MANCHESTER • Archbishop Robert Carlson announced a plan Thursday that seeks to fill about 1,800 vacant seats in the region’s Catholic schools by channeling more revenue toward scholarships and pushing for state tax credits for tuition-paying parents.

Carlson’s “Alive in Christ” initiative also seeks to magnify the Catholic identity of the schools by stepping up the celebration of Mass, observing regular prayer and ensuring educators are steeped in the catechism and traditions of the faith.

“Catholic identity is not something we can afford to take for granted,” Carlson told a packed auditorium at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School. “It is absolutely essential for handing on the faith to the young church in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.”

The plan, two years in the making, should serve as a blueprint, Carlson said, for improving education at the 147 Catholic schools in the 11-county archdiocese.

Filling the 1,800 empty seats should be a priority for every parish, Carlson said. vHe encouraged parishes to collaborate toward this effort, rather than compete.

“Schools that are full have a much better chance of being vibrant, of operating in the black, than schools that are underutilized,” he said.

Carlson avoided more contentious issues such as closing and consolidating schools and significantly redistributing funds from wealthier suburban parishes to struggling ones in the urban core. Both approaches have typified similar initiatives in other Catholic systems.

Last month in Philadelphia, Archbishop Charles Chaput announced that 45 elementary schools and four high schools must close at the end of this school year.

And in New York, Archbishop Timothy Dolan has also closed and consolidated schools and proposed restructuring the school system.

While Carlson did not rule out the need for school closures in years to come — hoping they would be “few and far between” — his focus was primarily on growth and taking action.

“At this moment, we’ve bought ourselves some time,” he said afterward.

He announced a more modest approach aimed at building up tuition assistance. He directed parishes to contribute 2 percent of external revenue toward scholarships, with the goal of assisting families with $5 million a year in additional support. The assessment would be phased in starting with 1 percent contributions this year, and 2 percent by 2013.

In a few years, there would be a new endowment fund created to generate $5 million to $10 million in scholarship assistance for the long term. The fund would be separate from the Today and Tomorrow Educational Foundation, which provides scholarships to 2,400 children attending Catholic schools in the urban core.

“Most of our kids are kids in poverty in the city,” said Kevin Short, foundation president. The endowment fund and assistance Carlson announced Thursday would help families struggling to afford a Catholic education in all 11 counties of the archdiocese.

Carlson also said there must be collaboration among Catholic organizations, such as the Missouri Catholic Conference, to pressure lawmakers to pass laws allowing for tuition tax credits. He also advocated the reversal of the Blaine Amendment that bars state money from “directly or indirectly” benefiting any religion or church-controlled school.

“I’m aware this will not be easy,” Carlson told the crowd. “But it’s a matter of justice. … In this area we must make major progress. The time has come after years of frustration.”

Afterward, Carlson called the Blaine Amendment “anti-Catholic.” Pushing for state tax credits may be the more realistic approach, he said.

And if that effort fails, “We’ll do without it,” Carlson said. “That just makes it easier.”

Overall, Catholic school enrollment has dropped by 14,000 in the last 10 years to about 42,500 students, according to the archdiocese. However, the school system continues to be the seventh-largest Catholic school system in the country.

For parents, the largest hurdle to overcome is finances, said Patricia Spellman, president of the St. Louis Archdiocesan Teachers Association, which represents about 190 teachers at six high schools.

“We have a lot of kids in need,” she said. “We have a lot of parents who’d always been able to pay tuition and now they’ve lost hours or they’ve lost jobs. Anything the church can do to help and assist children who want a Catholic education to get it would help.”

When Carlson arrived in St. Louis in 2009, he said improving Catholic education was his top priority.

He began a series of listening sessions that involved more than 3,000 people, including pastors, school administrators, parents and civic leaders. He held meetings with national education and fundraising experts and conducted an online survey. And then four committees led by four priests developed strategies to accomplish Carlson’s goals.

