Feb. 8, 2021 Catholic News Service WASHINGTON Catholic school enrollment figures for the current school year significantly impacted by the pandemic dropped 6.4% or more than 111,000 students from the previous school year, which is the largest single year decline in almost 50 years. The National Catholic Educational Association issued highlights from its annual report on school enrollment Feb. 8. The full report will be available Feb. 17. The annual figures show the number of Catholic elementary school students declined by 8.1% from the previous academic year while the decline for Catholic secondary schools was only 2.5%. But the elementary school decline could impact secondary school numbers within the next five to 10 years.
Feb. 4, 2021 Catholic News Service WASHINGTON In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the nation s movement for racial reckoning, the Catholic Health Association of the United States announced an initiative to confront racism in the provision of health care. The initiative was announced in a Feb. 4 news conference on Zoom with Catholic health care leaders. With a deep sense of urgency, we feel called to act, said Mercy Sister Mary Haddad, CHA president and CEO. She said the pandemic s impact on people of color and the racial justice protests of last year demonstrated our strides against racism have simply not been enough . more must be done.
Feb. 2, 2021 Catholic News Service WASHINGTON Ash Wednesday, as with many other things right now, will have a different look at many Catholic parishes across the United States this year. For starters, Catholic churches that are often standing-room only on this day drawing crowds just short of the Easter and Christmas congregations will be at their pandemic-restricted size limits with members of the congregation spread out in socially distanced seating. Other Catholics will be watching the livestream Mass, as they have been for much of the pandemic, and will of course, not receive ashes. Last year s Ash Wednesday Masses Feb. 26 were celebrated just weeks before the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, so church services and social media posts of people s ashes followed the usual tradition. It wasn t until the third week of Lent that dioceses began lifting Sunday Mass obligations and temporarily stopping public Masses.
Feb. 1, 2021 Catholic News Service WASHINGTON This past year as the coronavirus cut through the United States, elderly women religious former teachers, nurses, social workers and pastoral care leaders were among those whose lives were cut short by COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. In some cases, these women, living in convents and cared for by their fellow sisters, died in clusters, leaving their communities with a magnified loss. Groups of sisters who died of COVID-19 complications made headline news for their sheer numbers. The first was a group of 13 Felician sisters who died last spring and summer 12 in the month from Good Friday, April 10, to May 10 and another in June at their motherhouse just outside of Detroit.
Submitted photo
The Amazon fulfillment center in Beloit and the Dollar General
distribution center in Janesville are two examples of the growing
warehousing and distribution sector of the local economy.
JANESVILLE
As local private and municipal economic development officials peer into the crystal ball of a new year, they say one new prospect is coming into view in 2021: More warehousing, distribution and supply-chain jobs could be headed to Janesville.
During a conference call with chamber of commerce group Forward Janesville on the future of the local economy this week, city of Janesville Economic Development Director Gale Price said he is seeing a sudden, dramatic uptick in interest for industrial developers.