Category: News

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A Catholic Education Is Better Than Disneyland

That’s the opinion of Doris and Thomas Briant, the parents of four Catholic teachers:

Sleeping BeautyIn the parable of the sower, Jesus taught his disciples that God’s word must be nurtured to yield a fruitful harvest, words that four members of the Briant family — sisters — have taken to heart.

Alison Briant Burley, Ellen Briant Reilly, and Susan and Katelyn Briant are Catholic educators.

Their parents, Doris and Thomas Briant, made sure they all had 12 years of Catholic education, despite the prospect of all that tuition.

“My motivation was to show (our) commitment to Catholic education,” Doris said. “We didn’t have family vacations, we went to Cape May for the day. You can give up all those trips to Disney World. The benefits you get (from Catholic education) are better than all those trips to wherever.”

Read all about their daughters and their teaching careers here.

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Catholic School Teacher Begins Career with Miracle

Kolleen MurrayOne of the great pleasures of teaching in Catholic schools is the inspiration I receive daily from my colleagues. It’s a privilege to work with such dedicated, faith-filled people who tirelessly strive to build up the Kingdom of God. One of those witnesses to faith is my teaching partner, Kolleen Murray. Kolleen and I have worked together for over a decade teaching eighth graders at All Saints Catholic School in Spokane, Washington. This year Kolleen received the NCEA’s Distinguished Teacher Award, and was featured in an article on Catholic Schools Week by Our Sunday Visitor:

Murray, 50, is one of 12 current National Catholic Educators of the Year, recognition given by the National Catholic Education Association, and she represents five Western states. She has been a teacher for 12 years and currently teaches an eighth-grade class at All Saints Catholic High School in Spokane, Wash.

And it began, she said, with somewhat of a miracle.

Murray was hired in May 2000, and in June, she wrecked on a bike, sustaining a traumatic brain injury that landed her in the hospital for two weeks and in rehabilitation for months. During that time, teachers brought food and cleaned her house. Kathy Hicks, her principal, came to walk with her arm in arm.

“I told her that she needed to hire someone else,” Murray said. “But she told me that she would teach my classes, and her colleagues would teach my classes, until I got better. That is the miracle of this ministry, that Kathy would not hire someone else. I came to this ministry with a very grateful heart. Can you imagine so much support and so much love? It was beautiful.”

Murray could teach for only two hours each morning when classes resumed, and by October, her strength returned.

“The students knew from Day One that I had a brain injury, and that it would be we as a community, we as the body of Christ, that would facilitate the learning,” she said.

Read more about Kolleen and Catholic schools, including an interview with our superintendent Duane Schafer, at Our Sunday Visitor.

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TV Program Explores Decline in Catholicism and Catholic Schools

Are Catholic schools closing because Catholicism is in decline, or is Catholicism in decline because Catholic schools are closing? That’s just one of the questions Lynn Doyle asks of her guests in this 24-minute program. She begins her show with guest Jerry Davis, one of the members of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Blue Ribbon Commission on Catholic schools, and ends it with a panel that includes Bob McCarty, executive director at the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry. Most provocative soundbyte? “Catholics have contracepted and aborted themselves into a decline.”

What do you think is responsible for the decline? And how do Catholic schools and dioceses respond to it?

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St. Agnes Catholic Academy Turns 160 Years Old

Is there anything nuns can’t do?

St. Agnes AcademySix Dominican “foundress” nuns stepped off a flat-bottom boat on a freezing New Year’s Eve in 1851 to start St. Agnes Academy, the oldest continuously operating school in West Tennessee.

On Friday, the spirit of their service and faith was chiseled in every detail of the school’s 160th anniversary celebration, including a Mass that echoed their Catholic and feminine commitment to a city that was later besieged by Civil War and yellow fever.

“They were the first to establish an orphanage in 1852; it was in the attic of the school,” said Sister Marina Gibbons, president of St. Agnes from 1980 to 1995 and one of several nuns who made the trip to Memphis for the celebration from their Dominican base in St. Catharine, Ky.

Apparently not. Get the full story at The Commercial Appeal.

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Catholic School Closures Could Increase Tax Burden and Cause Overcrowding

Empty Classroom
Joan Hellyer reports on two of the most significant side effects of the Philadelphia Catholic school closures — the impact on local public schools and the impact on taxes:

“This may severely challenge our school district, which has been experiencing increased elementary school enrollment coupled with severe state budget cuts,” Bristol Township Superintendent Samuel Lee said.

Hellyer’s article continues,

“We are saddened by the plight of the Catholic schools and have great compassion for the families that have supported them through the generations,” Lee said. “Catholic schools have made many contributions to our area and have helped to lighten the tax burden for our residents.”

If all Catholic schools in the United States suddenly closed, public schools around the country would have to find enough teachers and seats for over two million students. According to statistics from the National Center for Education, the average cost per pupil in public schools is $10,297. Two million more students in the public school system would require another 20 billion dollars in taxes to cover their costs.

That’s not a typo: Catholic schools save the country 20 billion dollars in taxes.

Besides providing necessary catechesis and high quality, comprehensive human formation for their own students, Catholic schools are good for the community and for the country in very concrete ways. It is in everyone’s interests to make the United States a place where parochial schools can survive alongside a healthy public school system. And it is the responsibility of every Catholic to help their local Catholic school be spiritually, academically, and financially viable.

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Dramatic Changes Expected in Philadelphia Catholic Education

Philadelphia Catholic School Students
Image from http://www.catholicschools-phl.org

Which Philadelphia Catholic schools will close? That’s the question on the minds of many Catholics in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia this week. The results of Philadelphia’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Catholic Education will be made public on Friday, January 6. The members of the Commission were appointed by Cardinal Justin Rigali just over a year ago “to undertake a comprehensive study of Archdiocesan elementary and secondary schools, as well as the schools of special education and religious education programs.”

The study is expected to bring about a dramatic change in Catholic education in Philadelphia, strengthening it for the future and ensuring the long-term existence of Catholic schools in the archdiocese. That change is not going to be without cost, however. According to a local Philadelphia news report, “all elementary schools with fewer than 125 students are expected to be closed. Some secondary schools will also likely be closed.”

Which Catholic Schools Will Close?: MyFoxPHILLY.com

This week, as we celebrate two American saints with strong ties to Catholic schools, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. John Neumann, we ask their intercession to guide the Commission and Cardinal Rigali to make decisions that lead to stronger, more viable Catholic education in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.