Parish Schools

RE JILL Porter's column on the dispute between the family of Gabrielle DeFelice and Little Flower High School: When Gabrielle's father had that heart attack that was the end of her Catholic education, time to move to public school. Did Gabrielle's mother say she'd try to pay the tuition and just didn't? Seems that way since she owes $4,800, and the school wouldn't take Gabrielle back as a senior. Bishop McFadden says the archdiocese can't run schools without tuition, they help to the extent possible, but can't forgive people's debts.

Thanks to a $25,000 contribution from the Notre Dame Alumni Club of Philadelphia, three classrooms at St. Malachy Elementary School in North Philadelphia have interactive whiteboards. The school used part of a $5,000 gift from Lockheed Martin Corp. to buy a dozen microscopes. Parishoners from Queen of Peace in Ardsley supplied the school's new basketball uniforms. And a $25,000 grant from the Anna-Maria Moggio Foundation in Center City is underwriting a new music program. While many inner-city Catholic parish schools are on the brink of financial disaster, St. Malachy is strong, vibrant and fiscally stable.

Parishioners at St. Casimir Roman Catholic Church in South Philadelphia and St. Charles Borromeo in Drexel Hill got the same, sad news during weekend Mass: Their parish elementary schools will close in June. After struggling to reverse declining enrollment and mounting costs, pastors and parish committees had recommended that the schools close at the end of this academic year. Teachers were told Friday that Cardinal Justin Rigali had accepted the recommendations. "I know this is a very painful time for these school communities," Rigali said in a statement, noting that each school had "a long and proud tradition.

For sixth grader Tommy Geromichalos, St. Cyril's School in East Lansdowne has become a second home. "I've been here since kindergarten. All my friends are here, and the teachers are great," he said. So when the 12-year-old heard the Catholic school might have to close, he put in a "special emergency wish" to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to keep his school open. Tommy has cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening illness, so he was eligible for a wish, said Dennis Heron, executive director of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Philadelphia and Southeastern Pennsylvania.

RE: YOUR recent story about the parish school closings: I am a parishioner at St. Anne's, born and raised there, went all through school there and still live there. First of all, the people of St. Anne's did not make noise. We have been very calm about this whole idea. Also, about the quotes from Holy Name and St. Laurentius parishioners about their family traditions of going to those schools: What about the people of St. Anne's who feel the same way about our school? About St. Anne's looking like a warehouse: Please!

This time next year, there will be a new regional Catholic school in Burlington County. The Diocese of Trenton announced yesterday that it would close four elementary schools and open a regional school in Willingboro in the fall. Holy Assumption School in Florence, All Saints School in Burlington City, St. Peter School in Riverside, and Corpus Christi School in Willingboro will be closed at the end of this school year. In September, a new elementary - Pope John Paul II Regional School - will open at the current site of Corpus Christi in Willingboro.

Sixteen Catholic elementary schools in affluent as well as financially struggling parishes in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia could face closure or merger in the next year. In some parishes, schools have lost students to public or other private schools. In others, families have moved away or can't afford the tuition, leaving the school with too few students. Faced with declining birth rates and population shifts among Catholic families, the diocese every year announces that a few parish elementary schools will close or merge.

When they trooped into their Manayunk school in September, the 452 children enrolled at Holy Child Catholic School encountered a slew of new things: New school. New name. New uniforms. New teachers. New classmates. And new traditions. "Some children . . . said, 'These are not the prayers we said,' so we even tried to come up with new ways of praying," said principal Roselee Maddaloni. Holy Child is a new, regional Catholic school created through the consolidation of three parish schools at the site of the former Holy Family School on Hermitage Street.

In one of the most sweeping moves of the clergy sex scandal, the Vatican has defrocked seven more Philadelphia priests for abusing minors, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced yesterday. The dismissals of the Revs. James J. Brzyski, Nicholas V. Cudemo, Thomas J. Durkin, Michael W. Swierzy, Richard G. Jones, Thomas M. Kohler and Francis X. Trauger were announced in a spare notice on Page 8 of the archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Standard and Times. The scope of the announcement was evident in the priests' biographies: Over the last four decades, they had served in some 35 parishes and five Catholic high schools across the Philadelphia region.

Declining enrollment will cause two more Roman Catholic elementary schools to close next month, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced yesterday. Parishioners at St. Bartholomew in the city's Lower Northeast and at Holy Trinity in Bridgeport, Montgomery County, learned during weekend Masses that their schools would close. The two parish schools join three other Catholic elementary schools that are set to close outright next month. Seven others are slated to consolidate into three regional schools.