Carlson’s slower, more deliberate approach has drawn praise from those involved and others outside the archdiocese, who say the input will help the effort if some of the action steps don’t sit well with parishioners.

“It helps people to accept an unpopular decision if they know that someone really looked at and considered all options,” said Brian Gray, spokesman for the National Catholic Educational Association in Washington.

Carlson said the real work must begin.

“This process is just starting,” he said. “As we work through these then we’ll move onto others. Unfortunately. You can’t do everything right away.”

At the General Audience the Pope speaks about the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane

Like Christ in the Garden of Olives, we too “should be able to bring to God our labours, the suffering of certain situations, of certain days, the daily commitment to following him… and also the weight of the evil that we see within ourselves and around us”. For Benedict XVI this is the increasingly present teaching of the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane.

In proposing this teaching to the faithful present in the Paul VI Hall on Wednesday, 1 February, for the weekly General Audience, the Pope stressed that “the human will finds its complete fulfilment in total abandonment” to God. And in this regard he quoted St Maximus the Confessor “since the moment of the creation of man and woman, the human will is directed to the divine will and it is precisely in God’s ‘yes’ that the human will is fully free and finds its fulfilment”. And if because of sin, this “yes” to God is changed to opposition, on the Mount of Olives Jesus brought back the human will to the full “yes” to the divine plan. In practice, “Jesus tells us that it is only by conforming his will to the divine one that the human being arrives at his true height, he becomes ‘divine’; only by emerging from himself, only in the ‘yes’ to God, is Adam’s desire, to be completely free, fulfilled”. Because Jesus in Gethsemane transforms the human will into the divine will, causing the true man to be reborn.

In his Catechesis the Holy Father also remembered that in the Our Father prayer, Christians say to the Lord “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, recognizing that “there is a will of God with us and for us, a will of his for our life”. This will, the Pope stated “must become every day increasingly the reference of our willing and our being”. In this same way, he continued, we recognize “that the ‘earth’ becomes ‘heaven’, a place of the presence of love, goodness, truth and divine beauty, only if the will of God is done on earth”. Just as it happened in the prayer of Jesus to the Father on that night in Gethsemane, when “the ‘earth’ became ‘heaven’; the ‘earth’ of his human will, distraught by fear and anguish, was assumed by his divine will, thus the will of God was fulfilled on earth”.

Next week (February 8-10), O’Meara, Ferguson, Whelan, and Conway, Inc. will host a symposium in San Antonio, Texas, on the topic, “Determining Actionable Solutions for Catholic Education.” At the O’Meara Ferguson symposium, participants will discuss how integrating finance, development, planning, and operations can help revitalize Catholic schools.

The phrase “actionable solutions” reflects a growing awareness that it is no longer helpful simply to identify what the challenges are. Solutions must be found—and implemented!

This same sentiment was expressed in research conducted by three Catholic University of America scholars who studied “critical factors that face Catholic schools today.” The foreword to the publication, Weathering the Storm: Moving Catholic Schools Forward by Leonard DeFiore, John J. Convey, and Merylann J. Schuttloffel says it all: There will be no more prizes for predicting rain; only for building arks …

– Read the full article –

Next week (February 8-10), O’Meara, Ferguson, Whelan, and Conway, Inc. will host a symposium in San Antonio, Texas, on the topic, “Determining Actionable Solutions for Catholic Education.” At the O’Meara Ferguson symposium, participants will discuss how integrating finance, development, planning, and operations can help revitalize Catholic schools.

The phrase “actionable solutions” reflects a growing awareness that it is no longer helpful simply to identify what the challenges are. Solutions must be found—and implemented!

This same sentiment was expressed in research conducted by three Catholic University of America scholars who studied “critical factors that face Catholic schools today.” The foreword to the publication, Weathering the Storm: Moving Catholic Schools Forward by Leonard DeFiore, John J. Convey, and Merylann J. Schuttloffel says it all: There will be no more prizes for predicting rain; only for building arks.

