c. 2007 Religion News Service

Report Says Catholic School Enrollment Continues to Slip

(RNS) Enrollment in Catholic elementary schools continued to decline in the 2006-07 academic year, while secondary school enrollment rose slightly, according to a report by the National Catholic Educational Association.

More than 2.3 million students are enrolled in Catholic schools in 2007, a drop of 1.8 percent from 2005-06. During the last two years, enrollment has declined by almost 100,000 students. It has fallen 12.5 percent since 2000, according to the report, which was released during the NCEA’s convention in Baltimore in April.

Since the 2005-06 academic year, 212 Catholic schools merged or closed, while 36 new schools opened, according to the report.

Enrollment is down throughout the U.S., but particularly in large urban areas in the industrialized North, which witnessed a 15 percent drop. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these areas were populated by high concentrations of Catholic immigrants, according to the report.

In contrast, there is an increase in demand for Catholic schools in areas of the Southeast and far West of the U.S., the report says, where 34 percent of the schools have waiting lists.

There are 1.7 million students enrolled in Catholic elementary schools in 2006-07 and 638,000 in secondary schools, according to the report. More than 25 percent of those students are minorities and almost 14 percent are not Catholic.

The peak year for Catholic school enrollment was in 1965, when 5.6 million students were enrolled in nearly 13,500 schools.

_ Daniel Burke

Home-Turned-Yeshiva Fuels Court Dispute

SPRINGFIELD, N.J. (RNS) A dispute over the conversion of a single-family home into an orthodox Jewish religious school where 16 teenage students are boarding is on its way to court.

With the case now before Superior Court Judge John Malone, attorneys for Springfield township and Yeshiva Tiferes Boruch are to meet early next month to try to resolve matters, including safety and zoning issues.

The yeshiva, headed by Rabbi Eliyohu Sorotzkin, has been in the township nearly 16 years. Early on, it relocated to a former Nazarene church and has used an adjacent home primarily to house students.

However, the yeshiva, which attracts young men from across the country, looked to expand its enrollment, and the house was seen as a way to provide for the younger teens attending, said Rabbi Avrohom Yosef Deutsch, one of the teachers.

Last November, local fire officials charged that the yeshiva was violating local fire codes and sought to reduce the number of teens living there.

While the township wanted the yeshiva to immediately cut the number of students to five, the judge rejected the request. The school did agree to install a hardwired smoke alarm system that would automatically transmit an alarm to the fire department.

Yeshiva attorney Bruce Pitman said the school is concerned with the students’ safety, and has applied for a permit to install a sprinkler system. However, the township has declined to issue the permit, he said.

“Whatever fire improvements they wanted, we would do, including a sprinkler system. But the town would not issue a permit so my clients were caught in a Catch-22 situation,” Pitman said.

The court also is being asked to review whether the yeshiva is a permitted use of the home. Pitman maintains that under New Jersey law, the students and rabbis function as a family and must be seen that way, noting that state laws requiring inhabitants to be related were struck down years ago.

The yeshiva, Pitman said, is a total immersion program, a 24-hour commitment to the learning of Jewish customs and tradition. “These students live there, worship there, and they study there,” he said.

_ Gabriel H. Gluck

Spiritual Impact on Wellness Often Beyond the Grasp of Science

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (RNS) A blossoming body of research is showing that religion can have an impressive impact on health, but scientists are also finding limits in their ability to study this benefit, says a leading authority on the subject.

Dr. Harold Koenig, co-director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University, has systematically studied the link between religion and health for more than 20 years. He outlined recent research during a Rural Health Conference at the University of Alabama.

He said a growing number of scientists are studying the connection, and the findings have important implications for medicine. For instance, studies show:

_ That people with strong religious beliefs _ no matter what faith or denomination _ recover faster from serious depression and are less likely to become seriously depressed.

This is important because depression is a barrier to healing and good health, Koenig said. “Religion is a coping behavior,” he said. “Depression is kind of an indicator of failure to cope.”

_ A connection between religion and the immune system. One study measured patients for interleukin six, or IL-6, an immune system cytokine that indicates inflammation. It found that people who attend religious services weekly had lower levels of IL-6, indicating a stronger immune system. A more recent study focused on HIV patients, and found those with increased religious activity had lower viral loads and higher CD4 counts, another indicator of a stronger immune system.

_ That people with strong religious beliefs have lower blood pressure, lower mortality rates from cancer and heart disease, and slower mental decline when stricken with Alzheimer’s disease.

Koenig said religion often offers strong social support, a key ingredient to good health. Religion also offers people peace of mind, something he said should not be underestimated. “There is this incredible relationship between our physical condition and our emotion,” he said.

But some things in religion defy scientific study, Koenig said. For instance, studies of intercessory prayer _ saying prayers for a sick person without his or her knowledge _ have failed to find any positive result. Koenig said intercessory prayer ventures into the realm of supernatural and is beyond science.

“I think things happen that you can’t study and you can’t prove,” he said.

One conference participant asked a tough question: The Bible Belt runs through the South, and if people are so religious, why is there so much illness and poor health in the region?

Koenig said that hasn’t been studied, but other factors have a strong impact on health. Religion may help people be healthier, but it’s not a cure-all, able to overcome factors such as poor diet, stress or inactivity.

_ Dave Parks

Quote of the Day: Episcopal Deacon Thomas Lindell of Tucson, Ariz.

(RNS) “The way our service reads, the theology is that God is love, period. Our service has done everything it can to get rid of power imagery. We do not pray as though we expect the big guy in the sky to come and fix everything.”

_ Thomas Lindell, deacon of St. Philip’s in the Hills, the largest Episcopal church in Tucson, Ariz., which has created an alternative worship service called “Come & See” that rarely refers to God as “the Lord” and never calls God “him.” He was quoted by the Arizona Daily Star.

KRE/LF END RNS