Thursday, March 26, 2009

St. Bernard's Grade School Closing

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[Links to the Catholic Spirit, the Pioneer Press and the Strib added by an interested blogger.]


Cathy here! Ray has been having some computer issues so I'm taking over this blog! Bwah-ha-ha!

St. Bernard's Catholic Church on St. Paul's North End will be closing it's grade school after this academic year. The high school will remain open. Thus, some of the classic Aggie-Bernard rivalry will continue!

I've heard the high school will be offering a Baccaulaureate program but the article online does not mention that. I recall the print edition story did.

St. Seton and Holy Trinity, both in St. Paul, have already announced closures.

I'm sad but what can we expect?

I attribute these closings to 4 factors:

1) contraception
2) people leaving the faith and/or not passing it on
3) Catholic migration out of the cities to the suburbs
4) family instability: divorce, seperation, remarriage, cohabitation

One of the nice things about owning a blog is that I can edit whatever I want. Cathy did a great job on this report, but you might want to check out the Catholic Spirit's article on the closing HERE, or that of the Strib or the Pioneer Press.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Check the full story on the Catholic Spirit website.

Mention is made of the IB.

Also...in other big news...

Read the Archbishops Column.

Anonymous said...

The school is actually closing due to mismanagement by the pastor and administrators.
There is also misinformation in the article. It says that one administrative position is being lost due to the closing. There is more than one administrator in the grade school. That is part of the problem. With decline in enrollment, the administrators have been urged to make cuts. Unfortunately those warnings fell on deaf ears.
The second falsehood is, " Father Anderson, along with the school board, parish council, finance council and trustees met Archbishop John Nienstedt on March 12, to ask his permission to close the grade school".
I am not sure where this information came from, but all of those people were not at the meeting. As a matter of fact, some were not invited to the meeting nor were they told of the school closing before the general public.

Cathy_of_Alex said...

Anon2: Curious and curiouser. I found it all curious because St. Bernard's does not appear to be hurting enrollment wise. The parish is not far from my house and I attend there on occasion.

Anon1: I know. I've been personally concerned about my parish, St. Andrew, being closed or merged with another parish for some time now (enrollment is up but we are not huge). Also, our Pastor (who happens to be the VG) is only part-time (though I give him much credit for maintaining a full schedule with us and then some). There are a lot of parishes on the North End. We don't have our own school anymore. It merged with Maternity of Mary about 20 years ago.

I will pray the Holy Spirit guides the Task Force. It will all work out. No matter what, the Lord will remain available to me.

Anonymous said...

It's very sad to me that any Catholic school must be closed. I agree with your reasons, but finances shouldn't be discounted. Look at the costs of private education- most suburban elementary schools are approaching 5,000/year. Some of the urban schools are close to 4,000. Many people rightly or wrongly cannot justify that expense for elementary school. The school facilities in many cases are poor as well. The tuition money covers salaries, books, supplies and utilities, not renovations. It's a tough situation to be sure! We are blessed enough to be able to finance our kids' Catholic education and sacrifice other things because we firmly believe in it, but I worry about Catholic schools becoming only possible for the "haves". I am looking forward to the task force results!
You rock Cath-you're everywhere! :)

Cathy_of_Alex said...

L: I agree that finances play a part. I'm happy you stopped by, I know you are all about The Big Dance these days!

Unknown said...

Thanks, Cathy, I'm back.

You did a better job than I would have done. I'd have just grabbed what I could out of a paper.

But you sort of followed Father Corapi's style:

I'm sorry you're upset about the school closing. How many rosaries did you pray daily for it? How many of your children had religious vocations? How many times a week do you go to Mass to pray for vocations?"

Catholics seem to have a strange sense of entitlement about their parishes and schools. There's been a sit-in in Boston in several closed parishes that has lasted for over a year now.

But they haven't been able to re-open them. No priests.

I would assume that there is planning being done for some major Minneapolis and St. Paul closures in the somewhat near future. I think I'll get out my Photoshop and make us a map of the location of Parishes in the two inner cities.

Maybe we could have a contest to see which parishes should survive.

When most of those parishes (and schools) were built, most people still walked or took a bus to work and shop. There wasn't too much automobile recreation. That's not the case any more.