My daughter goes to a Catholic School. I became friends with her principal. I remarked to him that the church was putting all recruiting on him. When I went to Catholic school in the 60’s the priest and nuns were heavily involved, I’m not seeing that now. In 3 different Catholic Schools my daughter has attended in the past 9 years, she never had a nun as a teacher. I had at least 4 nun teachers in my 4 years in Catholic schools.
More so, within 10 miles of me at least 2 Catholic Schools have closed that I know of. The church is losing its children.
That's because where the Church is shrinking (mostly in the more liberal parts of the country and the world), there are less vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Where it is more conservative (like where I live and in places like Africa and parts of Asia and South America) vocations are stronger, especially where the TLM is still available. It's tempting to see the Church in terms of where we happen to live, but it is not the same everywhere. It's not great these days, but it is in no danger of dying out except in those places where it is allowed to do so.
More so, within 10 miles of me at least 2 Catholic Schools have closed that I know of. The church is losing its children.
That is to be expected in places where Catholics have become more liberal and stopped having children. I've never been much of a fan of Catholic schools myself. In the early years of this nation it was a necessity to counteract the influence of Protestant dominated public schools and to service poorer groups and communities that either could not afford private schools or had the time or education to teach the Faith to their children. In our time, it seems a little elitist since not everyone can afford to do send their kids there and there is no guarantee of getting an orthodox presentation of the Faith there anymore.
Our parish has recently moved away from a CCD based model of catechesis to one of placing the responsibility of parents to educate their own children in the Faith. As the Church teaches, it is the responsibility of parents to be the primary educators of their children and they cannot delegate that responsibility to anyone else.