Miracle in Memphis: reopened Catholic schools bring life back to inner-city neighborhoods

National Catholic Reporter, April 4, 2008 by Michael Humphrey

"I felt hopeless," she said. "I prayed that God would wrap his arms around the children and protect them, but it felt as if God had no arms."

A few weeks later she attended a conference in San Diego. During a Mass, she saw a crucifix hanging in the sanctuary that had no arms, a sign in her mind that she was to be God's arms.

"So I went back to work and I talked to anyone who would listen," she said. "I even put out the word, discreetly, that the diocese might be willing to sell the closed school buildings, just to see who might be interested. One day a gentleman came to my office to express some interest and we started talking about education."

That person remains anonymous to this day. But the upshot of the story is McDonald and Steib convinced him and a handful of his associates to help the diocese reopen those schools.

"They had the financial resources and the desire to help children in the poorest areas of Memphis," she said. "We had a proven model for those children--a Catholic education."

So less than two years after Steib's column, the Memphis diocese received a $15 million donation from a small group of anonymous Protestants to reopen seven Catholic schools that had been closed, some for decades, and would now teach primarily Protestant children. (An eighth school, called Resurrection, was built and opened in 2006.)

While opening up Holy Names School, McDonald looked through the building that had been closed since 1969. It was bleak, but again she found a sign.

"We opened this closet and as I looked up," she said, "there was a crucifix, with no arms. It was a miracle. There's nothing else you could call it."

Back to reality

But the miracle materialized deliberately. McDonald reopened one school, St. Augustine, in 1999 with just one kindergarten class of 26 students. The next year, St. John School opened while the first school added a first grade. And on it went with those incremental steps--now all of the schools have opened and the Jubilee enrollment has risen from 26 in 1999 to 1,123 at the end of last school year.

The return was not greeted with hosannas, McDonald admits.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"Going back to the parishes to tell them about our plans reopened a lot of old wounds." she said. "Many of these same people fought the diocese to keep the schools open. Now we were telling them that we would reopen the schools and serve primarily non-Catholics."

Many of the parishioners she spoke to had stayed in their declining neighborhoods, often because of attachment to their church. Others lived in a different parish now, but remained members of their inner-city church. Most had bitter feelings about the school closing and their children were grown now, unable to benefit from the re-openings.

"We didn't ask them." McDonald said plainly. "We told them we were coming back. That was key. And you know, when the parishioners started seeing those faces, those children, walking into their school, they began to warm up to the idea."

But the surprises and challenges did not end there.