Updates!

January 17th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Supreme Tribunal of the Catholic Church Accepts Appeal of St. Philip School Closure for Hearing

In the most significant development to date in our canonical appeal of the closure of St. Philip School, we recently learned that the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura has issued a decree accepting our appeal for a hearing. The Tribunal has assigned our case “protocol number” 55802/21 CA.

The Tribunal accepts for hearing only a small fraction of the cases brought before it. Its acceptance of our appeal therefore is a strong indication that it considers our position to be substantial. We are grateful for the Tribunal’s decision and its thorough consideration of our arguments. We will now present additional written arguments to the Tribunal and await its scheduling of an oral hearing before the assigned judges.

This development is, we have no doubt, the direct result of the deeply heartfelt prayers of the many thousands of people who have supported our efforts every step of the way. Thank you for your support and your unwavering belief in this vitally important cause.

In the spirit of his recent Christmas Eve message, perhaps Bishop Zubik now will see the mistake he made in closing our School and not let another missed opportunity to correct it go by—it is not too late. We will pray that he does so.

In the meantime, we will work closely with our canonical counsel and our advocate in Rome to develop the evidence and legal arguments that support a reversal of the closure of St. Philip School. And we will continue to ask the Diocese, the SRCES, and Father Torquato to provide meaningful support and assistance to our children and the parents, faculty, and staff at Guardian Angel Academy.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

December 21st, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

The Sham SRCES And Its Unconscionable Abandonment Of Our Kids

Back in early September, we informed you about the many serious deficiencies at the new Guardian Angel Academy, where our Committee members’ grade school-age children attend.

Our point then was not that school officials and teachers were falling short—indeed, as expected, they have made extraordinary efforts in launching and trying to stabilize the new school. The parents, as expected, have too.

Rather, our point was that the Diocese and the SRCES not only had made an erroneous and unlawful decision in closing St. Philip School and locating Guardian Angel at the former St. Margaret School—they had also failed abjectly, perhaps intentionally, to take any steps to support the fledgling new school and make any improvements to the school building they chose.

Now here we are, 4 months into the school year and in the throes of another COVID outbreak, and the SRCES and the Diocese still are nowhere to be found. Guardian Angel is not kept clean to even the most minimal standard and still has no full-time maintenance person. Students are packed into undersized classrooms and attend classes in the cafeteria and gymnasium. Parents have been required to provide kids with their own drinking water. Ground-level windows are still broken. The curricula and educational resources available to our teachers are grossly behind the times. Fr. Torquato continues to hold St. Philip School educational materials hostage, denying our kids their benefits. There still is no full lunch service, and it’s hard to see how there could be in the mold-ridden school kitchen.

None of these would have been issues had St. Philip School been kept open. It was, and still is, fully equipped to meet the educational and spiritual needs of our students and accommodate the growth that we should expect and to which we should aspire.

Yet, what have the Diocese and SRCES done to address the issues at Guardian Angel?

Nothing. The same people who worked so diligently to achieve the closure of our 106-year-old school now disgracefully sit on their hands, somehow content to do NOTHING to help the new school and all those parents and schoolchildren displaced from their long-time Crafton home.

Let us be blunt: the SRCES is a sham. Does it even meet any more? About what? Is it discussing how to help Guardian Angel and other schools in the South Region stop the wave of Catholic-school closures and ever-rising educational costs? If they have, we’re not aware of it. But that hasn’t stopped them from asking for even more money from us, recently through their “Giving Tuesday” campaign. How did the campaign go? Is there now enough money to pay to clean our school and get rid of the mold?

Actually, we know where the money to do that can be found—the more-than-$120,000 “Church Alive” funds Fr. Torquato referenced in last week’s St. Philip bulletin, pledged many years ago when St. Philip School was financially robust with a very strong enrollment. How many of you pledged those funds to St. Philip Parish with the intent and desire to benefit St. Philip School? And whatever happened to the “pandemic appeal” donations, which Fr. Torquato solicited late last year on the false pretenses that St. Philip Parish would exhaust all of its reserves by July 1, 2021, and that the donations would be used to help support St. Philip School? Remember—on July 1, 2021, contrary to Fr. Torquato’s “projection,” the Parish actually was financially better off to the tune of more than one million, two hundred thirty thousand dollars.

Rather than direct even a fraction of the $120,000 “Church Alive” funds or “pandemic appeal” donations to helping the kids at Guardian Angel Academy by paying someone to clean their school and fix broken windows, however—and despite the Parish’s massively improved financial condition as of July 1, 2021—Fr. Torquato has elected to spend money on “invitation postcards,” pruning trees, and fixing doors. Priorities.

