Tea at Trianon: Catholic School Enrollment is Falling Fast

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Catholic School Enrollment is Falling Fast

From The Pillar:

The U.S. Catholic school population has been declining for decades, and the pace of that decline was accelerating even before the pandemic began. The pandemic has sharpened declines, but some Catholic leaders see in the crisis a chance to sharpen and showcase the unique offerings of Catholic schools.
A report due to be released Feb. 17 by the National Catholic Educational Association shows that 1,626,291 students are enrolled in Catholic schools in 2021, a decline of more than 111,000 from 2020. The sharpest drop-off came in Catholic preschools, which enrolled 44,000 fewer students in 2021 than they did in 2020.
Between 2010 and 2020, Catholic schools lost an average 38,204 of students per year. But the NCEA data suggests the pace of attrition has sped up over the last decade— between 2019 and 2020, Catholic schools lost 52,066 students.
The pandemic has hastened the decline. Even if preschoolers were not counted, 66,000 fewer students were enrolled in Catholic schools in 2021 than in 2020. (Read more.)