Why St. Patrick's Day Matters for Today's Catholic Schools

For Irish immigrants coming the United States in the 19th Century, St. Patrick's Day meant a great deal—it was a day to celebrate their heritage, a heritage that was treated with contempt in many circles of American society. 

In a column from the Wall Street Journal, Bill McGurn explains why St. Patrick's Day can serve as an important reminder of the Irish people's "singular achievement in their adoptive homeland"—Catholic schools:

Just as they did in the days of the great Irish migrations, Catholic schools in our own time hold out perhaps the best hope for the assimilation and upward advancement of a new wave of immigrants: Latinos.

"What the Irish were to our country in the 19th century, Latinos are for our nation in the 21st century," says the Rev. Timothy Scully, CSC, cofounder of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).

'Former Mayor Ed Koch once famously remarked that ‘When masses of immigrants reached our shores in the 19th century, they were greeted by two women: Lady Liberty and Mother Church,’ ” says Father Scully. “What Mayor Koch was referring to, of course, were the parish schools. What the Catholic schools did for the Irish then, Catholic schools must and will do for Latinos today.”

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The reality, however, is that Latinos have a larger problem . . . Begin with this: Only 16% of the Latino high-school students in America are college ready, according to Notre Dame’s Task Force on the Participation of Latino Children and Families in Catholic Schools. Barely half graduate from high school in four years.

So what kind of dream is it to design programs geared to college when most Latino kids are written off before they can even start?

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Unlike the Irish, Latinos don’t come here with the advantage of English. Unlike the immigrant Irish of yesteryear, they haven’t embraced the Catholic schools: Overall Latinos count for only 3% of the Catholic-school enrollment in the U.S.

But if the challenges are daunting the benefits are clear: Latinos who attend Catholic schools are 42% more likely to graduate from high school. They are 2½ times more likely to graduate from college. And the Catholic nature of the schools means there is some natural overlap with the Latin American cultures from whence these new arrivals have come.

Put it this way: Is it really all that hard to believe that a Latino schoolgirl might be more comfortable mastering English and embracing American culture if she is learning in a school where she sees, say, a print of Our Lady of Guadalupe—patroness of all the Americas—hanging on the wall?

“On St. Patrick’s Day we celebrate the mutual blessings that America was for the Irish and the Irish were for America,” says Father Scully.

“We believe one day the same will be said of Latinos now arriving on our shores. At least if the Catholic schools have anything to do with it.”

Read the full story Feliz Día de San Patricio at the Wall Street Journal.