Joe Oberting brought deep connections to Napa’s St. John the Baptist Catholic School when he became its principal two years ago. His three children went to school there, and his family has attended church at St. John for more than 20 years.
Oberting knew the school, in operation since 1912, had struggled with declining enrollment. But things were improving — until the coronavirus pandemic hit in mid-March. Soon thereafter, as county officials talked of extended shelter-in-place orders, Oberting confided to one colleague, “This is going to kill us.”
And that’s what happened.
St. John school closed permanently this week, ending 108 years of providing Catholic education to a diverse range of families. The pandemic delivered the final blow, squashing fundraising and new enrollment and wiping out a $100,000 parish subsidy.
The closure reflects a wider nationwide trend of private schools struggling to survive the crisis. Across the country, 51 schools have announced they will close — per the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy organization in Washington, D.C. — but that number could rise significantly this summer.
Full story at MSN.com.
The coronavirus pandemic has dealt severe financial blows to Bay Area retreat centers, putting some of them in danger of closing.
After nearly five months without any income, St. Clare’s Retreat Center, a mission of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows, is contemplating the end of its half-century long mission of providing spiritual peace and healing.
“The retreat house has very small margins. What we bring in is what we pay out,” Franciscan Sister Christine Marie Chauvel of St. Clare’s Retreat House said.
Now the sisters are looking to raise almost $250,000 in order to stay open. Sister Mary Vincent said the sisters are “praying mightily that God has the bank account to get it all handled,” but she said they have to face the possibility they might not be able to reopen the retreat center’s doors.
Last year about 2000 people came through St. Clare’s doors, with an average of 60-80 people per retreat. County rules will likely prohibit hosting that many people at once when they receive permission to reopen.
While St. Clare’s situation is more dire than others, Bay Area retreat centers have all been hit hard by the downturn in business. “Right now every retreat center has this problem: you don’t know when income will come in and what you do in the meantime,” Dave Fencl, operations and finance manager at Vallombrosa Center, said.
A paycheck protection program loan will fund staff salaries there through July 3, but the retreat center’s future is uncertain after that. The company that provides much of the staffing for Vallombrosa has reassigned some workers, so retreat center employees have had to take on additional responsibilities. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cancellations has depleted the center’s accounts.
Full story at Catholic SF.
So did Christ not mean it when he said, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age”?
And before you try to respond with something trite and cliche like, “Jesus is always with us even when we can’t feel it,” or that sappy footprints poem where Jesus says, “When there was only one set of footprints I was carrying you.” Try instead to offer something real that indicates Christ is with his church and helping his church when the church is hurting so badly and contracting with no help in sight.
The Church simply does not seem to possess any supernatural character or benefit.
Kevin, as far as I can tell your conclusion is a gross non-sequitur. What would you say to all the Christian martyrs who gave their lives as witnesses for Christ throughout the ages? Was Christ not with them? I have read that the last 100 years has witnessed the greatest martyrdom of Christians in all history through the agency of the communists and Islam. Why should we be surprised? Jesus said a servant is not greater than his master. The Master suffered the ignominious death on a cross– read Isaiah 53– and this death was to obtain the forgiveness of our sins. The apostle Paul said if we suffer with him we shall reign with him. Suffering, like it or not, is necessary for our ultimate union with Christ in heaven. Read also the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, written centuries ago. This book has fallen out of favor in modernist circles, but retains the stark contrast between the life of pleasure and ease and the life of conformity to Christ crucified. The only way to determine if the church possesses any supernatural character is to experience that for yourself.
Kevin t. I do not know how to say it, but somehow the supernatural Communion of Saints works for me, and sorry for being so short tempered. It has many, many times.
Just to give you one example: when My mother was alive I had to get up extremely early in the morning to go to another city eighty miles away to take her for blood treatment. At that time I had a medal of St. George on my key chain, and St. George is the patron saint of England, Portugal and another country. My mother was partialy of English descent, and my husband and I had been married in a church called St. George’s. While on the freeway, (to be cont.)
(Cont.) While on the last part of my trip, for some reason a certain section became very dark with no on coming cars, lighted signs nor cars up ahead of me. I became afraid that I would go off the road. I prayed to St. George to ask God’s help to get there safely and on time for my mother’s appointment.
All of a suddenly I saw a big white sign on a black truck in front of me with the logo “Thomason’s”. It was an English muffin truck. I followed it and felt safe until dawn approached, and it turned of the freeway into another town. I do not know who was driving — a man or woman, but it was an answer to prayer. (Cont.)
(Cont.) I could tell many similar things that have happened to me concerning the intercession of St. Michael, St. Joseph and other saints. One concerning my cousin Joseph who survived Pearl Harbor and how he helped me out of a flood in the fifties, and how years later after he died a nun handed me a prayer card I had never seen before asking St. Joseph’s intercession against death by fire, flood and war. I do not know how it works. I only know it does. You know it when it happens to you, and I know that we have a guardian angel that guides and protects us, and we do not die a minute sooner nor later than God allows.
Correction: that was a “Thomas'” English muffin truck.
“Angel of God,
My guardian dear,
To whom his love
Commits me here,
Ever this day
Be by my side,
To light and guard.
To rule and guide.
Amen.”
