A Hot Summer it is for All

I live in hot baking Washington, DC.  My neighbor's daughter was a sophomore student at Wheeling [Jesuit University] until a few weeks ago.  She is transferring to Mount St Mary's in Emmitsburg.  When her parents asked her why, she responded that Wheeling [Jesuit University] was not the same school she went to two years ago as a freshman.  During the last year the environment totally changed. There was little joy on campus, more people than usual were leaving on the weekends, faculty members and other workers seemed to feel down and lost enthusiasm for students.  Many feared for their jobs. She blamed this on the unjust and despicable sacking of Fr. Julio.

She told her parents that 40+ new freshmen students left Wheeling [Jesuit University] at the end of their first semester. That was after four months on campus!  It was not the school they signed up for.   I recently heard from an alumnus and friend of a board member that the attrition rate over the summer will reflect what happened at the end of the fall semester.  That is a great loss of student population.  We already know that the entering class is significantly lower than is needed to keep the college viable.

So what do we have now?  A bishop, eager to move to Philadelphia, got what he wanted, the Sisters’ property at Mt. DeChantal.  He got what he wanted only by pressing to rid himself of a smart, friendly and fearless Jesuit.  The Sisters of the Visitation, loved and admired for 160 years, have left a depressed area where they were one of the few Catholic institutions that people could admire.  And there is a college without a soul that is fast getting to the point of seeking a buyer for abandoned property.

One writer to his blog said that Fr. Giulietti might still return to Wheeling [Jesuit University].  He must be kidding!  Even a generous man like Fr. Julio would not be so foolish as to buy deck chairs for the Titanic.

As for Fr. Felix, he is not a Jesuit so the Jesuits will not pay off anyone to get him free.  He will have to deal with his own destroyed life.  Fr. Thomas Gleeson, however, is free to remain on the Wheeling [Jesuit University] board.  A double pity.

- Larry Catraro