A few days following the outcry over the DOR claiming it had not received any requests to review independent school proposals, more evidence is emerging of the Diocese turning back on its own statements and recommendations.The first, pointed out in this posting at StBlogs.com, concerns St. Monica's school. In an June 2005 letter to the 19th Ward/Corn Hill/Bullshead pastoral planning group, Bishop Matthew Clark writes, "Although not mentioned in your recommendation, it is clearly important to me that one of our vibrant Catholic schools operates on the St. Monica campus." The school only had 94 students then; today, it has 193 but has been tagged for closure. [Thanks to DOR Catholic as well.]
The second is a September 2004 letter from Bishop Matthew Clark to the Rush-Henrietta pastoral planning group, which had designated Good Shepherd School as a primary ministry. He wrote, "“Your communities are fortunate to be blessed with many young families and I encourage you to envision ministry from ‘womb to tomb.’ Search for any gaps that may leave an age group searching for more." Again, despite his acknowledgment of the demographics of the Henrietta area, he changed course and created a massive "gap" by shuttering Good Shepherd School come June.
The Good Shepherd School parent/faculty group presented this information to members of the Diocese during the February 4, 2008, "listening session," but received no response as to why the Bishop's position had changed. What's more striking is that the original letter, posted to the DOR Web site (with a mirror posting here), included mark-ups/edits which the Bishop's staff forgot to remove (scroll to the end, past the blank page). One comment reads, "...not sure why this is in this particular group’s letter—we haven’t raised life-long faith formation or life-long ministry in any other group." The fact that the Bishop would choose to leave this "womb to tomb" remark in his letter, yet proceed to close the school just a short time later, again calls into question the rationale behind targeting specific schools.
1 comment:
It's just more evidence that there is no actual "plan". It seems like they said, "Let's close half the buildings and then see what happens" Next they'll close half the parishes, like in the Camden Diocese. After he's done destroying the foundation in the DoR, he'll challenge the laity to fix his mess. Great leadership!!!
Post a Comment