By Denise Smith Amos
and Dan Horn
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Rev. Steve Angi spends time each Tuesday in Holy Family School classrooms. He also meets regularly with faculty, oversees St. Michael Center in Lower Price Hill and works to raise money for church restoration. In his "spare" time, he volunteers as a parole officer. (Craig Ruttle photo)

Cincinnati's Catholic schools used to be flush with priests, nuns and brothers.

So many nuns and friars taught at Catholic grade schools - for next to nothing - that most schools charged little or no tuition. At Elder High School in Price Hill, there were enough priests for each sports team to have a chaplain - even for tennis and golf.

But that was more than a generation ago.

Since the 1960s, American Catholic schools have seen a sharp shift as the numbers of priests have dropped. Out of necessity, lay people have become the chief propagators of the faith in most Catholic schools today.

Cincinnati is a prime example. Priests, brothers and nuns made up 60 percent of the 2,500 teachers in Catholic schools here 40 years ago. Today they represent just 4 percent, or 119, of the archdiocese's 3,131 teachers.

"This is the age of the laity. This is the way the Spirit is moving," says Brother Joseph Kamis, director of educational services for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which runs the 10th largest Catholic school district in the country.

"We religious used to be the organizers and the runners of Catholic schools. Now the lay people and the church - the people of God - are educating their own."

Lay people today manage school finances and teach most classes, even religion. They advise pastors, the CEOs of most parishes, on the future of religious education. The impact has been far-reaching:

• Catholic schools began charging - then raising - tuition to pay teacher salaries and benefits. Now most local Catholic elementaries charge $1,000 to $2,000 a year, while most high schools charge double or triple that amount. Some more exclusive Catholic high schools, such as Summit Country Day Upper School in Hyde Park, will cost $12,155 next year.

• There are fewer nuns and priests to serve as role models and to recruit young people into religious vocations.

• Lay people have gained a strong, sometimes contentious, voice in determining the fate of Catholic schools.

It can't be helped, says Elizabeth Robinson of Loveland, who was educated in Catholic schools and sends two children to Catholic schools.

"When religious orders dominated schools, it was more hierarchical. You could pretty much send your child there and know they would get a good education and decent moral values," she says.

"Now I think education is more open to parent participation."

A dramatic shift

The transformation began in the 1960s.

Reforms from the Vatican II councils in Rome transformed Catholic beliefs and practices worldwide, making the religion less hierarchical and more open to modern influences. For instance, Mass could be said in languages other than Latin, and nuns no longer had to wear habits. Priests were to face their congregations during Mass instead of ministering with their backs to them.

The liberalization of the church coincided with massive social upheaval in the United States and elsewhere. But for some priests and nuns, the reforms didn't go far enough.

Many resigned because top church leaders didn't openly embrace the anti-Vietnam war effort, feminism, contraceptive choices and social and civil rights.

Other priests and nuns left the church because reforms went too far.

Either way, the effect was magnified in Catholic schools. Nuns assumed roles outside the classroom, running community agencies and homeless shelters. Most priests focused on the adult flock.

To replace them, Catholic schools rapidly hired lay people as teachers.

The shift was stark in Cincinnati Catholic schools, which teach 53,000 kids in 133 elementary and high schools in Southwest Ohio.

At Elder, a school taught almost exclusively by priests for decades, only two priests teach today in a staff of 67. The all-boys school in Price Hill gained its first lay principal last year.

The Diocese of Covington underwent a similar shift. Only 48 nuns and two priests teach among the 750-member faculty at the diocese's 38 schools, spokesman Tim Fitzgerald says.

Youngsters still take daily religion classes, and they still prepare for important sacraments, such as First Holy Communion and Confirmation. But lay adults are their guides.

Daily Mass before school is rare, but other spiritual extracurricular activities thrive, such as weekend retreats and prayer clubs, usually run by teachers and students.

"Faith is not determined by wearing a collar," says Peg Fischer, principal of St. Thomas More elementary school in Withamsville. "The people we have in our Catholic schools, the staff people, are people of faith."

