c. 2007 Religion News Service

Report Says Catholics Must Rethink Parochial School System

(RNS) The glory days of the U.S. Catholic parochial school are gone, according to a new University of Notre Dame report, and the church must rethink its mission in order to recapture the school system’s lost luster.

The report, issued late last year by a 50-member team assembled by Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins, presents the “grim statistics and trends” facing the world’s largest private school system. But it also lays out hope the trends can be turned around.

Enrollment in the nation’s approximately 7,800 elementary and secondary Catholic schools is now about 2.4 million, after peaking near 5 million in the mid-1960s, according to the report. Recent school closures have wiped out the modest enrollment increases of the 1990s.

The nuns and priests who educated generations of American Catholics are almost gone, retired or deceased. Collections and Mass attendance are down. Faculty salaries are too low while tuitions and costs are rising, the report says.

Internal and external trends are responsible for the declines, including demographic shifts, the “changing role of religion in the lives of American Catholics,” and an increase in other educational options. Moreover, only 3 percent of Latino families send their children to Catholic schools, despite the nation’s rising Latino Catholic population, according to the report.

“In little more than a generation, Catholic schools have undergone an almost complete transformation in how they are staffed and how they are financed,” the report says.

The schools’ mission is now primarily to “educate disadvantaged children of their neighborhood regardless of their religious affiliation.” The traditional parish school is “most under duress, most vulnerable to demographic shifts and eventual closure,” the report says.

But the report states the U.S. church has “abundant resources to meet the challenges” and issues 12 recommendations to revive the school system, including: recruiting a new generation of Catholic school teachers and leaders, building a national initiative to improve academics, strengthening the schools’ Catholic identity, forming partnerships with Catholic colleges and universities, and attracting Latino students.

_ Daniel Burke

Catholics Protest New Orleans Carnival Float

NEW ORLEANS _ For the second consecutive year, groups of Catholics on Saturday (Feb. 3) staged a prayerful protest of a satirical, sometimes bawdy Carnival parade that they say mocked Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Eucharist in its 2005 version.

The protest came hours before the 2007 edition of the parade.

Last year’s vigil was a relatively small event, with about 100 people joining a prayer walk through the French Quarter. This year’s protest, staged by local Catholics and a Pennsylvania-based group, brought more than 250 people together for about two hours on the steps of City Hall.

The crowd recited the rosary and sang hymns “in reparation” for “blasphemies” they said were perpetrated by the Krewe du Vieux, a local Mardi Gras club that sponsored a float in the 2005 parade.

While much of the reaction to the 2005 parade was delayed, many Catholics were angry about one participant’s use of fake breasts next to the words “Our Lady of very Prompt Succor” and references to Jesus as “Cheesus.”

They also protested one float’s use of the image of a lamb chop, with signs proclaiming “He Died for Ewe” and “Ewes for Jesus.” In addition, the image of a male sex organ was incorporated into one float that alluded to the biblical story of Jesus turning water into wine.

“There’s no need for such blasphemy,” said Nancy Albert of the St. Joan of Arc Prayer Warriors, a local prayer group.

The krewe’s captain, Lewis Schmidt, said, “We’re very glad that the Catholic Church is exercising its right to free speech,” but he said members of his club do not regret the merging of sexual and religious images in 2005.

“We’re about satire, and that’s what we did,” Schmidt said.

An Archdiocese of New Orleans spokesman, the Rev. William Maestri, said the archdiocese had no role in Saturday’s protest, and to his knowledge none was requested.

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, based in Hanover, Pa., joined local Catholics in staging Saturday’s protest. One sign said: “Stop Anti-Catholic Floats at the French Quarter Mardi Gras.”

“We’re not a family parade; we’re for adults, but we’re not going out of our way to be pornographic,” Schmidt said.

_ Karen Turni Bazile and Coleman Warner

Study: College Students’ Political Labels Don’t Always Match Faith Views

WASHINGTON (RNS) American college students’ stated political views frequently don’t reflect their religious beliefs or attitudes on social issues, according to a new survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.

In 2004 and 2006, students were asked to define their political views as far left, liberal, middle-of-the-road, conservative or far right. Despite holding traditionally conservative or liberal views, the most popular political label for students was “middle-of-the-road,” chosen by 43 percent of those surveyed in 2006.

Just under one-third described themselves as liberal or far left, while 26 percent said they were conservative or far right.

Researchers said students belonging to the most conservative and liberal religious groups often chose political labels that did not seem to directly correspond with their religious affiliation.

Baptists, Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists and other Christians (mainly evangelicals) were identified as the most conservative groups, based on attitudes toward social issues such as gay civil unions, abortion and legalizing marijuana.

A majority of students of these faiths opposed liberal positions on such issues. Yet less than half identified themselves as conservative or far right.

The most liberal religious groups, according to the same set of social issues, were Buddhists, Jews, Quakers, Unitarians and those with no religious preference.

Still, only about half described themselves as liberal or far left.

“Despite students’ beliefs on these core issues, students are largely not identifying themselves as liberal or conservative,” said Alexander Astin, a co-principal investigator of the survey, in a press release.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Additionally, a substantial number of students in religious groups usually regarded as conservative did not ascribe to all of their faith’s views on social issues.

More than one-third of Baptist, Mormon, Seventh-day Adventist and other Christian students supported gay marriage, while nearly half of Catholics said they believed in keeping abortion legal.

The 2006 poll surveyed 271,441 college freshmen, and the 2004 survey received responses from 112,232 students from 236 colleges and universities.

_ Katherine Boyle

Quote of the Day: Chairman of Pray Over IP Hanan Achsaf

(RNS) “It’s just $5 or $10, and you get eternal life. With the lottery, you pay that amount and what do you get? A piece of paper. This is much better value.”

_ Hanan Achsaf, chairman of Pray Over IP (Internet Protocol), a Web-based service that delivers prayers to holy sites in Israel. He was quoted by The Wall Street Journal.

KRE/PH END RNS