Kevin T., Matthew 27:42 “Let him come down from the cross now and we will believe in Him.”
I read further in the article at the link. The retreat centers that hope to survive are planning to have social distancing retreats with smaller numbers. What’s the point of that? How is that being church? I think it’s about time we just opened up everything and returned to normal and let the chips fall where they will in terms of sickness and death. Why are we being held hostage to this bogeyman virus that turns out not to have been as virulent nor as contagious as originally thought. The Church’s institutions are dying more than people are dying.
Read some history and look at the facts. Left to its own devises, this virus, with no cure, could lead to plague like dimensions. Do you want that? Even with all that we are doing to prevent its spread, covid19 is killiing thousands of people each day and in much oif the country it is getting worse by the day. Open the churches? Sure! Then what? Follow the numbers. Don’t think of it as being locked up, but as being at home, safe. Wash your hands.
Really, Kevin…is there a question there? Suffering and trial are prerequisites to salvation. It is the dominant theme woven through the New Testament, especially the epistles of Paul. You know…If we die with him we will rise with him….take up your cross…I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ…Don’t know what church you’re getting your ideas from, but Catholics teach that through the supernatural gift of faith, this trifle suffering on earth is a benefit to us if we order it to the sufferings of Christ. We don’t merit anything if life is all rainbows, lollipops and unicorns….
Tell that to the many good, virtuous, hardworking, devoted people who have lost their livelihoods and are faced with feeding and sheltering their families.
Oh I don’t go all theology on those who are suffering. When I suffer, I don’t want theology. I want Christ. Our Church has practical responses to them with presence ministries, food banks, job assistance and faith based shelters. You see Kevin, Christ enables us to respond (actually he commands it) to the suffering of others with what we’ve learned through our own suffering, which is plenty.
You don’t have to tell them. When you are in a crisis and have had a setback, God shows up in so many ways. They can tell you.
In a 1969 German radio broadcast, Father Joseph Ratzinger spoke of the Church “no longer able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity”. There’s more if you care too look it up. His words speak to today’s situation in the Church even louder than they did half a century ago.
I’m with you, Chris. I would definitely sign up for a retreat that didn’t have social distancing and masks.
Peggy, I will assume you are sincere in your statement. But, I don’t understand the “why” of it. Please explain your thoughts. I wear a mask on the few occasions I leave the house. I do it because I don’t want to infect others or them me. I stay six feet away from others so that I don’t infect them or them me. We have not seen our great-grandchildren since the first of February except for a drive-by last month. A ten-minute visit doesn’t seem like a visit at all. We haven’t been in a store since the first of February because of the danger of getting the virus. Were not alone. I know of only one person in our neighborhood who goes to a store for food. Everyone else orders on-line and picks up or has a delivery. This virus is a killer. I, like all our friends, don’t think of it so much as being locked down or incarcerated as being home safe. Wearing a mask isn’t about government dictatorship. It is about public health, don’t you think?
You’re free to stay holed up in your house as long as you want. I’m free to enjoy my Constitutional and God-given liberties. And the leftist protests/demonstrations/rioting/mayhem have thrown social distancing out the window besides. The virus is severe and results in death for a very small number of people, almost all of whom are already very ill, but driving or jogging also cause deaths. We’re not shutting down the country because of traffic accidents. It’s high time for the whole country to move on and get on with normal life. Those who want to shelter at home can do so. I won’t anymore.
Chris, you are correct. You can exercise your constitutional rights. Go out, don’t stay cooped up in the house. I read the Preamble again and was reminded again that our government was formed to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility… promote the general welfare… to ourselves and our posterity. For the moment, let’s assume that the government is trying to promote our general welfare when it asks us to shelter in place. Do we have a right to not shelter in place? Of course. Do our fellow citizens have a right to expect their fellow citizens to not infect them? Of course, because we are all responsible for promoting the general welfare of other people. Sometimes, our general self-indulgence needs to be tempered with service to others. I’m not so much isolated as home safe where I can’t infect others, on the off chance that I have the virus.
Bob One, one of the reasons COVID 19 kills so many is that it eventually turns into pneumonia. My doctor recommended that I take the pneumonia shot since I am elderly. I checked it out on Children of God for Life, and it contains no unethical fetal material, so I got one. It comes in two doses spaced apart. If you are elderly or at high risk, I suggest you go get one.
An interesting statistic. At least in the US, there are four people who recover for each fatality.
So, Mike, you are ok with one out of five being killed by the virus? As of this morning, there are 1,970,000 confirmed cases of the virus and 459,000 have recovered. That works out to about 23%. As of this morning, there have been 110,000 deaths in the US in the last four months or so. But, what they hey?
I am so sad to hear of this fact, which I have been wondering would come as a result of the lockdown. So many small private schools are facing these numbers! Yet, God is working in amazing ways, bringing us to our knees. I have hope in spite of these sad realities. My prayers continue as we learn new ways to worship together, serve together, retreat together. We serve a risen Savior that conquered death and the brutality of the 1st century. He is still in business–His church is still alive and being purified to do all His good work. I continue to pray for health, provision, peace, and now with America’s opened wounds I add prayer for justice, mercy, reconciliation, and yes, more peace!
Thank you for reporting so we can PRAY!