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Archbishop visits with Dayton students, hosts conference

Contributed photo Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr talks with students at the Carroll High School library.

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Archbishop Schnurr visited area as part of Catholic Schools Week.

By Meredith Moss, Staff Writer Updated 7:58 AM Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The 38th annual Catholic Schools Week wraps up today and, in addition to a wide range of programs and activities, this year’s schedule provided a first-time opportunity for students in the Miami Valley to interact with Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr.

The Archbishop arrived at Carroll High School to celebrate Mass Jan. 26 and to host a 90-minute video conference with students. The live Web cast reached students at 17 schools throughout the archdiocese.

Small groups of students from each school were invited to the conference, which originated in the Carroll library. Allison Cleaver of Huber Heights, a Chaminade Julienne senior, was among those invited to participate. She admits she was a bit nervous — both at the idea of meeting the archbishop and at the thought of asking a question in front of so many other students.

“I asked him how I, as a woman graduating from a Catholic high school and going to a Catholic college, can continue to stay involved in the church,” Allison says.

The archbishop encouraged her to surround herself with people who hold similar beliefs and would have a positive impact on her faith. He also suggested she continue to participate in mission trips.

Clare Potyrala of Kettering, a CJ senior, said she found the archbishop both personable and able to relate to young people.

Taylor O’Neil of Carroll had a chance to ask the archbishop who he turns to for personal guidance, since he is a spiritual counselor for so many others. “He actually has a panel of priests and lay people who advise him and he said he also speaks to the other bishops,” Taylor says.

Carroll senior Michael Monell described the archbishop as “relaxed, open, understanding and a very nice guy.”

Catholic Schools Week was established in the 1970s and according to Superintendent of Catholic Schools Jim Rigg is designed to recognize the history and success of Catholic Schools.

“Each school across the country comes up with a number of events and activities to recognize the various facets of a Catholic education,” Rigg explains. “Some do canned food or clothing drives, one school cleaned up their campus by asking each class adopt part of the grounds to clean. In another school each class adopted a saint and wrote a prayer about their saint.”

School activities also include social events: a crazy hat day, talent show or out-of-uniform day. Many schools host open houses for parents and grandparents on the weekends. At St. Albert the Great in Kettering this week, students enjoyed a Crazy Hair Day, a Dance Party, a faculty-versus-eighth-grade volleyball game, and organized a class picture of the teachers dressed as students.

Kelli Kinnear, director of ministry and service at Chaminade, says every student and teacher at her school was asked to reflect on how Catholic school has made a difference in their lives. The thoughts were then displayed throughout the school and read over the public address system.

“I am inspired every day by working in a Catholic school, a place where faith is welcomed, prayer is encouraged, and seeking ways of responding to God’s call in all of our lives is a valued part of everything we do,” wrote school counselor Jama Badinghaus. “It is not because God is any more present in this place than some other school, but because here we can celebrate that presence and call upon it to guide the work and study we do each day.”

Kinnear says another special Chaminade project involved obtaining rosaries for all of the Catholic elementary and high schools. “We prayed for each of those schools and this week we’re dropping them off to let them know we prayed for them,” she says. The school also will host a free band concert Sunday.

Rigg says challenges faced by today’s Catholic schools range from demographics to finances.

The majority of Catholic schools built more than 50 years ago, he says, were constructed in urban areas to serve a largely immigrant Catholic population.

“In Dayton, for instance, we had a number of schools built to serve Germans, Italians and Irish, but through time the Catholic population has become more affluent and has moved to the suburbs and has been replaced by a lower-income, non-Catholic population. So there are not as many Catholics in those areas who want to come to us and we haven’t kept pace with our students in the suburbs.”

Rigg says another challenge is finances.

“Fifty years ago teachers were priests and religious sisters; today we’re employing lay people and we have to pay competitive salaries. And education has become more expensive: 50 years ago you had slate boards and books, nowadays we have to have strong technology and good student/teacher radios.”

This spring Catholic schools of the Miami Valley will celebrate as Auxiliary Bishop Joseph R. Binzer presides at a Unity Mass on April 25 at the University of Dayton arena. Nearly 10,000 Catholic school students from Celina to Middletown, Springfield to Greeneville have been invited.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati is the 38th largest Catholic diocese in the country with almost 500,000 Catholics and has the eighth largest Catholic school system in terms of enrollment — 43,263 students for this school year.

Contact this reporter at  mmoss@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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