Schools worthy of kids:
Kelly, Patrick F.
Patrick's Day parade. My initiation began when two smartly praising in the most clamorous of settings the unfathomable dressed policemen got on the subway at 66th Street. I admired ...
...Must have been an ably resting on my building, Saint Angela impostor...
...We work to provide competence in basic academic skills in an open, Catholic environment...
...As far as I know, no other district in the archdiogram for these students...
...The Milken Foundation is a non-Catholic foundation that has helped dozens of inner-city schools, Catholic rocketing costs and stagnant revenues, a combination that is a and non-Catholic, to set up programs to insure fiscal and pro- fair definition of a fiscal fiasco...
...think tank, in a study of giving and Catholics now possess the highest per capita income of any volunteering conducted by the Gallup Organization, reportgroup in the United States...
...you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Yet last year alone, the Archdiocese of New York had to transChrist," hundreds mumbled...
...It is sad, but we have a system of schools which is objectively superior to our public schools...
...Who could not be struck by the baldly anachronistic names of every cop in New York, or at least I suspected as much nature of this gathering, by the preposterous claims of the Mass, by the end of the day...
...And with good reason...
...One tall, boorish fellow shouted, "Yeah, no fags," but this barbaric yelp elicited no response from the crowd...
...You survived Catholic school...
...Headlines Sunday collection during 1991...
...We believe that each child comes to us with the highest of recommendations: he or she is the image of God...
...I than one-third the cost, and our families, many non-Catholic am tempted to write about each of them...
...I'd like only 86 percent of the public subsidy in their debt...
...the rain increased...
...District Nine in the South Bronx is composed of six Catholic I even referred him to another local Catholic school and of- schools...
...The Bureau of the Census estimates the 1991 averprofit development programs will tell you it takes years to se- age American household income at $37,922...
...I know I'll lose more principal in the process, dedicating time and money to the asbefore I'm able to set up a stronger in-house scholarship pro- sociation...
...We're happy holds, the total 1991 American household income was $3.628 to act on behalf of our children, but anyone in the field of non- trillion...
...O' Connor was wide- behind velvet ropes, reviewing the parade...
...They Catholic respondents to the Independent Sector research gave are a tool for quiet evangelization, a sign of our solidarity with their 1991 household income as $40,903, a household income the dispossessed...
...The average Catholic household is a sleeping giant when it comes PENNIES FOR HEAVEN to putting money in the collection basket...
...Foundations are being researched...
...Yes, The Bonfire of the Vanities burned in my the secular culture pervasive in our public schools and that these parish...
...To improve our programs and I would have lost two more, but for scholarships, one pro- seek outside help, we've had a great many meetings and joined vided by a parishioner and another by a stranger through the forces to form a cooperative, the Association for South Bronx Partnership for Quality Education, whose advertisements ap- Catholic Schools, Inc...
...It will not be to our credit, as stewards of the that was approximately 8 percent greater than the average for church's material and spiritual resources, if we allow Catholic all Americans...
...You might as well feel ignored by the sun or the starsrespectable or politically correct, it nevertheless moved with or on this day, by the rain...
...How many more children of the lic money for my program is remote, so we are left to our own South Bronx are expendable...
...Here, the deets of the prayerful dropping coins into the tin boxes conspic- scendants of Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America, uously displayed at each altar...
...With 95.7 million houseanniversary...
...For inexplicable reasons, there all look to the church to provide an educational alternative in was a particular logjam at the Altar of the Holy Face, better the nation's poorest congressional district...
...When students are sitting in overcrowded classrooms receiving inadequate instruction while the schools' attention is focused on divisive social policy issues, the reason the schools exist is obviously not being met...
...descent...
...devices...
...Catholic anonymous cash donations for 1991 is estimated to be $5.479 Parishes Face Squeeze as Donations by Members Fall Off' (Wall billion...
...Is there anything the shine on their buttons and badges, the silk stripe running stranger than the tenacity of such aspirations in a culture so deddown their trousers...
...The faiths of our kids are nearly as diverse as their skin Much to my surprise, the noon Mass proceeded as sched- tones...
...Catholic education has always been subsidized...
...If there was rowdiness I SAINT ANGELA :S NEEDS HELP didn't see it, although various small groups of pasty-faced young men sauntered up and down the sidewalk eyeing equally pallid platoons of giggling young women...
...The congruity beever, Catholics, compared to non-Catholics, contribute a rela- tween Bureau of the Census and Independent Sector data makes tively tiny fraction of this bounty to our churches and schools...
...Here, in the South Bronx, it means providing for schools Identification (a project of the The Graduate School of the City such as Saint Angela's...
...Our mission at Saint Angela's School is clear...
...I admired justice of an omnipotent yet invisible God...
...Some of us are struggling for our lives, and all of us fered to speak on his behalf with the school's principal...
...In my school, about six out of ten are baptized Catholics, uled, despite the cacophony of band music wafting through the and a smaller proportion attend weekly Mass...
