What if Our Catholic School Closes

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AnnaRose

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With more and more Catholic schools closing, what will our Bishops do to teach the faith? We live in a city of about 17,000 and had 3 C. schools, now we are down to 1 and rumors of it closing because it is a financial burden. Parents don’t know all the answers of the faith to teach them. Will there be the “once a week, one hour” faith teaching that is so inadequate in each parish? :mad:
The child is the beauty of God present in the world, the greatest gift to a family.
Mother Teresa
 
AnnaRose said:
With more and more Catholic schools closing, what will our Bishops do to teach the faith? We live in a city of about 17,000 and had 3 C. schools, now we are down to 1 and rumors of it closing because it is a financial burden. Parents don’t know all the answers of the faith to teach them. Will there be the “once a week, one hour” faith teaching that is so inadequate in each parish? :mad:
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If they close the school, the Religion teachers will be unemployed, which means that the Diocese could hire them to organize a program of religious instruction that would be superior to the ones currently in place in the parishes.
 
As a CCD teacher, we - and the school religion teachers - can only do so much, the responsibility to teach the faith belongs to mom and dad and the parish community and the priests and the godparents.
 
Parents need to step up. They abdicated their responsibility to teach a while back and this is the fruit of it. They need to learn what they don’t know. Hopefully more religious education opportunities for adults and children will spring up.
 
AnnaRose said:
With more and more Catholic schools closing, what will our Bishops do to teach the faith? We live in a city of about 17,000 and had 3 C. schools, now we are down to 1 and rumors of it closing because it is a financial burden. Parents don’t know all the answers of the faith to teach them. Will there be the “once a week, one hour” faith teaching that is so inadequate in each parish? :mad:
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What will the bishop do? You should be asking what are the *parents *doing?

PARENTS are the primary educators of their children in the faith.
 
1ke said:
What will the bishop do? You should be asking what are the *parents *doing?

PARENTS are the primary educators of their children in the faith.
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The fact that the Parents are the primary educators does not alliviate the Bishops of their responsibility. The Bishop is the primary teacher of the local church. The church has a responsibility to assist parents in educating their children. A catholic education is more than just a very good religious ed program. All subjects should be taught from a catholic education approach. The church makes it a law that parents are to send children to catholic schools when available. That would imply that the church is responsible for making catholic schools available to parents. Finally, the entire catholic community has a share of the responsibility for the education of the children.

“What will the bishop do?” is a very good question when discussing the fate of our catholic schools. The idea that it doesn’t matter because the parents need to do the job is wrong.
 
**Get off your duff & learn your Faith!
**
Don’t wait for a “Catholic school” to teach the Faith to your children. Most of the Catholic Schools are watered down & only teach what is socially acceptable & many are horribly corrupted with secular garbage & PC “BS.”

The Good News is that Jesus has already won the battle.

**WE ARE ONLY CALLED TO WITNESS TO HIS TRUTH, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST TO US PERSONALLY!
**

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark
 
kage_ar said:
Reference please?
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This is probably a reference to Canon 798.

From the John Beal commentary on Canon 798:

The canon contains no prohibition against the use of non-Catholic schools. Rather, it provides direction for parents who are unable to send their children to schools that provide a Catholic education. In such cases, parents are to see to it that the children receive an appropriate Catholic education outside of the school setting. The law does not identify reasons or conditions that might prevent parents from sending their children to Catholic schools. Some reasons might include availability, distance, cost, cultural, or political conditions. Regardless of the reasons that prevent parents from sending their children to Catholic schools, they are obliged to see to it that the children receive a Catholic education outside of school. The Catholic school is viewed in the law as a means, not an end.
 
ack said:
This is probably a reference to Canon 798.

From the John Beal commentary on Canon 798:

The canon contains no prohibition against the use of non-Catholic schools. Rather, it provides direction for parents who are unable to send their children to schools that provide a Catholic education. In such cases, parents are to see to it that the children receive an appropriate Catholic education outside of the school setting. The law does not identify reasons or conditions that might prevent parents from sending their children to Catholic schools. Some reasons might include availability, distance, cost, cultural, or political conditions. Regardless of the reasons that prevent parents from sending their children to Catholic schools, they are obliged to see to it that the children receive a Catholic education outside of school. The Catholic school is viewed in the law as a means, not an end.
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That was what I expected, personal “misinterpretation” of 798. The Beal commentary is a good one. 👍
 
kage_ar said:
That was what I expected, personal “misinterpretation” of 798. The Beal commentary is a good one. 👍
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“Parents are to entrust their children to those schools which provide a Catholic education. If they are unable to do this, they are obliged to take care that suitable Catholic education is provided for their children outside the schools.”

