It is hard to stay faithful to the Catholic Church

As a faithful follower of the Catholic Church, I am once again stunned by another insensitive, unilateral decision to close my neighborhood school, East Catholic (Jan. 25, “2 Catholic Grade Schools to Close, 4 Others to Merge”). There are now no reasonably close, viable options for those families wanting to give their children a Catholic education, as I was able to do for my daughter 25 years ago. There is now talk by those families of searching for options with Christian schools of other denominations.

I stayed the course when the sexual abuse scandal became public. I saw it as a test of my faith and decided not to abandon the church.

I stayed the course when the diocese combined my parish with four other churches.

I stayed the course when, not even a year later, the faithful experienced whiplash again by announcing we were combining with an additional three churches to have an eight-church merger, instead of the original five.

No one is surprised by a Catholic school closing. Church members have been working fish fries and fairs for many years to support a school with rising costs and dwindling enrollment. Remember us? The folks who support the school’s Catholic curriculum and programs? The parishioners felt betrayed because the church announced the news to the public before telling the church members. I found out through a Facebook post on Friday evening. Then I watched it again on all of the Saturday morning news outlets.

Dear Bishop Zubik, would it really have been so difficult to tell the parishes affected by this closing at the Saturday/ Sunday Masses before we found out with the general public? The continued talk about transparency is just that — talk.

The struggle to continue to stay faithful is real.

ADELE LAWHEAD

Churchill