...A reunion is sched- All discussions of income begin with a measure of average uled for the spring of 1994, to celebrate the school's ninetieth income for American households...
...I'm the new As time passed, and the parade stood still, the intensity of principal...
...The sisters This fall, the superintendent, the vicar for education, and of the Order of Saint Ursula labored for more than eight decades their support staffs met with all the principals of the arch- at Saint Angela's School without being compensated materidiocese...
...I'm not kidding...
...My initiation began when two smartly praising in the most clamorous of settings the unfathomable dressed policemen got on the subway at 66th Street...
...I reviewed the actuCATHOLIC UNDERACHIEVERS al contribution records of 329,757 registered Catholic households in 278 randomly selected parishes in forty states...
...fully contribute to this cause...
...3,000 years ago...
...Should the church invest such capital-ecoHaitian, who recited his responses in beautifully accented nomic and spiritual-on a population at best nominally English...
...It is a statement of fact...
...The parents and guardians of our students make great lightly in her hands...
...Well, I'm asking: For 3,000 children in the South Bronx, for Saint Angela's 492 kids...
...This is similar to the 1990 Catholic household education in the inner city to shrink and wither and grow less income of $40,435 reported by The National Survey of Religious vital...
...If the parade wasn't Face...
...After only eight months, I'm already deeply a long way off...
...I must have watched for demands something different from each of us, I suspect there fifty minutes, but doubt if the marchers advanced more than is shelter here for all...
...The pastors' commitment New York City spends over $7,000 per pupil, while Catholic to the ASBCS has led to archdiocesan approval for our work, schools spend about $2,000...
...O'Malley" and "Donovan" were the names icated to the disenchantment of the world and the exaltation of on the brass nametags...
...But I could argue that state money is equally infected with to get lost in...
...And, contrary to the weekly columns of Albert Shanker in the Sunday New York Times, we do not bounce children if fiscal year schools have seen their subsidies cut...
...fer over $20 million to cover the expenses of inner-city This, when you think about, is a most peculiar petition-so schools...
...known as Saint Veronica's Veil...
...by the statues and candles, the cavernous space reaching far In the parade itself, which got under way promptly at 11, the above our heads, the priests scuttling down the aisles in their Police Department's Holy Name and Emerald societies took theatrical capes, or (most amusing of all) the meek attendants the lead...
...What loss will it be to the church and to the city if our public funds support that value system...
...You can be exDay sermon...
...A somewhat more fearsome and Visualize a map of the United States and point boisterous band of young men included one skinhead in T-shirt to the area where excellent schools are most and bermuda shorts who had a large green shamrock painted needed...
...Each pastor has joined his pear regularly in the New York press...
...Perhaps those are the the self...
...Among the spectators, green plastic leprechaun hats and small SCHOOLS WORTHY OF KIDS shamrock face-stickers were popular...
...I tend Avenue, from Yale and Harvard and Greenwich, Connecticut...
...It can't be all that different from to serve the poor, the archdiocese has been a blessing to my what the Egyptian faithful chanted in the temple of the Sun God students and to tens of thousands of children all over the city...
...to agree with this, although I'm not sure exactly how counter- But from the one "Lord Most High...
...Both articles speak of sky- States estimates that Catholic households gave an average of 8: 9 April 1993 Commonweal...
...Cardinal O'Connor greeted the marchers from under hurrying by with refreshment for the dignitaries, quartered off a plastic tent on the steps of the cathedral...
...Adjusted for average income growth, Patrick F. Kelly has worked in Bronx Catholic schools since in 1991 the average Catholic household made $41,044...
...Today, the face of the Catholic presence in places like Business, for lack of a better word, was booming, with pock- the South Bronx is of many colors and heritages...
...and this because he threatened violence against a classmate...
...The average Catholic donation of $280 represents .7 percent merican Catholics have a lot of money...
...By focusing on this aspect of the church's obligation monarchical and abject in tone...
...This varies by region [see table above...
...Up to the present, the archdiocese will be reduced by 50 percent each year until they are cese has provided the subsidy needed to (under)pay the salaries no more...
...Behind me was a woman in a mink coat, a rosary held Catholic...
...ASBCS...
...More than a third of New York City public high school kids are not finishing school, and in some public elementary schools only 22 percent of the children are reading at grade level...
...The story is this: first, local leaders of the instructional day apportioned to teaching religion...
...As Andrew Greeley points out, how- ed respondents' 1991 income at $36,797...
...The entire Sunday collection including (National Catholic Reporter, February 2, 1990...
...The bagpipes of the Emerald Society, and the woeful countenances of two stately, but rain-bedraggled Irish REPORT FROM THE SOUTH BRONX Wolfhounds were the highlights...
...This is not said to bash public schools or our dedicated colleagues who work in them...
...enrolled students, only one has been asked to leave my school, Now...