John Beal’s commentary is good, but incomplete. THe first sentence is ignored in his commentary. “Parents are to entrust their children to catholic schools”. That is very clear. If a good catholic school is available and affordable, parents are supposed to send their kids to it. I realize that this is not always the case, and parent’s get to decide when it is the case, hence Beal’s commentary is good. But, ignoring the first line is not appropriate for a parent.

Nor is it for the a Bishop. Hence my initial post on this thread. Asking what a bishop is going to do about making good,affordable, catholic schools available to parents is perfectly valid.
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Mark77:
Get off your duff & learn your Faith!

Don’t wait for a “Catholic school” to teach the Faith to your children. Most of the Catholic Schools are watered down & only teach what is socially acceptable & many are horribly corrupted with secular garbage & PC “BS.”
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No one should wait for a Catholic school if it is not available. But that does not mean one should not request a good, Catholic school from the church. The church has an obligation to provide them to parents. BTW, I am comfortable in my knowledge of the faith and I have raised 3 kids and I am raising 5 kids right now, so I can assure you I am not on my duff.
 
If you wish affordable Catholic schools, it will require stewardship at the parish level far above what happens now - Catholics would actually have to put 10% in the collection plate each week. Catholics don’t give at that level, so, schools have to close.
 
kage_ar said:
If you wish affordable Catholic schools, it will require stewardship at the parish level far above what happens now - Catholics would actually have to put 10% in the collection plate each week. Catholics don’t give at that level, so, schools have to close.
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Probaly not, 5% would probably do it. Assume a parish has 500 families with an average income of 50K and half the families have school age kids, lets just say 2/family. That parish needs to educate 500 kids. If all families give 5%, that is 1.25 Million in parish income. For the sake of argument, lets assume, $4K to educate one child/year. The school budget would be $2M. If the parish provided a 1/3 of it, that would be around $670K. So the tuition would need to cover around $1.3M. The parents would pay tuition averaging 2600/child/year.

Very doable.
 
Thanks to everyone’s reply. It still scares me that we will lose more of our young people to not knowing their faith if the school closes. Look at how many Catholics don’t practice their faith now or have turned “cafeteria” Catholics! 😦

Yes, I plan to look into it more and see what can be done to save our C. school.
The Eucharist is not a luxury, but a necessity, for without it, we would, in the spiritual sense, starve to death. Fr. Robert Barron
 
AnnaRose said:
Thanks to everyone’s reply. It still scares me that we will lose more of our young people to not knowing their faith if the school closes. Look at how many Catholics don’t practice their faith now or have turned “cafeteria” Catholics! 😦

Yes, I plan to look into it more and see what can be done to save our C. school.
The Eucharist is not a luxury, but a necessity, for without it, we would, in the spiritual sense, starve to death. Fr. Robert Barron
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Ours is in danger as well. We are working hard to keep it but we just keep getting hit with one blow after the other. I suppose we need to give it to God, though, bring our fishes and loaves and pray that they are enough.

Our issues are low enrollment and finances. We are working on both of those. In some areas the issues are the true Catholic identity of the school. I agree that it would be more difficult to work on those issues, especially if the administration were behind the problems, but it would be great if parents could work on those issues as well to save those Catholic schools as well.

I also think that those who do not send their kids to Catholic schools do not see what the kids really get out of it. It’s not just religion class once a day. It provides for the students the kind of atmosphere that I strive to provide for myself by surrounding myself with like minded friends, joining forums such as these, receiving sacraments often, etc. It provides a Catholic community of others living (and sometimes struggling) in the faith. It provides them with backup of what we as parents are telling them at home. It’s a immersion of faith in their lives.
 
Our local parish school is having a spike in people wanting to attend, mostly non-Catholics. Of course the fact a kid at the local public Jr. High literally had his brains beat out and is in ICU after a classroom brawl a week ago plays a role.
 
AnnaRose said:
Thanks to everyone’s reply. It still scares me that we will lose more of our young people to not knowing their faith if the school closes. Look at how many Catholics don’t practice their faith now or have turned “cafeteria” Catholics! 😦

Yes, I plan to look into it more and see what can be done to save our C. school.
The Eucharist is not a luxury, but a necessity, for without it, we would, in the spiritual sense, starve to death. Fr. Robert Barron
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I have to admit. I don’t know any Catholics who aren’t “cafeteria Catholics.”
 
Lutheranteach said:
Our local parish school is having a spike in people wanting to attend, mostly non-Catholics. Of course the fact a kid at the local public Jr. High literally had his brains beat out and is in ICU after a classroom brawl a week ago plays a role.
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Nooooo -that is awful! I hate hearing stories like that one. Is he going to be okay??
 
Some families in our community established an independent Catholic school.

napcis.org/

Several of the parents volunteered as teachers, so the cost were low.
 
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