We were heartened a bit by Bishop Zubik’s most recent Pittsburgh Catholic column, where he acknowledged his “preoccupation” with “looking at mistaken decisions” and “missed opportunities.” We hope and pray that the closure of St. Philip School—and the unconscionable failure of the Diocese and the SRCES to support Guardian Angel Academy, in breach of their clearly stated promise to do so—are chief among the “mistaken decisions” and “missed opportunities” Bishop Zubik is thinking about.

Undoubtedly, they should be. Century-old Catholic schools, so deeply embedded in our neighborhoods and families for generations, should not be closed based on false financial projections or artificial “community feedback,” where students, faculty, families and benefactors are kept in the dark and denied a voice in the process. Catholic schoolchildren deserve a clean school building with basic necessities and a modernized and challenging curriculum. They also deserve access to the technology and other educational resources that Fr. Torquato vindictively keeps locked behind closed doors at the “St. Philip Parish Campus.” Pray that the Christmas spirit will move these priests who serve us to finally—finally—put the interests of our children over their own.

In closing, although we cannot adequately find the words, we want to express our deepest condolences to the Fazio family over the recent loss of Katherine (Katie) Fazio, a friend to so many of you, our supporters, and to so many on our Committee. On top of everything else she was and did, Katie was a steadfast supporter of St. Philip School and our efforts to save it, inspiring and emboldening us from the very beginning of our efforts. In her unique and special way, Katie embodied the same fundamental principles of faith, love, character, and community that St. Philip School instilled in so many generations of schoolchildren in our community—many of whom were especially fortunate to know, love, and be loved by, Katie. Knowing Katie, she would want us to stop talking about her and get back to the mission of saving St. Philip School. So we will. And we will, in her memory and those of so many who gave so much for St. Philip School since 1915, carry on the fight until its final conclusion, no matter what it takes.

Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

December 9th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

SRCES

Back in early September, we brought you information about the many serious deficiencies at the new Guardian Angel Academy, where our Committee members’ grade school-age children attend.

Our point was not that school officials and teachers were falling short—indeed, as expected, they have made extraordinary efforts in launching and stabilizing the new school. The parents, as expected, have too.

Rather, the point was that the shortcomings at the new school were—and are—properly laid at the feet of the Diocese and the SRCES. The very same people who decided, unlawfully, that St. Philip School should close and the merged school should be located at the former St. Margaret School have done vanishingly little to help the fledgling new school.

Now here we are, coming up on 4 months into the school year, and the SRCES and the Diocese still are nowhere to be found. Guardian Angel still has no full-time maintenance person. Students continue to be packed into undersized classrooms and attend classes in the cafeteria and gymnasium. Parents have been required to provide kids with their own drinking water. Ground-level windows are still broken. Fr. Torquato continues to hold St. Philip School property hostage, depriving our kids. And there still is no full lunch service. Repeat—no full lunch service.

What have the Diocese and SRCES done to address all these issues? Nothing. The same people who saw fit to tell us our 106-year-old school must close now sit on their hands, content to stand idly by. They do, however, continue to ask for even more money, recently through their “Giving Tuesday” campaign. We look forward to hearing how the campaign went and how much money will be provided to our school.

The Diocese instead devotes its time (and our money) to housing predatory priests and crafting careful PR statements trying to skirt culpability. We saw this again just a few days ago, with the arrest of—sadly and ironically—former St. Philip pastor Paul Spisak, who has been living on our dime at St. John Vianney Manor in Carnegie, just steps away from Bishop Canevin High School. You probably heard about it, and you probably know what the grand jury report has to say about him.

Yet, rather than apologize to the victim of Spisak’s actions and the boy’s family, the Diocese wasted no time immediately shifting to spin mode to cover itself, issuing a statement claiming that Spisak has not been in “ministry” since 2002, even as it acknowledged that he lives at St. John Vianney. The Diocese also suggested Spisak might not be allowed to continue living there, so close to Canevin, if his conduct violated the “conditions of his residence.” But it didn’t actually say Spisak’s conduct violated those conditions or offer any assurances Spisak would be evicted as a result.

So the Diocese may not evict a predatory priest living a stone’s throw from a Catholic high school, but it had no problem evicting hundreds of innocent St. Philip School students, faculty, and staff from their historic home, then leaving them and their friends at Guardian Angel twisting in the wind, without the most basic of necessities or even minimal support. And here’s the real rub—the Diocese has claimed canon law requires it to continue supporting and housing predatory priests, but it didn’t hesitate to violate that same canon law when it closed St. Philip School.

