The Demise of Parochial Schools?

Today's New York Times includes an article, "Once Mighty, Catholic Schools Find Status is Diminished," on the news (and its implications) that "the bishop of the Brooklyn Diocese announced that 22 Roman Catholic elementary schools in Queens and Brooklyn would shut down in June":

So what was lost, in a single day last week, were the identities of 22 neighborhoods honed over generations. What emerged was an unmistakable milepost. The mighty parochial school system that rose a century and a half ago from immigrant ghettos to serve as a portal into American society for millions - and as a virtually unlimited source of power for the institutional Catholic Church - is fading into history.

Put aside the tiresome throw-away line about the "power of the institutional Catholic Church" -- It is interesting to consider whether, although the parochial school system did, in fact, rise "to serve as a portal into American society for millions," its purposes had more to do with protecting Catholics and Catholic families from the aggression (ideological and otherwise) of 19th century "American society." 

The article also includes some interesting observations about the role of parochial schools, and parishes more generally, in the landscape and civil society of urban areas.  We're told, for example, that parishes often served as "mini-states," and that they were often more important to urban geography, and to city-dwellers' identity, than the conventional markers and boundaries.

Rick