If this is true, it puts the construction of a $650,000 house with a pool for the archbishop in a whole new light.
It reminds me of the Speaker of the Texas House of Represenatatives redecorating his office to the tune of $1.2 million while cutting services.
No matter the justification, both are brain-dead PR moves.
Yes, that is true. There was an article about it, in response to an article in a secular paper, in a recent issue of The Catholic Advocate, the diocesan newspaper. I looked for it on the Web site, but couldn't find it and I've already gotten rid of the hard copy I had. There's a chance it might be in the next issue posted online.
Anyway, the article in the diocesan paper said that the Archdiocese had been contributing on the order of $100,000 per year into the school's budget and couldn't continue doing so indefinitely. The school was not successful at finding a balance between expenses and income.
Many of these inner city high schools are operated almost soley on scholarships, because the largely poor black attendees cannot afford the tuition and are not even Catholic in the main. The archdioceses of NYC, Newark, and Philadelphia have financially ruined themselves in many ways by keeping these schools open as long as they have. NYC and Philadelphia were a few years ago squabbling over control of a large former religious seminary in the Allentown area that happened to have a nice fat endowment tied to its remaining open as a seminary - they were thinking of using it as a junior seminary and bleeding it dry to keep these schools open according to the information I heard first hand from Fr. Ken Baker.
What is truly criminal is the Church's neglect of poor Catholic Hispanic and white children (especially the Irish poor in places like S. Boston in Boston or Kensington in Philadelphia - the Irish poor seemed consigned to an even lower rung than the Hispanic poor), in its vain attempt to be socially relevant and Politically Correct in re Civil Rights be keeping schools open that are largely filled with black Protestants. At the very least, I'd prefer my donations for the schools go to helping keep young Puerto Rican kids in the Church by giving them a Catholic education - but apparently this is too much to ask in many places.