Still, we ask: where is the support for our school that you promised, Diocese and SRCES? Where is your care and concern for the Guardian Angel schoolchildren and their families? Why do you not have the decency even to respond to the issues that people of good faith have brought to your attention? And, why are we paying to house predatory priests of crimes against children, but can’t get lunch service for our Catholic schoolchildren or fix broken windows in their school building? We’re sure Mr. Spisak’s accommodations are far superior to our kids’.

The SRCES in particular is not carrying out its mission. Here is what its own website says: “The Pittsburgh South Regional Catholic Elementary Schools, Inc. serves the faithful of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.” “Serves.” It also says this: the SRCES “is charged with … overseeing all aspects of the schools’ operations in partnership with the regional administrator and regional business manager.”

So we ask again—when will the SRCES and the Diocese do their jobs and support our school, instead of worrying about covering for bad priests? No matter what they want you to believe, these people work for us—they “serve” us. When will they actually show it?

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

November 24th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Update on St. Philip School Appeal

Friends, we wanted to provide an update on our appeal of the closure of St. Philip School to the Church’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura.

As you know, in mid-October, we appealed to the Signatura from the decision of the Congregation for Catholic Education denying our initial appeal. The Signatura now is considering whether to accept our appeal for a hearing. It is not at all unusual for this to take a few months, so we will be especially watchful for word from the Signatura over the next several weeks. With the holiday season upon us, however, that could delay action on our appeal. So don’t be dismayed if you don’t get an appeal update from us over the next month. And please continue to pray, just as you have done so earnestly for these past 9 months.

In the meantime, we continue to consider submitting additional evidence to the Signatura supporting our appeal. Among that evidence is the appalling distortion of financial data by Fr. Torquato and diocesan officials that we informed you about earlier this month. Sadly—but, as we have said so many times, not surprisingly—not a single member of the clergy or a single diocesan or St. Philip official has addressed the deception or our statement about it.

If you are a financial benefactor of St. Philip Parish and this Diocese, we can only imagine how you feel about this. The brazen deception and exploitation of you and your hard-earned money is almost too hard to believe—if it wasn’t so clearly and indisputably true. No business or other organization could ever get away with this. That the Church in this Diocese continues to is perhaps the saddest chapter in this whole story—and that’s saying something.

We will continue to watch St. Philip Parish and the Diocese closely and bring you the facts about their conduct—facts we know you won’t get from anyone else, and certainly not from the Diocese or Fr. Torquato. And we will continue to press our appeal in Rome in every way that we can, just as we have since the case began in February.

For now, we want to conclude by wishing all of you who have supported our efforts a very Happy Thanksgiving with your families. Please know that we will keep all of you in our prayers in a special way this week, deeply grateful for the spiritual, financial, and other support you have provided since the very beginning of this ordeal. We want to offer a special thank you to those who responded to our call for financial contributions a few months back—let’s just say your response was overwhelming. Your love for St. Philip School and what it represents for so many of us and our kids and grandkids is an inspiration. And it is why we will fight the injustice that has been done here until the very end.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

November 3rd, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Recent St. Philip Parish Financial Report Shows the Depth of Deceit

Behind Closing of St. Philip School

This past week, Fr. Torquato published the 2020-2021 Parish Financial Report. It confirms that there was absolutely no financial need to close St. Philip School—and that his predictions of financial calamity were grossly inaccurate, perhaps intentionally so.

Recall the bleak financial picture Fr. Torquato provided St. Philip parishioners last November and the ensuing months, which supposedly necessitated the closing of St. Philip School:

• A projected $255,000 Parish subsidy to the School for 2020-2021 (Parish Bulletin 2/21/21)

• A $384,000 budget deficit by the end of the 2020-2021 fiscal year (Parish Bulletin 11/22/20)

• Parish savings completely depleted by July 1, 2021 (Parish Bulletin 11/22/20)

The reality based on what we now know?

• Only a $140,000 Parish subsidy to the School

• A $149,710 budget surplus at the end of the 2020-2021 fiscal year

• $584,826 in the Parish savings account

His projection for the School subsidy was off by $115,000.

His projection for the Parish budget was off by $533,710.

His projection for the Parish savings account was off by $584,826.

In other words, compared to Fr. Torquato’s claims, on July 1, 2021, St. Philip Parish was financially better off to the tune of $1,233,536. That’s right—more than one million, two hundred thirty thousand dollars, an amount so great it could have provided tuition-free education for hundreds of students at St. Philip School for an entire school year without a dime of additional fundraising!