Lay teachers bring a "real understanding of kids and families," says Barry Thomas, principal of Prince of Peace grade school in Madisonville.

Sharing leadership

Sometimes, lay leaders can mobilize entire church communities.

When the pastor of Nativity of Our Lord, the Rev. Marc Sherlock, fired Nativity School principal Bob Herring in November over "philosophical differences," hundreds of parents and parishioners protested and Sunday offerings declined. Three weeks later, Sherlock, Herring and a mediator reached an agreement restoring Herring's job of 20 years, and donations picked up.

Disagreements persisted between Sherlock and some parish lay leaders, leading Sherlock to seek a new parish assignment.

"I pray that Nativity Parish will find more constructive ways to resolve its differences. If it does not, it may be very difficult to find a priest willing to pastor here," Sherlock wrote to parishioners.

The rancor at Nativity is the exception, not the rule, when lay people share leadership over Catholic schools, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk says. Most lay leaders and priests work well together, he says.

Kamis says that since middle-class families have been moving out of inner-city and inner-suburban neighborhoods, Catholic schools there have lost tuition revenue and Sunday parish donations. Cincinnati's Catholic school enrollment fell by about 1,500 students each of the past two years, Kamis says.

About 15 Greater Cincinnati schools also are in financial difficulty because costs exceed tuition and parish donations, Kamis says. He declined to name the schools.

Parish leaders and pastors must decide together how to keep funding the schools or to restructure them, Kamis says, but decisions may be years away.

Lay teachers and principals already are making sacrifices. Catholic elementary-school teachers make about $23,200 to $38,200 a year - up to $10,000 less than their public school counterparts, Kamis says. Catholic high school teachers also make $5,000 to $10,000 less than public high school teachers.

"Since fewer people are growing up to be nuns and priests, the person who teaches in Catholic schools is a very powerful witness,'' adds Carolyn J. Meyers, a lay leader and former teacher. "They're sacrificing the bigger salary that they could have gotten in public schools to teach in Catholic schools."

New priests and nuns

But will the witness from lay leaders encourage future priests and nuns?

Catholic schools used to routinely nudge their charges toward religious service, sending graduates to seminary and the convent. The nudgers were mostly nuns and priests.

"If you ever thought about being a priest or a sister, it's because you sat in front of one who made a good impression," says Paul Schneider, a Catholic school graduate from East Price Hill who sends his children to Holy Family school in Price Hill.

Other factors, such as priest sex-abuse scandals and the decline of seminaries, also affect recruitment.

Nevertheless, some Catholic high schools are renewing efforts to present the priesthood as a career alternative.

In February, Purcell Marian High's Career Day featured a Marianist priest as keynote speaker. Elder recently formed a priest recruitment committee.

On some campuses, nuns and priests continue to enjoy a strong presence. Corryville Catholic, a 100-year-old grade school, is still run by the Sisters of Notre Dame. Six of its 10 teachers are nuns, who donate their salaries to the school.

Many former nuns still teach in Catholic schools, too, as lay teachers, says William Shula, principal of St. Francis De Sales in Walnut Hills. De Sales employs a Marianist brother as a teacher.

Pastors still supervise principals of parish schools, and some still live in rectories next to schools.

"It's important to be present for people," says the Rev. Steven Angi at Holy Family, who meets with one grade each Tuesday morning to discuss faith.

At St. Gertrude school in Madeira, sisters, priests and brothers are visible almost daily, says Judy Bayer, school secretary. Students attend weekly Mass and services before Holy Days.

"The pastor used to give the report cards to the students each quarter in a little ceremony,'' Bayer says. "That no longer happens because of scheduling difficulties."

Meyers, the former teacher, says priests and nuns will always be needed, but "our faith can be passed on with the lay people, if they're properly trained."

"Jesus promised to always be with us," she says.

"That doesn't mean it's always a man with a collar or a lady in a habit that passes on that faith."

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or dhorn@enquirer.com