Weathering the Storm offers practical suggestions for “ark building.” After calling attention to significant research dating from the 1960s and 70s through the present day, the authors summarize the evidence this way: “In sum, Catholic schools appear to produce a unique set of important outcomes that neither other Church programs nor secular institutions can duplicate. Thus, the praise heaped upon Catholic schools, as well as the value attached to them, is well-merited.” This is the low-key, scholarly way of saying Catholic schools are incredibly unique and invaluable resources for our Church and for society!

The challenges are clear also. The decline in Catholic school enrollment, which began in the 1960s, continues unabated. The total number of Catholic schools has also declined steadily since the 1970s. “The data are disheartening,” the authors say. Since 1970, more than 4000 Catholic schools have closed; more than 1400 since 2000. According to Weathering the Storm, “The dioceses with the largest number of closings are: Chicago, Detroit, Newark and Brooklyn each with over 40 school closings, and Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, St. Louis and Cleveland, each with over 30 school closings.”

The decline in enrollment is exacerbated by the economic recessions of the past decade, which the authors say “have had powerful effects on the ability of families to afford rising tuitions and the ability of dioceses and parishes to provide adequate support.” Competition provided by the rapidly growing number of charter schools is also a growing challenge, the authors say.

According to Weathering the Storm, the primary challenges facing Catholic schools today are: 1) the increasing number of Catholic school closings and the negative, downward momentum this creates, 2) the continuing decline in enrollment, and 3) the growing gap between parents’ desire to send their children to Catholic schools and these schools’ affordability and availability.

St. Louis Archbishop Robert J. Carlson has announced a multi-year initiative called Alive in Christ that is designed to address these challenges head-on. Noting that Catholic schools in St. Louis, like most other dioceses throughout the United States, have experienced a 40-year decline, Archbishop Carlson says that he does not believe further decline is inevitable. “Growth is possible,” the Archbishop says. “It won’t be easy and it won’t happen overnight, but with the help of God’s grace we can grow our schools in three key areas: Catholic identity, enrollment and finances.”

O’Meara Ferguson is committed to “ark building”— to helping the Catholic Church identify actionable solutions that will offer lasting, systematic temporal health to enable her to more fully focus on her Apostolic mission. The five solutions proposed by O’Meara Ferguson are: 1) stewardship—an awareness of our giftedness and a commitment to sharing, 2) subsidiarity—the principle that what is best done locally should remain there, 3) mission—a deep and abiding sense of the Church’s educational and evangelical mission, 4) instrumentality—the commitment to observing “best practices” while remaining open to the Holy Spirit, and 5) engagement—the active involvement of all—pastors, school personnel, parents and laity.

Once a school’s leaders are confident in the expression of their school’s mission, and once they have developed an ambitious but achievable vision for the future, then they can begin to address the school’s enrollment and financial concerns. In fact, basic financial issues like spending priorities, revenue enhancement, and tuition assistance can only be adequately addressed in light of the school’s Catholic identity as it is integrated into all aspects of the school’s life.

The Church in the United States has been blessed with the gift of Catholic education. Let’s be good stewards of this gift. Let’s make sure that our schools truly are Alive in Christ so that we can effectively hand-on our Catholic faith to future generations.

Denver, Colo., Jan 29, 2012 / (CNA/EWTN News) – On Jan. 31, the Roman Catholic Church honors St. John Bosco (or “Don Bosco”), a 19th century Italian priest who reached out to young people to remedy their lack of education, opportunities, and faith.

John Bosco was born in August of 1815 into a family of peasant farmers in Castelnuovo d’Asti – a place which would one day be renamed in the saint’s honor as “Castelnuovo Don Bosco.”

John’s father died when he was two years old, but he drew strength from his mother Margherita’s deep faith in God.

Margherita also taught her son the importance of charity, using portions of her own modest means to support those in even greater need. John desired to pass on to his own young friends the example of Christian discipleship that he learned from his mother.

