Making God Known, Loved, and Served: The Future of Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools in the United States
Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice
Making God Known, Loved, and Ser ved: The Future of Catholic Primar y and Secondar y Schools in the United States
Notre Dame Task Force on Catholic Educat 0
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Article 2
ARTICLES
MAKING GOD KNOWN, LOVED, AND
SERVED: THE FUTURE OF CATHOLIC PRI
MARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THE
UNITED STATES
NOTRE DAME TASK FORCE ON CATHOLIC EDUCATION
University of Notre Dame
PREFACE
IDame, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a
pasn June 2005, shortly before I became president of the University of Notre
toral statement, Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and
Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium. This document, building upon
the rich experience of two hundred years of Catholic elementary and
secondary education in the United States, underscores the essential role played by
Catholic schools for the life of the Church.
This report articulates the University of Notre Dame’s response to the
bishops’ call for Catholic higher education to help address the future of
elementary and secondary Catholic schools. It represents the work of a
national task force I convened upon my inauguration, in response to the invitation
issued by the bishops in their pastoral statement, to study the problem in
breadth and detail.
As a university community, we stand ready to engage the critical
challenges that face this national treasure. We offer these reflections and
recommendations with hope and renewed conviction that, just as our forebears in
the faith responded with such generosity and courage to the challenges of
their time, so too shall we. The best days for Catholic schools are yet to
come.
Sincerely yours in Notre Dame, Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC President
INTRODUCTION
We know the story well, perhaps too well. Today, Catholic elementary and
secondary schools in the United States remain the largest private school
system in the world and still provide remarkable, often transformative,
education, often on shoestring budgets. These schools arose as a response to
public schools deemed anti-Catholic in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They
flourished because of the bold vision of bishops, pastors, and religious orders
and the sacrifices made by immigrant peoples who found in their Catholic
schools comfort from a new and sometimes hostile culture and, at the same
time, the opportunity for their children to participate more fully in American
society. But, so the story goes, the glory days of Catholic schools have
passed, abiding mainly in our collective memory of a time when every parish
had a school (or so it seemed) staffed by nuns and bursting with students.
Forty years after their peak enrollment of over 5 million, Catholic
elementary and secondary schools now serve half as many students even as the
Catholic population has soared. Another painful round of school closures at
the outset of the 21st century has erased the modest enrollment gains of the
1990s. The religious are almost gone. Pastors are overwhelmed. Mass
attendance is down. So are collections. Faculty salaries are still too low. Costs and
tuition are rising. Enrollments are declining. Thus goes the litany.
Yes, we know the story well. Has it become so familiar, though, that we
could forget its ending is not inevitable? Must we resign ourselves to fewer,
less vibrant, and less influential Catholic schools for the Church and for the
United States? In light of the grim statistics and trends, we might wonder: is
it even possible for those of us who, in the words of Secretary of Education
Margaret Spellings, see Catholic schools as “national treasures”1 that must
be preserved, to imagine a bright future of increasing enrollments and
vibrant, financially stable schools?
This report issues from our conviction that Catholic schools can and
must be strong in our nation’s third century. While recognizing the
challenges that face Catholic schools, we are convinced that extraordinary
chapters lie ahead if the Catholic community and other stakeholders summon the
commitment to respond generously to the call of the bishops in their recent
pastoral statement, Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and
Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium. Indeed, the bishops’ decision to
use the phrase “third millennium” in the title bespeaks their faith in the
resiliency of Catholic schools, their appreciation of Catholic schools’ unique
evangelizing and educational efficacy, and their desire to ins (...truncated)