Dispute in Atlanta over black Catholic
schools
By PATRICK ONEILL
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
When he was ordained a priest in the Atlanta archdiocese 30 years
ago, Fr. John Adamski never imagined he would one day join a picket line
outside the residence of his archbishop. Thats what happened in late
March, however, when Adamski joined a group of Our Lady of Lourdes parishioners
to protest Archbishop John F. Donoghues proposal to close the inner-city
parishs elementary school. The school has been serving the needs of
Atlantas Old Fourth Ward African-American neighborhood since 1912 when
the school was founded by St. Katherine Drexel and her Sisters of the Blessed
Sacrament.
I needed to be with my people in the midst of this very
difficult time, Adamski said. Thats not the place that I
would have chosen to be. Its very difficult. I was not ordained to wind
up in that kind of situation, but I was ordained to pastor church communities,
and this is the community where I am now.
In the midst of dealing with problems plaguing Lourdes and St.
Anthonys, another African-American school targeted by the archbishop --
problems such as declining enrollment, budget shortfalls and low standardized
test scores -- Donoghue has criticized the fact that the schools have a
minority Catholic enrollment.
Our primary mission is to operate Catholic schools for
Catholic children, Donoghue said in a news release.
Were not into counting Catholic heads, said St.
Anthonys pastor, Fr. T.J. Meehan. I think were into providing
a needed alternative to public school education here in the West End of
Atlanta. I think a lot of our children that go through St. Anthonys
School, regardless of what their faith is, are being prepared well in terms of
values and moral training and everything else to make a contribution
here.
Adamski said, The manner in which the archdiocese has
approached this whole situation has not been the church at its best. The point
is that these communities have been seriously harmed, in my mind, by the
process of the last two months.
Recent developments include the following.
In April, the archdiocese announced plans to pull funding for
Lourdes and St. Anthonys, a parish in Atlantas West End community.
After years of exploring numerous options to bail out the budget-strapped
schools, a committee advising Donoghue recommended that the archdiocese close
the two schools and consolidate them with a third African-American school, Sts.
Peter and Paul in Decatur, a suburb east of the city. It was a decision
opponents claim was rushed and did not include enough input from the affected
communities.
The decision to cut funds to the two schools has outraged parents
and parishioners. Adamski says the parish and the school have operated for 89
years with a single identity in the community. St. Anthonys was once
situated in a predominantly white community, but has been serving
African-Americans for more than 35 years.
The archdiocese, which supplemented the three schools
operating budgets by approximately $1.7 million this year, said it would offer
transportation for the approximately 200 students from Lourdes and St.
Anthonys to the campus in Decatur, where about 150 students are currently
enrolled. The archdiocese has announced plans to provide funds to upgrade and
expand the Decatur regional school, including adding a gymnasium.
One of the protest organizers described the plan to name the
consolidated Decatur school after Drexel as a form of appeasement.
As P.J. Lemuel, the organizer and a Lourdes parishioner, put it,
Well give the little pickaninnies a school named after Katherine
Drexel and that ought to satisfy them. And thats what weve been
treated like. Weve been treated like a bunch of pickaninnies, that we
dont have intelligence. Theyve not made us partners in our
childrens education. And thats been for a long time now.
The archbishop has since backed off from his proposal to close the
schools, saying that the schools can remain open, providing they can be
fully self-funded. Most Lourdes and St. Anthonys parents and
parishioners supported the option of closing Lourdes and merging it with St.
Anthonys, which includes more land for eventual expansion. That plan
would have kept one of the downtown schools open.
Further, the archdiocese has agreed to change the name of the
proposed new school to St. Peter Claver Regional School and the Office of Black
Catholics has been asked to engage in an ongoing process of exploring
spiritually, educationally and financially viable concepts for the long term
provision of Catholic education to children from the St. Anthonys and
Lourdes parishes.
Meanwhile, an effort is underway by some Lourdes parishioners to
raise more than $1 million to keep the parish school open for the 2001-02
school year. But to date the money raised is nowhere close to what will be
needed to keep the schools doors open, Adamski said.
Both Adamski and Meehan said the problem had developed because the
archbishop relied more on the advice of a consulting firm hired by the
archdiocese to resolve the quandary, as well as chancery insiders, than on the
opinions of those in the affected parishes.
Had he been in touch with his priests more, particularly
those of us who pastor in the African-American community, he could have avoided
some landmines, Meehan said.
Especially frustrating was an order by Donoghue in late March that
allowed just four days for Lourdes and St. Anthonys to offer alternative
proposals to the regional school plan. Meehan and Adamski also claim the
archdiocese has mismanaged the two schools since the archdiocese took over both
of them from the parishes about six years ago. Since the takeover, enrollment
declined and a lot of the quality of education just wasnt
there, Meehan said. It was on their watch that much of this
occurred. Then they came back and said fix it in four days or come up
with something.
In an April 17 open letter, Donoghue acknowledged that problems
were caused at Lourdes and St. Anthonys by the past archdiocesan
decision-making processes. ... it is true that while these schools were under
the control of the archdiocese their educational performance was unacceptable
and their financial problems became ever more acute. The seriousness of the
difficulties was not identified and reported by the archdiocesan officials in
place at the time, and for that, I, as archbishop of Atlanta,
apologize.
In the news release noting that less than 47 percent of the
students at Lourdes and St. Anthonys were Catholic, Donoghue was quoted
as follows: Maintaining these schools, even if we could overcome low
enrollment, ineffective educational performance and financial problems, would
simply result in the archdiocese operating private rather than Catholic
schools. We would not do that elsewhere and should not do it in the city
either. Our primary mission is to operate Catholic schools for Catholic
children.
Meehan said the archdioceses Office of Catholic Schools
has lost its sense of mission to the people that are living downtown in
Atlanta. Taking the children from our two parishes ... and sending them out to
Decatur looks an awful lot like, and feels like, segregation -- segregating our
black Catholic children and putting them in a single institution.
The decision to merge the three schools has left a bitter
taste in everyones mouth here at St. Anthonys, Meehan said.
There is a perception that no one at the archdiocese cares enough to
listen to the hopes and dreams of our people. Without more sensitivity and
respectful statements and efforts from our archdiocesan education office,
Im afraid well further lose credibility and support from our black
Catholics throughout the archdiocese.
Meehan said the archdiocese is losing the trust of
African-Americans. Closing the two schools is even seen as something of a
threat to the eventual closing of our churches, he said.
Mary Avery, administrative assistant at Lourdes School, where her
daughter, Nia, is a kindergarten student, said the archdiocese should have a
commitment to maintaining the missionary purpose of the two inner-city schools
that supersedes economics.
As a way of raising funds at St. Anthonys, Meehan said plans
are to lease St. Anthonys School to a charter school for three or
four years. The income would be used to establish a development fund for
the eventual reopening of St. Anthonys as a Catholic school.
While Meehan has little hope that the fund-raising effort will
succeed, Avery is confident. For me hope springs eternal, she said.
My faith is not in man, its in God, and with faith in God you can
move mountains and thats my theme for now. How do you move a
mountain?
National Catholic Reporter, May 11,
2001
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