At age nine, he had a prophetic dream in which a number of unruly young boys were uttering words of blasphemy. Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary appeared to John in the dream, saying he would bring such youths to God through the virtues of humility and charity.

Later on, this dream would help John to discern his calling as a priest. But he also sought to follow the advice of Jesus and Mary while still a boy: he would entertain his peers with juggling, acrobatics, and magic tricks, before explaining a sermon he had heard, or leading them in praying the Rosary.

John’s older brother Anthony opposed his plan to be a priest, and antagonized him so much that he left home to become a farm worker at age 12. After moving back home three years later, John worked in various trades and finished school in order to attend seminary.

In 1841, John Bosco was ordained a priest. From that time, John was known as “Don” Bosco, a traditional Italian title of honor for priests. In the city of Turin, he began ministering to boys and young men who lived on the streets, many of whom were without work or education.

The industrial revolution had drawn large numbers of people into the city to look for work that was frequently grueling and sometimes scarce. Don Bosco was shocked to see how many boys ended up in prison before the age of 18, left to starve spiritually and sometimes physically.

The priest was determined to save as many young people as he could from a life of degradation. He established a group known as the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales, and became a kindly spiritual father to boys in need. His aging mother helped support the project in its early years.

John’s boyhood dream came to pass: he became a spiritual guide and provider along with his fellow Salesian priests and brothers, giving boys religious instruction, lodging, education, and work opportunities. He also helped Saint Mary Dominic Mazzarello form a similar group for girls.

This success did not come easily, as the priest struggled to find reliable accommodations and support for his ambitious apostolate. Italy’s nationalist movement made life difficult for religious orders, and its anti-clerical attitudes even led to assassination attempts against Don Bosco.

But such hostility did not stop the Salesians from expanding in Europe and beyond. They were helping 130,000 children in 250 houses by the end of Don Bosco’s life. “I have done nothing by myself,” he stated, saying it was “Our Lady who has done everything” through her intercession with God.

St. John Bosco died in the early hours of Jan. 31, 1888, after conveying a message: “Tell the boys that I shall be waiting for them all in Paradise.” He was canonized on Easter Sunday of 1934, and is a patron saint of young people, apprentices, and Catholic publishers and editors.

Vatican City, Jan 29, 2012 / (CNA/EWTN News) – The power of Jesus Christ is manifested in humble service and love, Pope Benedict XVI said in his Sunday Angelus address on Jan. 29.

“For man, authority often means possession, power, control, success,” the Pope said to thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

“For God, however, authority means service, humility, love,” he continued, “it means entering into the logic of Jesus who stoops to wash the disciples’ feet, who seeks the true good of man, who heals wounds, who is capable of a love so great as to give up his life, because he is Love.”

The Pope’s made his comments as part of a reflection on today’s Gospel reading in which an unclean spirit identifies Jesus Christ as the “Holy One of God,” during his travels in Galilee. The Pope observed how Jesus heals both spiritually and physically through his teaching and miracles.

“In a short time, his fame spread throughout the region, which he travels announcing the Kingdom of God and healing the sick of all kinds: word and action.”

He then quoted the fifth-century Church father St. John Chrysostom, who noted that Jesus “alternates the speech for the benefit of those who listen, moving on from wonders to words and again passing from the teaching of his doctrine to miracles.”

The Pope suggested that Jesus’ use of words immediately opened up most of those listening to “the will of the Father and the truth about themselves.” However, the scribes who “struggled to interpret the Holy Scriptures with countless reflections” were not open to his words.

Therefore, Jesus also united to his words to miraculous actions as “signs of deliverance from evil,” the pontiff explained. He further recalled how St. Athanasius, the third-century Church father, would say that the “commanding and driving out demons is not human but divine work” and demonstrates how Jesus “distanced men from all diseases and infirmities.”

