Appealing to Vatican about South Philly school closings

TWO CATHOLIC elementary schools in South Philadelphia slated for closure by the Archdiocese have appealed to an even higher authority - the Vatican.

The schools, Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, are scheduled to shutter in June and merge with another South Philadelphia school this fall, but parents and one Boston-based Canon Law consultant are proposing that they merge at the Mount Carmel site instead.

Parents at both schools, frustrated and angry about the closings, which they say will have adverse effects in their Pennsport and Whitman neighborhoods, hired Boston-based lawyer Peter Borre after Archbishop Charles Chaput denied their appeal.

Borre, a Canonical Law adviser who was instrumental in a Vatican ruling earlier this month that overturned a bishop's order to close 13 parishes in Cleveland, will travel to Rome on Sunday to argue the Philly schools' case, he told the Daily News on Thursday. Borre said he hopes to secure a top-notch Canon Law team made up of a father and daughter to represent South Philly in the Vatican.

"The parents with my advice have filed a short appeal with the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education," Borre said. He expects a full appeal, longer and with more documentation, to be filed "in a couple of months." An injunction could be sought to delay closing the schools, he said.

In a letter written to the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Religious Education, two parents wrote: "Animated by love of Our Church and by the compelling need to revitalize Catholic education in our community, we discern serious flaws in the plan currently formulated for South Philadelphia, and we have brought forward respectfully a realistic alternative to accomplish the objectives we share with His Excellency as loyal Catholics."

In the March 15 letter, Sacred Heart parent Brian Donnelly and Mount Carmel parent Joseph C. Nelson warned that shuttering two parish schools that serve as neighborhood anchors could result in "blight and urban decay."

Both parents were notified Monday by the Vatican embassy in Washington, D.C., that their appeal documents had been "transmitted to the Holy See," according to a letter signed by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.

Borre said he took on the case because of the enthusiasm of the South Philly parents.

"They have come up with what appears to me as a creative solution: the merging of these two schools to maintain a Catholic education presence in South Philadelphia," Borre said.

"Catholics in the pews are getting older and older. . . . The next generation is drifting away," he said. "Catholic education is probably the most effective way to replicate and rejuvenate folks in the pews."