...Merici School, in the South Bronx...
...nomically battered communities...
...alumni and friends to help our children...
...For you alone are the Holy One, cases covering 80 to 90 percent of our schools' operating costs...
...the church reaches the marginalized of American society...
...This year, out of 505 of us in charge of inner-city Catholic schools, the heat is on...
...This estimate is the result of tell the story: "Rising Costs, Low Contri- multiplying the average donation of $280.15 by 18,193,790 butions Spell Red Ink for U. S. Dioceses" Catholic households...
...Independent Seccure a return on the investment...
...The word has been out of our dedicated lay teachers...
...dedicated to education-we can afford to pay the 14 percent But that's not the story...
...And second, the ASBCS presently educates over 3,000 therefore state aid would be supporting the promotion of reli- inner-city children in neighborhoods most people don't want gion...
...the estimates of household income by denomination from the The bald fact is, Catholic schools in the inner city are the most Independent Sector study a useful reference in establishing visible, and arguably the most effective, instrument by which Catholic household income...
...It's well over five years since the crash and this is the first What have you done to contribute to the subsidized education Commonweal 9 April 1993: 7 you received...
...The 1992 edition of Giving and Volunteering in the United Street Journal, January 8, 1990...
...ly quoted the next day for a remark he made in his Saint Patrick's Need anyone feel excluded from all this...
...They are a fundaand many non-practicing Catholics, choose us over a fully sub- mental reason for the success of Catholic education in the South sidized state monopoly...
...PATRICK F. KELLY University of New York...
...parishes, that means Catholics made $746.7 billion during 1991, or 21 percent of the aggregate American household income...
...New England/Mideast $205.51 Several members of Saint Angela's staff, including myself, South $304.56 have undergone training designed to strengthen our business Great Lakes $309.73 sense, to secure and broaden our financial base, and to change Plains $340.97 our way of thinking about our status as a nonprofit institution...
...It was crowded, with a steady stream of people stern sisters backed by strong pastors and children of European circumambulating past the devotional altars surrounding the nave...
...cese has tried this collegial model...
...from all reports the Catholic church in the Catholics gave $5.096 billion in recorded contributions in the United States is strapped for cash...
...I was seated behind a broad-shouldered critics unhappy...
...Yet American Catholics with gram health...
...Though the democracy of the church the lethargy we associate with both...
...The principals are another story...
...Yet of household income for the average Catholic household...
...Mountains/Far West $242.44 The Leadership Development Initiative (LDI), funded by the UNITED STATES 5280.15 Milken Foundation, has provided the tools to move our program forward...
...During 1991, Catholics gave, on average, $280.15 to the Sunday collection...
...With 1982 and was appointed principal of Saint Angela Merici approximately 18,193,790 households registered in Catholic School in September 1992...
...For those they fail to memorize the Memorare...
...Those who received the service since the October 1987 stock market crash that the church of Catholic education, subsidized first by members of religious had taken a beating in the market, and what was once avail- orders and now by our lay teachers, have never been asked to able is gone...
...As for the music, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of the Marine Corps Hymn...
...The service provided by Average Catholic Household Gift Saint Angela's School is ecumenical in scope, citywide in the by Geographic Region fruits of its positive results, national in its impact, and Catholic in its symbolic and real value...
...Shortly before noon I slipped into the cathe- Catholic education in the inner city is no longer a monolith: dral to get dry...
...We provide better service at less and this is no small matter...
...Neither respectability nor political correctness cluded from the Century Club, from Wall Street, from Park is worth one comma in the Apostles' Creed," he said...
...an average 1991 household income of $41,044 are fiscal giAt Saint Angela's School, we are now actively seeking ants, albeit sleeping fiscal giants...
...This makes some open transept doors...
...Bronx, and a key factor in my decision to accept my appointVouchers would help, but it appears that, politically, they're ment as principal...
...Some of Catholic education are now responsible for the fate of their will object that Catholic culture infuses the whole school and program...
...This was not surprising...
...PAUL BAUMANN ten blocks...
...are fighting to keep our programs within the reach of our ecoFifteen other kids have left because of financial difficulties...
...tor, a Washington, D.C...
...They told us that our subsidies from the archdio- ally for what they were worth...
...REPORT ON THE COLLECTION BASKET It is commonplace in Catholic circles to lament the lackadaisical giving habits of members...
...Yet here we were, modem New Yorkers all, But the problem facing Cardinal John O'Connor, the arch6: 9 April 1993 Commonweal diocese, and the future of Catholic education in the South Bronx is still money...
...From the Altar of the Holy cultural a Saint Patrick's Day parade can be...
...We-this most unremarked upon of democ- sacrifices to send these children to Catholic schools, in most racies-recited the Gloria...
...Your metaphorical forefinger is probon the back of his frightfully simian skull...
...But the chance of pub- programs are forced to close...
Vol. 120 • April 1993 • No. 7
