One of the best moments in the recent life of our Church happened on Friday, February 23, as students at West Catholic, Conwell-Egan, Bonner-Prendie and St. Hubert’s learned that their high schools, originally slated to close, would remain open.
I made the judgment to keep these financially challenged high schools open just a few hours before the press conference announcing the final decision. That little “miracle” happened because a great many people – from the Blue Ribbon Commission, the Office of Catholic Education, the individual school communities and Philadelphia’s business and philanthropic leadership worked heroically to make it so. They raised new money and created the seeds of a new education foundation to assist our archdiocesan high schools, and eventually all our archdiocesan schools.
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The Blue Ribbon Commission’s work, the subsequent appeals process and the effort to save the four high schools placed very heavy demands on everyone involved. We owe a big debt of thanks to Jack Quindlen, Ed Hanway, Eleanor Dezzi, Jerry Davis, Frank Farnesi and other members of Blue Ribbon Commission; to Richard McCarron, Mary Rochford and David Magee of the Office of Catholic Education; and to Brian O’Neill, Brian Tierney and other members of the wider community for stepping forward to help.
I especially want to thank the pastors and people of the archdiocese who supported the Commission report and the findings of the appeals process. Some of them did so at great personal cost. No process is perfect. Some persons are always left unsatisfied. In a financially challenged environment as large and complex as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, this can’t be avoided. But in the end, the process of examining our schools was just. Our schools will grow stronger because of the new ideas and structures we now begin to test.
And that brings me to a two simple but urgent facts we need to remember in the weeks ahead.
First, after every feel-good moment like the high school news on February 23, many of us would like to relax. But that’s a luxury we can’t afford. Our problems are not yet solved. They’re merely delayed. We’ve been given more time, more talent and more resources to address them, but the problems facing our schools still need a great deal of hard work and creative thinking to be overcome. We need to vigorously increase school enrollments. We need to raise far more money both at the local grassroots and wider business community levels. And we need to stay focused on the effort. If we don’t do all of these things, the failure will be ours to own.
Second, without the passage of opportunity scholarships and greater Educational Improvement Tax Credits (EITC), all of our school efforts become much more difficult. In fact, many of our schools will face the same financial crisis again in the future. “School choice” in the form of vouchers (i.e., opportunity scholarships), along with more EITC resources, is essential to the survival and thriving of our schools. That means that parents, pastors, and Catholic school teachers, presidents and principals need to contact their state lawmakers – this week and next week and the week after, no matter how many times it takes. They need to press their legislators to support opportunity scholarships and to increase Educational Improvement Tax Credits.
Catholic education in southeast Pennsylvania has a long and fruitful history. Our schools have played a huge role in enriching the life of Philadelphia and its surrounding communities. Now we need to work to restore that great legacy of education.
If we stay focused, raise the resources we need and fight for the passage of opportunity scholarships and more EITC funds, we’ll succeed. If we don’t, we’ll fail and we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves. The choice is ours.
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The tax money parents pay for education should follow the student;
therefore, there shouldn’t be a public school monopoly on education.
Thank you, Archbishop, for your information. As we look for more student enrollment in our schools, it seems to me that one of the solutions would be to decrease tuition. With the added funds and initiation of an endowment fund, I’m not sure why tuition could not be reduced, or some kind of help be given to parents who want their child in a Catholic school, but can’t afford it. Sometimes, income should not be the issue. Some incomes may be high, but the bills to be paid can be high, also. I hope you will continue to be open and honest with the faithful of Philadelphia.
Linda Ireland
I have been struck by the lack of reality in these posts. If all of the so-called Liberal Catholics have left the Church, why is Mass attendance at 24%. There must be a more fundamental reason that we are starting to look like Europe. In my humble view, the answer is to embrace the vision of Blessed Pope John XXIII and “open the window”. Vatican II is the answer, not the problem. The notion that breaking down the separation of Church and State is the mark of an authentic Catholic is crazy and if we keep it up we will have Mass attendance of 5%. It is time to forget about whether one is a Democrat or a Republican and focus instead on winning back the younger generation.
