IHMs Featured in Philadelphia Inquirer

IHMs Featured in Philadelphia Inquirer Excerpted from The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 21, by Melanie Burney & Kristen A. Graham

From the moment students file noisily into her honors physics class, Sister Claudette Naylor commands attention with a stately presence at the front of the classroom. The class settles down quickly and she begins the same way she does every day: with prayer.

She is the face of Catholic education at Holy Cross Academy in Delran, one of only two nuns remaining at the South Jersey parochial school, where more than two dozen sisters once were on staff. Across the country, the Catholic school landscape has changed dramatically, with enrollment dropping and schools closing.

Lay teachers now make up the bulk of Catholic school employees, a stark contrast to decades ago, when religious men and women — the vast majority nuns — composed 90 percent of the school staff. Today, there are just 4,000 religious teachers, who represent 3 percent of all Catholic school staff from religious orders, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.

At Holy Cross, Sister Claudette teaches three classes a day, often using an overhead projector with slides to illuminate her lessons. At 84, she has become a beloved fixture, teaching generations of students, with no plans to retire. Her students typically begin arriving for her first class at 8 a.m., before the bell, to spend time chatting with her.

“She’s old-fashioned, but I like that about her,” said freshman Whitney Daniels, 14, of Willingboro. “She has a caring personality.”

Born in Chicago, Sister Claudette began her career in 1952 after entering the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Scranton. She has been at Holy Cross for 23 years, teaching primarily physics, biology, and math. “I’m still having fun teaching. I’m teaching what I like,” she said. “There aren’t too many of us still around.”

She resides with Sister Bernadette Thomas, a former business teacher who has been at the school for 30 years and now runs the media center. Nearly half of the 350 sisters in their order work in education.

“We don’t look at this as a job,” said Sister Bernadette, who has been teaching for nearly 50 years. “I don’t go to work. I go to my ministry site.”

Read the article at: https://tinyurl.com/yam8tnw7

     

Sister Claudette Naylor                                                                                  Sister Bernadette Thomas