to these high schools.

What’s the difference?

Simple. The high schools are excellent, whereas the elementary schools are mediocre, at best.
 
TheWarriorMonk said:
I’m not sure how sending dozens of kids to school that can’t afford tuition is going to solve their economic problems and keep the school open. Mowing the Church lawn isn’t going to solve that either.

If you’re referring to the time shortly after WWII, that was a different time…
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You realize that history existed even before the 50’s, right? 😉 Catholic education in America was shaped in the later 1800’s by the Know-Nothing flavored protestants that largely dominated the public school system at the time. Catholics as a demographic at the time were at a far lower socio-economic status in America than they are today. And yet then and up through the 60’s, it was a general rule that nobody would be turned away from a catholic education for lack of money. It is only since the early 70’s and on that catholic schools have had to be increasingly ruthless with finances to survive.

I’m not sure you’re even really trying. Did you really think that I was trying to say that mowing lawns was equivalent monetarily or are you just trying to score points in any manner possible. The point is that in that era the parish as a whole supported the idea of catholic education and contributed what they could to achieve it. That was enough to offset those who had less to contribute. Especially when we had an invincible army of religious sisters backing the effort.

There once was a problem where candidates for priesthood and religious life needed to seriously discern if they had a real vocation or if they were trying to live up to parental expectations. Today the exact opposite is true: parents actively try to STOP their children from giving themselves up to Christ in consecrated service. What changed if not an attitude of self gift to one of selfishness?
 
manualman said:
You realize that history existed even before the 50’s, right? 😉 Catholic education in America was shaped in the later 1800’s by the Know-Nothing flavored protestants that largely dominated the public school system at the time. Catholics as a demographic at the time were at a far lower socio-economic status in America than they are today. And yet then and up through the 60’s, it was a general rule that nobody would be turned away from a catholic education for lack of money. It is only since the early 70’s and on that catholic schools have had to be increasingly ruthless with finances to survive.

I’m not sure you’re even really trying. Did you really think that I was trying to say that mowing lawns was equivalent monetarily or are you just trying to score points in any manner possible. The point is that in that era the parish as a whole supported the idea of catholic education and contributed what they could to achieve it. That was enough to offset those who had less to contribute. Especially when we had an invincible army of religious sisters backing the effort.

There once was a problem where candidates for priesthood and religious life needed to seriously discern if they had a real vocation or if they were trying to live up to parental expectations. Today the exact opposite is true: parents actively try to STOP their children from giving themselves up to Christ in consecrated service. What changed if not an attitude of self gift to one of selfishness?
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Sure, life is different nowadays, but it certainly isn’t due just to contraception, since that has existed for several thousand years. The issues are related to today’s modern society. Many people like to focus on a single issue and see all things through that perspective. However, if they open their eyes, they’ll see is not a single-issue problem.

Example: We all recognize and agree that the 1960s and 1970s were a time for major societal change. Widespread “modern” contraceptive use, abortion, etc. However, there are other major changes that affected society that people never mention. How about air travel? That era was also the time when air travel became available and affordable to many people. That meant much higher mobility as a society, and it also meant that people were less likely to live in the immediate area where they grew up. That has a huge impact one demographics.
 
TheWarriorMonk said:
… That era was also the time when air travel became available and affordable to many people. That meant much higher mobility as a society, and it also meant that people were less likely to live in the immediate area where they grew up. That has a huge impact one demographics.
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Gotcha. Jet airplanes lead to the demise of catholic schools. Sure.

Kidding! (Just getting you back). Of course there are a multiplicity of influences from age to age. Nobody here is claiming exclusivity of causes. But complex interplay doesn’t mean that we should throw up our hands and say “it’s too hard, nobody knows how things got so screwed up.” In other words, correlation may not PROVE causation, but it’s dang useful for identifying suspects.
 
