c. 2003 Religion News Service
Report: Enrollment Down as Catholic Schools Close, Consolidate
WASHINGTON (RNS) Enrollment in the nation’s Catholic schools fell by 2.4 percent last year as 140 schools were closed or consolidated, yet experts say there are strong signs of life for parochial schools.
Forty percent of Catholic schools have waiting lists for admission, and 47 new Catholic schools opened last year, according to a report issued by the National Catholic Educational Association.
Enrollment in the country’s 8,000 Catholic schools fell by 65,000 students to 2.5 million. One-quarter of students are members of minority groups, and 13 percent are non-Catholic, although that figure can reach higher than 70 percent in some urban settings.
Michael Guerra, president of the NCEA, said the “decline reaches far beyond the parents and students immediately touched by the closures. Catholic schools have been a force in this nation for more than a century, providing a strong academic and Christian education for students.”
Despite 300 new schools in the past decade, the number of Catholic schools is down about 5 percent. Guerra said population shifts to the suburbs have emptied inner-city schools. “We have students anxious to attend Catholic schools in places where we don’t have enough buildings. And in some areas, we have an abundance of buildings but fewer students,” he said.
Guerra said the economic downturn has made it difficult for middle-class families to afford tuition, even though scholarships are often available for lower-income families. Guerra said the tight economy is a good reason to allow school voucher programs to help children attend Catholic schools rather than failing public schools.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Rutgers University Resolve Dispute
(RNS) Rutgers University and a chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship have reached a settlement after the ministry on the New Brunswick, N.J., campus sued the school over a dispute about university policy on student leaders.
The dispute centered on the constitution of Rutgers InterVarsity Multi-Ethnic Christian Fellowship and whether it was compatible with university policy about selection of leaders of student organizations. The settlement determined that the evangelical Christian group is not violating university policy by requiring that its leaders agree with the fellowship’s statement of faith.
“The university assured the fellowship that its voting members are permitted to take into account both their own religious beliefs and those of candidates when selecting and voting for their leaders under university policy,” a joint statement from the school and the campus ministry stated.
David French, an attorney representing InterVarsity, said the agreement benefited both sides.
“True diversity is enhanced by the presence of a Christian voice on campus, and that voice cannot exist without basic constitutional protections,” he said in a statement. “This settlement helps the university achieve diversity and the students retain their freedoms.”
The lawsuit, filed late last year, was funded by Alliance Defense Fund, a national legal organization based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that supports religious liberty and traditional family values.
“This agreement places Rutgers at the forefront in demonstrating that the principles of inclusivity, diversity, free association and free expression are complementary, not contradictory,” said Emmet A. Dennis, the university’s vice president for student affairs, in the joint statement.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod News Operation Victim of April 1 Prank
(RNS) Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod officials weren’t laughing after an April Fools’ Day prank made it look like a controversial case involving the Rev. David Benke, a denominational leader who prayed at an interfaith gathering, had been resolved.
LCMSNews, an online publication of the denomination, announced April 1 that an independent e-mail had been distributed earlier that day as a news release with the headline “Benke found `guilty,’ restored to office.”
“The e-mail, obviously somebody’s idea of an April Fools’ prank, did not originate with LCMSNews and should not be considered authentic or true,” the announcement read.
David Mahsman, director of news and information for the St. Louis-based church group, declined to name the perpetrator but said church officials intended to let the sender of the prank know it was not appreciated.
“We take very seriously any misuse of our name, especially that would negatively affect our credibility, and I believe that something like this does that,” he told Religion News Service.
Mahsman said the perpetrator sent the “very convincing” release to a listserv that has mostly Missouri Synod members and later admitted it was a joke.
He said it was the first time, to his knowledge, that the denomination’s news and information division has been the victim of such a prank.
The actual situation with Benke was still under review at the time of the prank. A dispute resolution panel is considering an appeal of a decision last June that he should be suspended as president of the New York-based Atlantic District because he participated in a post-Sept. 11 event at Yankee Stadium with other Christian and non-Christian religious leaders.
