Posted on 08/25/2017 9:19:09 AM PDT by Lorianne
Removal of a number of statues and other smaller Catholic icons from the campus of San Domenico School in San Anselmo has raised concerns among some parents.
In an email to the school’s board of directors, Dominican Sisters of San Rafael and the head of school, Shannon Fitzpatrick objected to the removal of the statues and other steps the school has taken in an effort to make the school more inclusive.
“Articulating an inclusive foundation appears to mean letting go of San Domenico’s 167-year tradition as a Dominican Catholic school and being both afraid and ashamed to celebrate one’s heritage and beliefs,” wrote Fitzpatrick, whose 8-year-old son attends the school.
She added, “In our time here, the word ‘Catholic’ has been removed from the mission statement, sacraments were removed from the curriculum, the lower school curriculum was changed to world religions, the logo and colors were changed to be ‘less Catholic,’ and the uniform was changed to be less Catholic.”
Responding to follow-up questions Monday, Fitzpatrick wrote, “There are other families having the same concerns I do. Many parents feel if the school is heading in a different direction then the San Domenico community should have been notified before the signing of the enrollment for the following year.”
Cheryl Newell, who had four children graduate from San Domenico, said, “I am extremely disappointed in the school and the direction they’ve been going. This isn’t a new thing that they’ve been intentionally eroding their Catholic heritage. They’re trying to be something for everyone and they’re making no one happy,”
Ceremony
Kim Pipki, whose daughter left San Domenico two years ago after graduating from ninth grade, said some of the statues were also important to families who aren’t Catholic.
“The one main statue that has everyone fired up is the baby Jesus and Mary one,” Pipki said. “It was at the center of the primary school courtyard.”
Pipki said the school had a ceremony during which children would place a crown on the statue of Mary.
“It was less about God and more about passing on some traditions,” Pipki said. “People were shocked that the statues were pitched in the basement.”
Amy Skewes-Cox, who heads San Domenico School’s board of trustees, said the relocation and removal of some of the school’s 180 religious icons was “completely in compliance” with San Domenico’s new strategic plan, approved unanimously by the board of trustees and the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael last year. She said at least 18 icons remain, including a statue of St. Dominic at the center of the campus.
She noted that it was unfortunate the removal of the statues occurred at about the same time as the unrest in Charlottesville over the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and that the issues are “totally different” and have “absolutely no connection other than it is change, and people have a hard time with change.”
All faiths
Sister Maureen McInerney, prioress general of the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, said she hadn’t visited the campus lately and was under the impression statues had been relocated on campus rather than removed entirely.
“I try not to get into the details of the operation. That really isn’t my place,” McInerney said. “So if there has been a reduction in the number of statues but there are still many statues around the campus, I think that would be fine.
“San Domenico is a Catholic school; it also welcomes people of all faiths,” McInerney said. “It is making an effort to be inclusive of all faiths.”
One of the strategic plan’s stated goals is to “strengthen San Domenico’s identity as an independent school” and clearly articulate its “inclusive spiritual foundation.”
San Domenico was founded by the Dominican Sisters in 1850 as an independent, Catholic school — meaning that it is not owned or operated by a parish or religious order.
“San Domenico is both a Catholic school and an independent school,” said Head of School Cecily Stock, “but what we were finding after doing some research is that in the broader community we are known as being a Catholic school and are not necessarily known as an independent school. We want to make sure that prospective families are aware that we are an independent school.”
No catechism
Of the 660 students who attend the K-12 school, 121 are boarding students and 98 of these are international students from British Columbia, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mexico, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. The students attending San Domenico come from a variety of religious backgrounds besides Christianity: Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.
Stock said schools operated by the Catholic Church, such as St. Isabella, Marin Catholic and St. Anselm, tend to have larger class sizes and lower tuition costs. Tuition for an incoming kindergarten student at San Domenico is $29,850.
Skewes-Cox said, “If you walk on the campus and the first thing you confront is three or four statues of St. Dominic or St. Francis, it could be alienating for that other religion, and we didn’t want to further that feeling.”
Stock said the parents of some prospective students who visited the campus expressed concern about this.
In her email to the school, Fitzpatrick wrote that she became concerned with the direction of San Domenico when it removed “first reconciliation and first communion from the second-grade curriculum,” last year.
Stock said the year before last the school began offering catechism after school and then last year phased it out entirely.
“We had very few families interested. I think last year it was fewer than five,” Stock said. “It just made sense to have the students prepare for communion with their local parishes where they would be with a larger group of students.”
