Archdiocese Windfall Doesn't Set Well With Incarnation Parent

PALOS HEIGHTS, IL -- As south suburban Catholic elementary schools celebrate Catholic Schools Week by hosting open houses on Sunday, two schools will be noticeably absent from the local landscape -- Incarnation in Palos Heights and Our Lady of the Ridge in Chicago Ridge. The schools -- three miles apart -- are among five being closed by the Archdiocese of Chicago for “low enrollment and not being financially viable.” The closing of the five schools nearly derailed a $500 million development in which the Archdiocese is a beneficiary.

The Archdiocese of Chicago inked a deal last year with JDL Development by selling an Archdiocese-owned parking lot for a reported $115 million. The 96,000-square-foot lot will be used as the development site for two proposed condominium towers and commercial development called One Chicago Place, that will become the sixth tallest building in Chicago. The development site is currently used as a parking by Holy Name Cathedral parishioners.

Archdiocese spokeswoman Anne Maselli told the Chicago Sun-Times that money from the land sale will be used to pay down the Archdiocese’s debt.

But before the Chicago City Council’s Zoning Committee could sign off on the deal, South Side Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) demanded a quorum, a parliamentary procedure that is used to stall votes, according to Sun-Times’ City Hall reporter Fran Spielman’s account of the meeting.

“The beneficiary of moving forward on this asphalt parking lot is an organization that I am continuing to see disinvest, consolidate and trim in communities all across Chicago — communities like mine in particular — with no kind of engagement or discussion,” Lopez said.

“Our residents, our parishioners are owed answers when they see and read something like this and, at the same time, are being told, ‘We have no money for anything. We’re leaving.’ And yet, the sixth-tallest building in Chicago is being built, benefiting them,” Lopez said.

Lopez went on to accuse the Chicago Archdiocese of “disservicing” 15th Ward neighborhoods, while it raked in an “exhibortant” windfall.

“It’s important for residents of my community who see the Catholic Church leaving, who see the Catholic Church closing,” the South Side alderman said.

The Zoning Committee approved the measure.

Hearing of the Archdiocese’s windfall doesn’t set well with Andrea Covert, whose disabled son is a seventh-grader at the ADA-compliant Incarnation School, which is to close in June.

“I’m appalled,” Covert said, who served on a committee of parents that worked to keep Incarnation from closing. “So no money for Catholic education, no money to allow a 30-day extension to merge with Our Lady of the Ridge.”

Covert wants her son, Trent, to finish his elementary school education in a Catholic school. She says she’s having a hard time shopping for a new school that is suitable for her son’s needs.

“The schools [the Archdiocese] is sending me too are run by the nicest and loveliest people, but the schools are in older buildings,” Covert said. “My son couldn’t turn his walker around in the hallway, he can’t even get into the bathroom.”

She said many of the schools she visited were in need of repair and upgrading. She called Incarnation, which is air-conditioned with a new roof and windows, buttons for students in wheelchairs to push to open doors, and ADA-compliant restrooms, the “Taj Mahal” of Catholic schools.

“I think the Archdiocese should be spending money on the future of the Catholic Church by investing in our children,” Covert said. “Give these schools some upgrades. The church is losing young people who don’t want to go to Incarnation anymore. We had a campus that had it all.”

Some of the $154,000 raised from a 115 Bourbon Street benefit earlier this month to keep the school open, will be used to throw an end-of-the-year party for students when Incarnation shuts its doors forever.

Covert praised Lopez for sticking up for kids.

“Just as Jesus angrily turned over the tables of the tax collectors in the temple, we too must work together to stop the bureaucracy of the Catholic Church and overturn their corruption,” she said.