Mahsman said a decision by the panel is expected later in April but it is not likely to be announced if any party in the dispute appeals. A church bylaw prohibits publicity about the case until it is finally resolved.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Pope to Express Anguish Over War in Good Friday Meditation From 1976
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope John Paul II will express his anguish over the war in Iraq on Good Friday by repeating a poetic meditation he wrote 27 years ago, which opens with the words: “The Earth has become a cemetery.”
Bishop Piero Marini, master of pontifical liturgical celebrations, said Thursday (April 3) it will be only the third time in John Paul’s pontificate that his own words will be read during the Way of the Cross procession around Rome’s ancient Colosseum.
The text of the meditation, titled “Sign of Contradiction,” which the then Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow wrote in 1976 at the invitation of Pope Paul VI, will not be changed, Marini said, because it is “tragically current.”
“The Earth has become a cemetery. So many men, so many sepulchers. A great planet of tombs,” it begins.
Against these deaths, the meditation places the Christian belief that Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday and was resurrected on Easter Sunday. “Among all the tombs scattered over the continents of our planet, there is one in which the Son of God, the man Jesus Christ, has defeated death with death,” it says.
Marini said in a note that the pope was thinking about this year’s Way of the Cross procession, which will take place on April 18, while he was trying to persuade world leaders to seek a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.
“But the anguished warning of the Holy Father was not heard,” Marini said. “On March 20, devastatingly, war broke out.”
Until ill health and age made it impossible, John Paul led the Good Friday procession through the 14 stations of the cross recalling Jesus’ condemnation, death on the cross and burial, as a meditation was read aloud. He now presides over the procession from the nearby Palatine Hill and then delivers a homily.
Marini said the only processions for which the pope wrote his own meditation were in the Jubilee Holy Years of 1983-84, marking the 1,950th anniversary of the resurrection and redemption, and 2000, the start of the third millennium of Christianity.
This year the 82-year-old John Paul will celebrate the 25th anniversary of his pontificate, which Marini described as another “jubilee anniversary without any legal structure but intensely perceived.”
John Paul wrote the 1976 meditation for the Lenten spiritual exercises he led for Paul VI and the prelates of the Roman Curia. It was spoken in a chapel in the Apostolic Palace and published in 1977 and 2001.
_ Peggy Polk
California Diocese Sues Boston Archdiocese in Abuse Case
(RNS) Saying they should not have to pay for someone else’s mistakes, Catholic leaders in San Bernardino, Calif., have sued the Archdiocese of Boston for not disclosing a transferred priest’s history of sexual abuse.
The suit is thought to be the first of its kind in the American church. The Diocese of San Bernardino said it cannot afford to settle an abuse case involving the Rev. Paul Shanley, who was sent as a “priest in good standing” from Boston in 1990.
A suit filed by Kevin English against both dioceses alleges that he was abused by Shanley from the age of 17. At least 30 other men have charged Shanley with abuse. The ex-priest is free on bail while awaiting trial on rape charges.
“This action is about determining responsibility, not casting blame,” said the Rev. Howard Lincoln, a spokesman for the San Bernardino diocese. “We have no responsibility in the actions that caused the lawsuit so we don’t believe our parishioners should have to bear its financial burden.”
The suit, filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court, charges the Boston church with “misrepresentations and suppression of information” and “active misconduct and negligence,” according to The Los Angeles Times.
Lincoln said the diocese lives “paycheck to paycheck” and cannot afford a court settlement that would cost upwards of $12 million. Such a settlement would lead the diocese to “the brink of bankruptcy,” he said.
“We should not have to pay for Boston’s mistake,” he told the Los Angeles Times. A church spokeswoman in Boston said she could not comment on the suit because church lawyers had not reviewed it yet.
Quote of the Day: Anne Marshall, widow of a victim of the Oklahoma City bombing
(RNS) “I have a lot of admiration for people who can forgive, but I wonder if they really do. Do they really? I can’t say up to this point I can really ever forgive (convicted and executed bomber Timothy) McVeigh. I don’t know if we as humans have that realm. Jesus did. We can give the verbal forgiveness, but deep down can we really do it? I’m struggling with that still.”
_ Anne Marshall, widow of Raymond Johnson, one of 168 victims in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. She was quoted by United Methodist News Service.
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