Ten Questions

Saturday, February 16, 2008 by Eugene Michael

Following are 10 questions about the Catholic school crisis that deserve an honest answer:

  1. Why is the rate of decline in Catholic school enrollment in Rochester almost 3 times the national average? In the last 10 years the rate of decline has been about 17% nationally. In Rochester it has been about 45%.

  2. How could this dramatic decline in Rochester have happened in light of the $25,000,000 cash infusion by the Wegman family over that same period of time?

  3. Why does the diocese have to keep coming up with a new plan for saving the schools every few years? Why do these plans keep failing?

  4. Why can’t the schools be returned to local parish control? The diocese has shown that it is incapable or unwilling to sustain the school system. Could the parishes do any worse?

  5. Wouldn’t returning the schools to local control result in a substantial financial savings for the diocese? Wouldn’t this enable the diocese to eliminate the bureaucratic positions of people in the central office who don’t seem capable of running the system productively?

  6. Why did parents only get to have substantial input into the process after the plan had already been formulated?

  7. Why was their input given such short shrift once it was received? Was the diocese really able to thoroughly investigate the various parish based proposals in just 1-2 weeks?

  8. Why is it continually implied by some in the the diocese that Catholic schools are really a relic of another era? We continually hear that the schools were established to serve immigrant populations in the last century. In light of the secular humanistic agenda of our government run schools today isn’t a Catholic education more valuable than ever?

  9. How much pledge money has been withdrawn from the current CMA campaign in protest of the closings? Will the diocese now have a financial crisis in their general budget because of the mismanagement of the school system?

  10. Why won’t the diocese conduct an open public forum or forums in order to let the faithful articulate their concerns over this mismanagement?