Stock said, “Over the last few years we’ve had fewer Catholic students as part of the community and a larger number of students of various faith traditions. Right now about 80 percent of our families do not identify as Catholic.”
World religions
Rather than indoctrinate students in Catholic theology, San Domenico provides students with instruction in world religions and philosophy.
“It’s really about empowering each student and giving them the information so they can discover their own purpose, their own truth,” Stock said. “We believe the best way to understand your own faith is to learn about the faiths of others.”
Mirza Khan, the school’s director of philosophy, ethics and world religions, said, “The Dominican teaching philosophy is not to teach there is only one truth. It is to foster conversation, to intentionally invite in participants that have different perspectives in a very open-ended process of philosophical and spiritual inquiry. That has been a long-standing part of the Dominican tradition.”
Khan, whose father and grandfather were Sufi teachers in India, received a bachelor’s degree in comparative religion at Bard College. Before becoming a teacher at San Domenico about 10 years ago, he worked as a research assistant to a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Khan said during his time in Jerusalem he got to see first-hand how devastating it can be when religions are in conflict.
If i was a tuition paying parishioner my kid would be GONE
If you believe that, you no longer can call yourself Christian as you are not a believer in Jesus.
Inclusively exclusionary.
Why don’t they just change the name of the school to Private School Number One———that’s where this is all heading anyway.
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That is so foolish and cowardly.
I know where that school is, not more than a few miles south of San Rafael. The parent pay a pretty penny to send their children there. Were the parents even consulted about it?
If consulted, were they given any opportunity to make an informed response, as opposed to a purely emotional response?
I tend to doubt it. Is the Archbishop in favor of this too?
I admit, I did not have the time to read the entire article here, so some of my questions may already be answered.
It’s a very troubling topic, with zero upside.
So Khan sees Muslims blowing up Israeli school children in Jerusalem and his reaction is to support taking down Catholic statues at a traditionally Catholic school? And this guy is supposed to be a professor of philosophy and logic?
> Why don’t they just change the name of the school to Private School Number One———that’s where this is all heading anyway. <
Ha! I was thinking the same thing. But of course “Private School Number One” would only be a temporary name, an intermediate step if you will.
The eventual, permanent name would be something like “Obama School Number 270”.
These idiots clearly didn’t get the message that traditional Catholic schools with instruction in the catechism and a classical, western curriculum are not only making a resurgence but they’re thriving. But they probably wouldn’t care. They seem embarrassed by their Catholic faith and, as Ann Barnhardt would say, they probably don’t believe any of that bull$h!t anyway. So I’m not surprised at the path they’re taking. It’s very sad - pray for their reversion.
My school of St. Cecilia in Detroit loved our Month of Mary ceremonies in May. Terrible that this was taken.
I think I may have an explanation. One explanation.
Some entity, organization or person is donating a lot of money to the school with certain stipulations and demands that must be met.
all about feelings LOL
God said it would cause problems when people let feelings rule their decision making, but many people keep thinking we shouldn’t do anything that could possibly lead to another person choosing to feel hurt.
Correct....I no longer go to church.
Closet muslim? How else to interpret this?
We've already learned that Islam thinks beheading or stoning or emulating females is traditional...that preachers and Imams preach hate and evil in their mosques and churches...that The Creator has been removed from our schools however, in our hospitals, men and women protecting our nation and others still pray....but not in classrooms, before school meetings, on the playing fields.
Who are these self-proclaimed social engineers who want a more 'collective' society so the powers that be can more easily control you....who are they? Names please.
Some places may be motivated to protect their statues, removing them until a safer time.
This is not a parish school, it is a posh private school in a very rich area. I have been to the campus, it is quite nice. The Board is just trying to make it secular with a saint's name.
Absolute insanity. If you’re a Catholic school, embrace and teach the Catholic faith. Non-Catholics who attend can figure out that comes with the territory and don’t have to attend if they don’t want to. Honestly, I am so disgusted with the entire direction of the Church under this Pope and the Modernists now in charge!
Almost $30,000 tuition for kindergarten? Or did I not understand that correctly?
For decades now, Catholic schools have been losing their identity; they are turning into an alternative for affluent, non-Catholic (mostly) white parents who see them as an alternative to dumbed-down, unsafe public schools. In short, the Catholic schools - once a counter-cultural haven for believing, blue-collar Catholics, are turning into havens for non-Catholic rich kids.
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