“Divine authority is not a force of nature.” Instead, it is “the power of the love of God who created the universe and, in becoming incarnate in His only begotten Son, in coming down to our humanity, heals the world corrupted by sin.”

Pope Benedict finished with a quotation from Romano Guardini, the 20th-century Italian-German philosopher and theologian, who wrote that “the whole life of Jesus is a translation of power in humility … Here is the sovereignty that lowers itself to the form of a servant.”

Vatican City, Jan 27, 2012 / (CNA/EWTN News) – The upcoming 2012-2013 “Year of Faith” seeks to awaken humanity at a critical moment, Pope Benedict XVI said as he addressed the Church’s highest doctrinal office on Jan. 27.

“In vast areas of the earth the faith risks being extinguished, like a flame without fuel,” the Pope told assembled members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who met in a plenary session on Friday.

“We are facing a profound crisis of faith, a loss of a religious sense which represents one of the greatest challenges for the Church today.”

Pope Benedict hopes the Year of Faith, which will run from Oct. 11, 2012 to Nov. 24, 2013, will contribute “to restoring God’s presence in this world, and to giving man access to the faith, enabling him to entrust himself to the God who, in Jesus Christ, loved us to the end.”

“The renewal of faith,” the Pope announced, “must, then, be a priority for the entire Church in our time.”

His remarks to the doctrinal congregation came two days after the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, the final day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The Pope spoke about the quest to reunite all Christians, as he acknowledged that ecumenical efforts had not always served to strengthen believers’ faith.

Along with the “many good fruits that have emerged from ecumenical dialogue,” there are also “risks of indifference and of false irenicism” – which give the appearance of unity, without regard for truth.

In today’s world, the Pope observed, there is an “increasingly widespread” perception “that truth is not accessible to man, and that, therefore, we must limit ourselves to finding rules to improve this world.”

“In this scenario,” he noted, “faith comes to be replaced by a shallow-rooted moralism,” which can cause the dialogue between Christian groups to become superficial.

“By contrast, the core of true ecumenism is faith, in which man encounters the truth revealed in the Word of God.”

Pope Benedict told officials of the doctrine congregation, the office he led before his election to the papacy, that controversial issues cannot be downplayed or ignored in talks between the Catholic Church and other Christian churches and communities.

Matters of faith and morals, he said, “must be faced courageously, while always maintaining a spirit of fraternity and mutual respect … In our dialogues we cannot overlook the great moral questions about human life, the family, sexuality, bioethics, freedom, justice and peace.”

By defending the Church’s authentic tradition, he observed, “we defend man and we defend the creation.”

Jan 26 (Reuters) – Moody’s Investors Service has assigned an A1 initial rating to The Catholic Bishop of Chicago’s (IL) proposed private placement under exemption of 4(2) of Rule 144A of $151.5 million of Senior Unsecured Notes, Series 2012 to a limited number of qualified institutional buyers and accredited investors.

Although the issuer and obligor will be The Catholic Bishop of Chicago (CBC), the CBC will look to its Designated Group comprised of the Archdiocese of Chicago Pastoral Center (Pastoral Center) and Catholic Cemeteries (Cemeteries) for primary source of repayment, but can access other funds as available to meet debt service on the notes. The rating outlook is stable.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Evangelization must never be a marginal concern for the church, Pope Benedict XVI said.

From bishops to religious and the lay community, “All elements of the great mosaic of the church must feel themselves strongly called on by the Lord’s mandate to preach the Gospel, so that Christ may be proclaimed everywhere,” the pope said in his message for World Mission Sunday.

The annual observance will be marked Oct. 21 at the Vatican and in most countries.

In his message, released in Italian Jan. 25 at the Vatican, the pope said there is a “renewed urgency” for the missionary mandate even as the church celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity (“Ad Gentes”).

That urgency is based on the increasing number of people around the world who still have not heard the Gospel message and the growing secularism seen in traditionally Christian countries, he said.