Estevao said:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770

As much as you might not like these methods, this is the only example in the last 50 years in the hedonistic west where our moribund birth rates had a rebound. If we did something about contraception, birth rates would stop falling.
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Not to Derail this very interesting thread but did you read the link you posted? I realize it is from Wikipedia so it is suspect at best but I had never heard of this decree. According to Wikipedia, this did result in a huge increase n children from 1.9 per woman to 3.7 per woman. The very next section describes the result:

Of course having all those kids did not fix their horrible economy and the result was the highest mortality rate for pregnant women in Europe (10x more than their neighbors), and “Many children born in this period became malnourished, were severely physically handicapped, or ended up in care under grievous conditions, which led to a rise in child mortality.” Ultimately the experiment ended in violent revolution and the killing of the leader.

Again this is from Wikipedia so I’m sure there were many other factors at play but probably not the best example to use.
 
manualman said:
It seems terribly off because he remembers a world that you apparently never experienced and cannot imagine. And yet it existed in many people alive today’s lifetime. When catholics routinely had big families, they DID have smaller houses and fewer cars, it’s true. But they also produced abundant vocations, which resulted in catholic schools being affordable to any catholics who wanted them. This isn’t a pipe dream, it was the routine not that long ago.

Listen to yourself. The catholics who came to this country had nothing and were a half step above poverty and yet they built the mightiest private educational system earth has ever seen. Today’s catholics are objectively the richest in our nation’s history, but we pretend that we’re too poor to even maintain what our immigrant forefathers built and whine that we can’t afford it.

It’s baloney. We could easily afford it, but we think we have better things to do with our lives (and money). I’m sure I just made a lot of people mad who will sound off on how “judgemental” I am about them. Get over yourselves. Catholicism doesn’t work with American individualism. It works when we see ourselves as the body of Christ. That’s how they did it back in the days of Know-Nothing America and we could easily do it the same way today if we had that sort of unity. But we don’t. We each look out for #1 first. Contraception IS a big part of that.
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This is probably a very regional issue. Where I live the catholic high school is phenomenal and the elementary schools are also very good. The is even a lottery to get into the elementary schools and you have to test into them. They offer a discount to parishioners but the are definitely non-Catholics who attend. The elementary schools offer more programs than the public schools but I do live in an affluent area. I think the local economy and school leadership are more important than how many kids the parishioners have.
 
THP said:
This is probably a very regional issue. Where I live the catholic high school is phenomenal and the elementary schools are also very good. The is even a lottery to get into the elementary schools and you have to test into them. They offer a discount to parishioners but the are definitely non-Catholics who attend. The elementary schools offer more programs than the public schools but I do live in an affluent area. I think the local economy and school leadership are more important than how many kids the parishioners have.
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I also live in an affluent area. But I really can’t afford an additional $15,950 per year.
 
Commentary, not a news article. Please be careful when quoting from Lifesite, much of what is there is commentary
 
I grow so tired of reading all the whining posts from so-called Catholics.

Most Catholics who contracept have also aborted or at least considered abortion in their lifetimes–they also embrace a great many other things that are not “Catholic.” Therefore, contraception is a sign of how far Catholics have fallen away from the faith.

If Catholics ceased contracepting because of the faith, then they’d also begin embracing a plethora of other teachings, and they WOULD find a way to pay for their children’s education, or at least they’d begin contributing to their local school so others can attend.

Further, if a given Catholic school is failing at its task to provide a sound formation, then it is the RESPONSIBILITY of the parents to place pressure on that school to straighten-up its curriculum.

Most Catholic schools have a graduated scale for tuitions…with each additional child added to the school, the per-child rate goes down, and in many cases when there are more than four children, they are free or very close to free. Most Catholic schools also have funding assitance.

Finally, providing a sound formation in Catholic schools is NOT only the responsibility of the parents–it is the greater responsibility of every Catholic in every parish. We should all be trying to give more to help fund a child’s education, be it our own kids, or a child(ren) from other families. The Catholic faith teaches us to help build the kingdom of God.

Stop whining about what the Priest said (at least he is trying to help), look at what you can do to help your local parish school, and get to work building the kingdom. It is our task in this life…to get to Heaven, and to help others get to Heaven!

