I have long said that if you call it a Catholic school, then it ought to BE a Catholic school. So many of our parochial schools have the “Catholic” label, but in reality, they’re just schools for rich kids.
The real problem that underlies it all is a lack of vocations to the religious life. It used to be when Catholic schools were thriving, most or all of the teachers were nuns or brothers. Then, after Vatican II, many religious orders of nuns, etc., became secular, taking off their habits, etc., so they could be WITH the world, instead of just IN the world, but WITH Christ. The students then didn’t see them as any different than anyone else. There was no sacrificing of one’s life in the service of Christ that they could see. Yet, the students were required to wear “habits” (uniforms).
So, without nuns, who took the vow of poverty, the schools had to hire lay teachers and pay them a living wage. BIG difference, financially. In some cases, they couldn’t find sufficient lay Catholic teachers and ended up hiring lay Protestant teachers who didn’t know the Catholic faith. I know of one instance where a lay Protestant teacher was teaching religion in a Catholic school. She refused to use anything but the King James Protestant version of the Bible.
Those orders who maintained their faith, their habits, and their spiritual formation, continue to thrive. One example that comes to mind is the Dominican nuns of St. Cecelia’s in Nashville, TN. They have vocations coming out of their ears. There’s a waiting list to get in. Just in the last few years, they’ve had to spend about $20 million to expand to hold all the extra nuns. But they are orthodox in their beliefs and practices, the wear the original habit, they LIVE the rule of their order.
