The last day of August will be remembered as one of the most historically significant for Notre Dame College Prep High School in Niles, said the high school’s president, Ralph Elwart.
After nine years without any formal religious oversight, the high school announced Aug. 31 that the Brothers of Holy Cross would assume sponsorship of Notre Dame College Prep.
The newly formed relationship drew the praise and support of the Archbishop of Chicago, Blase Cupich.
“This is a story of lay people stepping up to hold in trust a fine Catholic institution, nurturing its Catholicity in the Holy Cross tradition and helping it succeed by participating in a vibrant network of Catholic secondary schools,” Cupich said in a statement.
The announcement is eclipsed only in importance by the opening of the school in 1955, Elwart said.
In June of that year, 16 members of the Priests of Holy Cross and a team of laywomen and men founded the school and began offering a Catholic education guided by the principles of the Congregation of Holy Cross, according to a release from the school. Today, Notre Dame College Prep has the distinction of being the largest all-male school in the Chicago Archdiocese.
In 2006, however, the Priests of Holy Cross withdrew their sponsorship of the school, Elwart said. He said Notre Dame College Prep “was something of an anomaly” for the Priests of Holy Cross who were, at the time, “better devoted to the colleges, principally the University of Notre Dame.”
“This was their only high school,” said Brother Ken Haders, assistant provincial and vicar of the Midwest Province of the Brothers of Holy Cross. He said the priests felt that sponsorship of the school was no longer in their best interest given their many commitments to higher education institutions, their parish and foreign missions.
But Elwart said the absence of any religious sponsorship “wasn’t quite as dire as it seems.”
An Association of Christian Faithful, a group composed of laypeople and others, was appointed by the Archdiocese of Chicago to oversee the religious operations of the school following the withdraw of the priests, Elwart said. Ownership of Notre Dame College Prep was assumed by a board of laypeople on January 2007, according to the release.
In the absence of the priests, the school continued to grow, Elwart said.
“Internally, since the school was a Holy Cross school for decades, that remained the same,” he said.
Haders said the school’s continued commitment to the principles of the Congregation of Holy Cross was a large part of the reason why the Brothers of Holy Cross decided to assume sponsorship of the high school.
“As Notre Dame College Prep continued to grow, even though the Priests of Holy Cross weren’t there anymore, they never stopped being a Holy Cross school,” he said.
After discussions between the Brothers of Holy Cross, the school’s board and administration, the two groups decided that they were well suited for one another, both Haders and Elwart said .
The Brothers of Holy Cross, unlike the Priests of Holy Cross, have, historically speaking, more experience working with secondary schools, Haders said.
The entire process—from discussions to official sponsorship—took several years, Elwart and Haders said. The sponsorship also required the approval of Cupich, they said.
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Elwart said the relatively new archbishop supported the new relationship, as did his predecessor, the late Cardinal Francis George.
Religious sponsorship will not change the day to day operations at Notre Dame College Prep in any immediately noticeable way, Elwart said. What sponsorship really means, he said, is that the school will now benefit from the guidance and teachings of the Brothers of Holy Cross in addition to the advice that may be gained from administrators and faculty at any of the other 16 schools with their sponsorship.
The sponsorship does not entail any financial gain nor does it mean Notre Dame College Prep will be staffed by brothers, Elwart said.
“The sponsorship model developed amongst the brothers takes into consideration the fact that we don’t have the personnel to remain present (in every school),” Haders said.
Instead, he said, “a memorandum of understanding” is agreed to by both the educational institution and the Brothers of Holy Cross outlining the responsibilities each party has to preserve the educational mission of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
The benefit to the students, Elwart said, is that now they’ll have a chance to meet and engage with students from around the country who have also been the beneficiaries of a Holy Cross education.
Both Elwart and Haders said they expect the new relationship between Notre Dame College Prep and the Brothers of Holy Cross to be a long-lasting one.
“This is one of those things that’s going to last for a long time,” Elwart said. “Nobody here thinks there is an end point in sight.”
Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.