WHAM Channel 13 is reporting the following:
|Rochester, N.Y. – The Rochester Catholic Diocese announced Wednesday the Mother of Sorrows school and the Cathedral School at Holy Rosary will close.
Those two schools will be consolidated into the the Holy Cross School in Rochester will which re-open as a parish-operated preK-6th grade Catholic School in the fall of 2011.
The Diocese says the need for the relocation for the Cathedral School had been announced previously to parents due to the sale of the now-closed church property for the construction of senior housing.
Catholic Schools Superintendent Anne Willkens Leach says, “We believe that this consolidation of two schools into a larger facility at Holy Cross with far more amenities for students – including a bigger campus, larger classrooms, a gymnasium and hot lunch program – not only will benefit our students but also help us find the efficiencies we need to continue to operate with a balanced budget.”
Both Mother of Sorrows and the Cathedral School have suffered signficant enrollment declines in recent years and are operating at below capacity.
This is good news…except for the fact that it means a net loss of yet another Catholic School for the Diocese…
But, at least that is tempered by the good news that the Diocese finally had something resembling a good idea!
On the surface, this sounds like good news although the effects of the chaos and confusion that the DoR is fostering with their poor management of their schools is in the long run quite devastating to the Catholic school system. Also, are they dumping their problem in the financial laps of Holy Cross parish and possibly destabilizing the entire parish? I hope not!
Bishop Clark opens Holy Cross school back up after Fr. Wheeland tells his parishoners to stand instead of kneel after the agnus dei. What a great reward huh?
An open school is better than no school, right? 🙂
It sounds like the diocese is making sure that the parishes will be able to support these schools before returning them to parish financial support.
Dr. K, Not sure if the diocese is really making sure the parishes can support the schools. I sincerely hope that they can. The diocese did not give MOS (pastor and principal) the chance to present a plan nor did they give the pastor a concrete answer to his questions about finances. It is wonderful that Holy Cross is getting to re-open their school, but is it really a victory when it’s opening on the bones of two others? There is no reason that there can’t be both MOS and Holy Cross. Both are strong parishes with active families. Both have long and wonderful histories. If there were more trust in the diocese, both could rely on alumni support. As it currently stands, people are wary of giving money if they think it could end up somewhere else.
We are all (or at least should be) playing for Team Jesus. The diocese should not pit school against school or parish against parish. Clustering schools and/or parishes has NOT benefited anyone so far. (Just ask the parishioners at St. Thomas.)
Happy Advent, y’all.
Gretchen
Anonymous, It’s your loss you don’t know Fr. Wheeland. If you did, you wouldn’t be critical of him.
Dr. K.,
Back in early 2008 when the Holy Cross put together its “Save Our School” plan the parish came up with ~$330,000 cash-in-hand in less than a week and it was thought that a pledge drive would easily bring another $1 million plus.
It will be interesting to see whether we could do that today, given both the economy and the scattering of our school families.
To Anon 10:48: I’m the one who mentioned Fr. Wheeland’s name in the earlier comment. I know Fr. Wheeland very well and I think that he’s a wonderful priest. Actually all three of them are. He loves his people including the kids of his parish and he fought real hard to keep the school opened. That comment wasn’t a put down of Fr. Wheeland. I was being sarcastic about the way Bishop Clark bullies people. He’s been bullying parishes for years (CMA).
Now is the time for Holy Cross to reach out to a teaching order of nuns. I wonder how that would go over in the DoR.
Unfortunately we don’t have nuns in our diocese. Of course I don’t see any. Wait! How can I tell anymore? They don’t wear their habits anymore. I only see “nuns” who want to be priests and deacons. And the one that’s attached to Bishop Clark’s hip.
Let’s get the Dominicans to come in. They’re a flourishing teaching order, and they even dress like nuns!
Get the Dominicans in and we could fill both HC and MOS to over-capacity!
To Anon (9:19 am) – I apologize. Now I understand your earlier comment and tend to agree with you. Are you a parishioner?? We probably know each other! LOL!
I am not a parishoner at Holy Cross; however, I’ve attended 5:30 p.m. daily Mass many times. If I can’t make it to my church (St. John’s in Greece) then I’ll go to Mass at Holy Cross. Your parish is very close knit, and I truly believe that nobody (Bishop Clark)can break that up.
Gretchen,
I agree about the Dominicans! It sounds like an incredible order. I just got an appeal letter in the mail. Maybe that will be my Christmas donation this year.