“It’s necessary to renew enthusiasm for sharing the faith so as to promote new evangelization in traditionally Christian communities and countries that are losing their reference to God, and to help them rediscover the joy of believing,” the pope said.

“We need to recover the same apostolic zeal of the early Christian communities who, small and defenseless, were still capable of spreading the Gospel through proclamation and witness,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges to evangelization, he said, “is the crisis of faith, not just in the Western world, but among a large part of humankind, which nonetheless hungers and thirsts for God and must be invited and led to the bread of life and living water.”

The message’s theme, “Called to radiate the word of truth,” comes from the pope’s apostolic letter “Porta Fidei” (“The Door of Faith”), released last October to formally announce the Year of Faith starting this October.

“Concern for evangelization must never remain on the margins of church activity and the personal lives of Christians;” people of faith need to identify with their faith much more strongly and understand that they are not just recipients but also missionaries of the Gospel, Pope Benedict said.

Given the complexity of the modern world, new ways of communicating the word of God must be found, he said.

Preaching the Gospel effectively in an ever-changing world “requires constantly adapting lifestyles, pastoral plans and diocesan organization to this fundamental dimension of the church’s being,” that is, evangelization, he said.

“Faith is a gift that was given so that it could be shared,” he said; it’s “a light that must not stay hidden, but shine throughout the whole house. It is the most important gift ever given in our lives, and we cannot keep it for ourselves.”

The pope thanked the work of the pontifical missionary societies, which announce the Gospel by offering “assistance to others, justice for the poorest, the possibility for education in isolated villages, medical care in remote areas, an escape from poverty, rehabilitation for the marginalized, support for human development, a way to overcome ethnic divisions and respect for all stages of life.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A day after Pope Benedict XVI warned visiting U.S. bishops about the threat of “radical secularism” to American moral values, Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl reflected on the implications of the pope’s remarks, giving special emphasis to the role of Catholic education.

“It’s so important in our country right now that we not allow faith to be brushed aside,” the cardinal told Catholic News Service. “And the only way that’s not going to happen … is a renewal of our own faith.”

Cardinal Wuerl was in Rome for his periodic “ad limina” visit, which included meetings with the pope and Vatican officials, covering a wide range of pastoral matters. On Jan. 19, he joined bishops from Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, and the Virgin Islands to hear a speech from Pope Benedict in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

In his speech, the pope emphasized the need for an “engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity” with the courage and critical skills to articulate the “Christian vision of man and society.” He said that the education of Catholic laypeople is essential to the new evangelization, an initiative that he has made a priority of his pontificate.

Cardinal Wuerl, whose recent book, “Seek First the Kingdom,” encourages Catholic laypeople to affirm their faith in various dimensions of secular life, said that Catholic schools are “one of the most tried and proven ways of passing on the faith.”

Efforts to renew Catholic religious education were proving an “enormous success” at the elementary and secondary levels, he said. “Where we need to concentrate now is on the level of higher education.”

Reaffirming Pope Benedict’s hopeful words about a “new generation” of American Catholics working to renew the “church’s presence and witness in American society,” Cardinal Wuerl said that “many of the younger students and some of the faculty” at Catholic colleges and universities have shown themselves willing “to bring the Catholic perspective into the discussion at the level of academia.”

That tendency is part of a broader positive trend for the church, also exemplified by a recent rise in vocations to the priesthood and religious life, he said.

But “we have a challenge ahead of us because we have two generations of under-catechized or poorly catechized faithful,” the cardinal said. “What we received in the ’70s and ’80s simply, in too many instances, is not really what’s needed to be able to address the future.”

Cardinal Wuerl said he welcomed the growing influence of what Pope Benedict has called the “hermeneutic of continuity,” an interpretation of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council that presents its achievements as organic developments in church history rather than a radical break with the past.

“I think that’s where many of these young people feel very comfortable today,” he said. “They’re really connecting with this great 2,000-year tradition. That’s going to be our future.”