If, in the end, you decide you cannot afford to place your kids in Catholic schools, then you MUST take the time and work to teach them the faith in depth at home. You also must find a way to at least contribute something to your local school to help others. Someone mentioned needing to spend an additioanl 15K, and that is understandbly a high number…so in those cases the children should be taught in-depth (the faith) at home, and perhaps some of the money saved can be given to the school so other kids can attend.

The Catholic faith is not a “me only” faith. It is an “we are in this together” faith. What we do for the least of those…

BTW, the best plan for the elimination of tuition is for Catholics to have many children, teach them the faith, and encourage them to be Priests and Nuns…then, those Priests and Nuns can teach in the schools (as it used to be), and the tuition rates will quickly drop. I also see no reason why parishes cannot ordain additional Deacons, and formed them in education so they too can teach fulltime in the schools.

Folks: Catholic schools that are faithful (and we have a right to demand faithfulness) are one of the more powerful tools to help struggle against the secular pagan agenda that has swept across the nation. We must all help…it really is not an option if we want to help the culture.
 
If 1,000 Catholics in any given parish contributed just $100 (across an entire year, which is just above $8 per month), then as many as 40 additional Catholic kids could attend a Catholic school (and the monies should be used only for baptized Catholic children with families desiring to raised their kids in the faith).

Multiply that number by the number of Catholics schools (roughly 5,400 nationwide), and we can see that we can easily add 200-250,000 children to Catholic school enrollment.

Many people cannot afford to even give $100 per year, yet many others can give quite a bit more (easily in the thousands for some–and what better place to give then to Catholic formation for our children).

If we Catholics start truly providing sacrificial giving…we can fill our schools in a year’s time!

If you want to counter the secular-pagan drive in this country, then help fill our Catholic schools, and help teach the kids at home, and become a teacher or Catechist if you have the ability. The secular-pagan drive has been successful because of the public schools…we must counter that with faithful Catholic schools…we must stand apart from the rest. We must embrace the idea that we are to be in the world, but not be of the world.

We can easily flip this culture back to God in twenty years…we just have to have the will to start today!
 
irishpatrick said:
Most Catholic schools have a graduated scale for tuitions…with each additional child added to the school, the per-child rate goes down, and in many cases when there are more than four children, they are free or very close to free. Most Catholic schools also have funding assitance.

Finally, providing a sound formation in Catholic schools is NOT only the responsibility of the parents–it is the greater responsibility of every Catholic in every parish. We should all be trying to give more to help fund a child’s education, be it our own kids, or a child(ren) from other families. The Catholic faith teaches us to help build the kingdom of God.
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In our diocese, if a family is tithing a percentage of income, there is no tuition, no matter how many children a family has attending the school. I would note that in such a system, wealthier parents of course will pay more than poor parents, because a tithe is income based.

I also agree that it is not solely the responsibility of parents who have children in the school at any given time to support parish schools. Parish schools must be supported by the whole parish, and by every parish in the diocese. These schools will provide solid Catholic citizens as well as the next generation of priests and religious to serve the entire community.
 
What the Good Priest says is backed up by basic accounting. In any business (which the school is) you have fixed, variable and a combination of both costs. The variable is the number of students. An example of fixed costs would be property taxes on the school building. Whether you have 100 students or 1,000 students the property taxes are going to remain the same. The same would hold true for insurance. With more students in the school then the cost of those examples would cause the total price of schooling to go down.
 
JimG said:
In our diocese, if a family is tithing a percentage of income, there is no tuition, no matter how many children a family has attending the school. I would note that in such a system, wealthier parents of course will pay more than poor parents, because a tithe is income based.

I also agree that it is not solely the responsibility of parents who have children in the school at any given time to support parish schools. Parish schools must be supported by the whole parish, and by every parish in the diocese. These schools will provide solid Catholic citizens as well as the next generation of priests and religious to serve the entire community.
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I agree…well said. It really is not an option. We have to re-Christianize this country, and that means all levels.
 
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