Originally published at crisis magazine
In a heartrending trend we have seen play out all too often in recent years in Catholic schools and parishes across the country, 55 Catholic schools closed in the 2023-24 school year, 71 in 2021-22, and over 200 in 2020-21. This led the Cardinal Newman society to ask, “Can We Be Frank About the Catholic School Crisis?” This is not a new story. Archbishop J. Michael Miller, former secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, traces the numbers in his indispensable little book The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools. They are indeed discouraging.
In 1930, the population of the United States was 123 million, 20.2 million of whom were Catholic. At that time, there were 2.4 million students in 7,225 Catholic schools. The high tide came in 1965 when, with a national population of around 190 million, there were 5.5 million Catholics enrolled in Catholic schools. It was all downhill from there. By 2024, there was a national population of over 340 million, a Catholic population of 62 million, and only 1.69 million Catholics in 5,905 Catholic schools. The point bears repeating: the national population was approximately 150 million larger in 2024 than in 1965, the Catholic population larger, but the
