|
Those words speak directly and
forcefully to me, your Bishop, and
to my ordained cooperators, the
priests and deacons of the Diocese
of Scranton. They are words allowing
no doubt about our obligation to
teach in season and out of season
“whether it is convenient or
inconvenient.” (2 Tim. 4:2).
I
ask you to keep them in mind now
while I lay before you the concern I
have in fulfilling my divinely
mandated obligation to teach.
Since
Our Blessed Lord gave his command to
the Apostles and their successors,
the Bishops of the Church, to
proclaim the good news, that is, to
teach, those in His Church charged
with the duty have done so by
preaching, writing, and any other
means from art and architecture to
radio, television and websites as
these became available during
various periods of history. From the
earliest centuries, however, it was
obvious that no means to teach
God’s word was more apt or
effective than education through
schools. It is in schools that the
young come to know the world they
are to live in. When that human
knowledge is illuminated by the
light of the Gospel and accompanied
by the Church’s teachings
expressed in an organic and
systematic way, the teaching of
Christ’s Gospel takes hold of the
mind and heart of the young in a way
unsurpassed by any other.
It is for this incontrovertible
reason, the effectiveness of
Catholic schools, that my
predecessors in this Diocese and
Bishops throughout our country
insisted on the building of a school
in a parish even before that parish
had its own church. For nearly a
century and a half concentrated and
generous Catholic populations and
zealous communities of men and women
religious followed by dedicated lay
men and women educators enabled the
Diocese of Scranton to be second to
none in its Catholic grade and high
school endeavors. Thus has the
Diocese and, therefore, its Bishops
fulfilled an essential component of
the divine obligation to preach the
Gospel to every creature.
It
is now my obligation before God to
promote Catholic grade and high
school education in the Diocese of
Scranton. To do this I need your
understanding and cooperation; your
understanding of the complex problem
our schools are now experiencing and
your cooperation because to overcome
these problems I will need to make
decisions which will require some of
our people to adjust their thinking
about Catholic education and accept
necessary changes involving the
schools they have known and
supported.
Here
are the problems currently affecting
our schools. Enrollment has declined
to the point where there are now
3,980 vacant seats in our schools.
Of course this indicates a
significant loss of revenue but that
loss cannot be compared with the sad
reality that so many of our young
are not attending a Catholic school.
Our parishes in too many instances
are going into uncontrollable debt
in order to meet the subsidies they
owe the schools. As this situation
progresses, a spiral effect occurs.
To save money, schools need to cut
programs. Because of cut programs,
enrollment further declines. Further
declines in enrollment cause
increases in parish subsidies and
tuitions. Greater parish subsidies
cause greater parish debt. Increased
tuition causes more enrollment loss
and on and on. No matter how one
looks at it, the fact is that left
untreated the present condition of
our schools will very soon lead to
there being no Catholic schools in
our Diocese.
This
educational situation is not based
on anecdotal information. The
Diocese has engaged the Meitler
Consultants, Inc. to study our
schools. This recognized authority
in the analysis of Catholic
education has verified with detailed
facts the troubling assessment which
I have described above. Extensive,
indeed complete information about
Catholic identity, enrollment,
physical facilities, birth rates,
baptismal records, demographics,
finances, school governance, and
academic excellence has been
collected and examined. In addition,
there are multiple levels of
diocesan and local consultation
groups scrutinizing the Meitler
findings.
Eventually,
I will be presented with a plan
which will establish a new
governance model for our schools and
will determine which schools we
should maintain given all the
circumstances; for example,
enrollment, facilities, and the
availability of another Catholic
school. It will also present those
measures which will be necessary to
advance the schools’ Catholic
identity, their academic excellence
and their financial support.
All
facts and figures gathered by
Meitler Consultants, Inc. are
available to the public. They are
currently available in their
entirety in the Schools Office of
the Diocese and on the diocesan
website (www.dioceseofscranton.org)
for those who wish to examine them.
At
this time I am presuming that I will
be able to accept and implement the
final recommendations for our
schools which will be presented to
me. The first preliminary
recommendations for
Lackawanna, Luzerne and
Wayne
Counties
will be announced to consultative
groups, pastors and principals on
November 14 and 15, 2006, with final
recommendations being made in
January 2007. Subsequently,
preliminary recommendations for
Lycoming, Bradford,
Monroe
and
Pike
Counties
will be made on January 17 and 18,
2007, with final recommendations
coming in March 2007.
What
I wish to make very clear is this:
my decision when it is made will
have but one purpose, namely, to
preserve and advance the Catholic
school system in the Diocese of
Scranton. And I will be doing this
very mindful that if I do not act
decisively and do not act now,
Catholic education in grade and high
schools will be a thing of the past
in our Diocese.
My
episcopal obligation to “teach
them all I have commanded you,”
forbids that alternative. I ask,
therefore, your full cooperation in
what I know is going to be a new day
and a new beginning in the 21st
century for Catholic schools in the
Diocese of Scranton.
One
of my predecessors and an
unsurpassed zealot for Catholic
schools was St. John Neumann, the
fourth Bishop of Philadelphia. To
him I commend this effort. Please
pray to him for me, for our Diocese
and for the families and children
who will be blessed by our schools
in the years to come.
With
kind personal regards and every good
wish, I am,
Sincerely
yours in Christ,
Most
Reverend Joseph F. Martino, D.D.,
Hist. E.D.
Bishop of
Scranton
|