This issue is one of the most importatn issues of our time. Catholics should not be penalized for desiring our children to have a faith based education. Education needs to be revamped with educaiotnal choice at the heart. The government gives a tax credit to the parent, the parent chooses the best school for their child. Why should the government only fund secular schools which teach morals completely contrary to our faith? WE have established secular atheism as our Country’s Religion. The argument has been made that the absence of God and Religion in educaiton is a Neutral system. It is not. It is hostile to faith and the expression and free exercise thereof. Education cannot happen in a moral vaccuum. We have chosen atheism as the foundation for our educational system. If some parents want that type of system fine but we should not penalize the parents who want to choose a faith based education by doubly taxing them. It is all about choice! freedom of Religion. Freedom!
Wow, I wonder if someone else wrote this article for Archbishop Chaput, because I don’t think I’ve read such “spin” from His Excellency. It seemed as though the Commission made unpopular decisions after what seemed to have been a noninclusive process, and only after too much bad Press and outcry from the affected communities did the decision makers create a new, more inclusive process to reconsider sustainability. Now we are supposed to believe that competence is restored in place of complacency because some funds were raised and a foundation was created? So how sustainable are the various programs and are they actually producing Catholics, or is the outcome of a Catholic education not supposed to consider if students actually practice the Faith so long as bills are paid? If a Catholic school’s business model is sustainable but not producing Catholics should we keep the school open?
We’ve been down this road before, and unfortunately, it always seems that the Archdiocese can do whatever it wishes! First, the closure of these four high schools was deemed “necessary” for the survival of the entire Catholic School System. What has changed in these few weeks? Did enrollments double or triple? Has the AD replaced all those complacent teachers…just along for the ride? No, in those few weeks, Catholics and other prominent people do what they’ve always done: buy themselves an out! To calm the angry people down. Unfortunately, this is only a short-term allivatation of peoples fears and frustrations….throwing more money will not make the schools any better….and enrollments? If Catholics, and other who make use of our schools don’t send the children to them (not to mention the declining number of children because of family life today), then that’s no help either. In all this campaigning the reality still is that we have 17 schools with less than 17,000 high school students in them. Too many schools, not enough kids!
May I suggest that you read the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Why is it unconstitutional?? It’s not unconstitutional for the public schools to use our money to fund their education! We just would like a fraction of it to fund our schools, which we already pay for and we do this because we want this for our children!
Since the so-called “public money” is no more and no less than money collected from all parents and held in trust to educate children – it would seem that the family’s prerogative in choosing the proper education for their children and using THEIR OWN TAX MONEY that the state must not intrude on the parents’ decision but rather just to take the money from the taxed money and return it to the parents’ choice of schools. The children are the parents’ and not the state’s children. The money is obviously the parents’ tax money. There is no gov’t involvement in the schools themselves, only the duty of returning to the parents that which is collected for those parents own children.
I agree with Robert.
Linda Ireland
As posted earlier, let’s work in Harrisburg for both objectives:
(1) school reform and school choice/vouchers which is critical for our Catholic educational system
(2) passage of HB 832 and 878, which legislation proposed by Reps. McGeehan and Bishop (an abuse survivor herself), would eliminate the statute of limitations civilly and criminally for child sexual abuse for ALL Commonwealth children as well as provide a “window” (specific time period) during which victims could sue civilly for alleged abuse, regardless of the date of the incident. Such a provision has proven effective in two states to identify predators who heretofore had been unidentified and pose a risk to additional children.
It seems to me that any form of government payment to religious schools is unconstitutional. However, one creative way to funnel public funds to Catholic schools is to insist that EVERY activity of a Catholic school which is non religious in character must be paid for with public money. This would include: sports, arts, music, etc. in addition to School Nurses and bus transportation which currently exist. Although it is tempting to try to tap public funds, other groups would also be the beneficiaries and this could lead to a worse situation in the future.