To make matters worse, it appears that Bishop Zubik himself was misled regarding St. Philip Parish financials.

In a letter from SRCES board president Fr. David Poecking dated January 27, 2021, conveying the SRCES’ recommendation that St. Philip School be closed, Bishop Zubik was told:

• “Projected subsidy 20-21 St. Philip: $351,000.

• “Both parishes have faced ongoing operational deficits with projections for 20-21 at $192,000 [St. Margaret] and $377,000 [St. Philip]. The deficits at St. Philip are more alarming because the parish subsidy already stands at an unsustainable 50% with no relief in sight from the parish consolidations now benefiting other hosts of elementary schools.”

So what Bishop Zubik was told would be a $351,000 subsidy was in reality only $140,000.

And what Bishop Zubik was told would be a $377,000 budget deficit was in reality a $149,710 surplus.

The numbers given to Bishop Zubik by members of diocesan leadership and the SRCES thus are even more grossly inaccurate than those presented to the faithful of St. Philip Parish by Fr. Torquato.

There is no mystery why—the Diocese, SRCES, Fr. Poecking and Fr. Torquato had already decided they needed the St. Philip School building for purposes other than the education of children, which the faithful and Sisters of Charity had supported for 106 years, and they needed a cover story to persuade people the School just “had” to be closed. And we know from SRCES board members themselves they based their recommendation to close St. Philip School on the financial data presented to them.

So who in the Diocese and SRCES will stand up and ask questions or provide answers, to ask or answer why financial numbers were distorted to create a fake rationale for closing our “Neighborhood Jewel,” to ask or answer what the real reason was for closing St. Philip School? We won’t hold our breath waiting to see—none have for now 9 months running, even though they work for us, the lay faithful.

But we will keep presenting the facts to the people and we will keep asking questions the people deserve to know the answers to. After all, it’s their Church and it’s their money Fr. Torquato, Fr. Poecking, and the Diocese so casually misrepresent. And they—like so many of their family members who came before them—maintained St. Philip School through a century of extraordinary hardship and challenge, inspired by their faith and their belief in the essential role the School played in the formation of children. If the Diocese and SRCES have any respect left for these people, they will at least—finally—tell them the truth.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

October 12th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Committee Appeals Closure of St. Philip School to the Church’s Supreme Tribunal

Earlier today, Mr. Wrabley filed a formal appeal with the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest court within the Catholic Church. Today’s appeal challenges the Congregation for Catholic Education’s decision upholding Bishop Zubik’s closure of St. Philip School. The Supreme Tribunal will have the final word on whether the closure was lawful.

The appeal argues that, contrary to the Congregation for Catholic Education’s ruling, canon law does not give bishops sweeping power to simply close Catholic parish schools like St. Philip at their discretion. The appeal further demonstrates that Bishop Zubik failed to consult properly with the stakeholders in St. Philip Parish and School, and that the use of the SRCES to help implement the Diocese’s plan did nothing to justify the closure of our school. And the appeal explains—again—that the closure of Catholic parish schools must be initiated at the parish level and agreed to by parishioners and school supporters, none of which occurred here.

We also want to take this opportunity to address the false claim, which continues to be peddled, that, because of our legal appeals, Fr. Torquato cannot allow educational materials gathering dust in St. Philip School building to be used at Guardian Angel Academy. That is nonsense and it contradicts Fr. Torquato’s promise to support the new school in every possible way. Enough with the gamesmanship—we are talking about children here, the same children whose best interests the Diocese disserves again and again and again, many of whom belong to St. Philip Parish. If you are a St. Philip parishioner, we encourage you to make your voices heard on this topic and others—the very future of our parish is at stake.

Speaking of the children, a final note: October is “Respect Life” month, a time when we pray in a special way for the unborn, the most innocent and helpless of human life. But we also pray for all human life, especially those living amongst us who are most in need of support and protection. That includes, of course, the children, the little ones who are our future, the future of our families, the future of our faith, and the future of our Church itself. So we ask again that you pray that our Church leaders, our Diocese, and the Supreme Tribunal are moved by the children and their needs as they consider our appeals and the state of Catholic education in Western Pennsylvania.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

October 11th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

A Special Request for Prayers—For and At Our School

Friends, along with our counsel here and in Rome, we are currently in the final stages of preparing our written appeal to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest court within the Church’s legal system. This is a crucial time that will decide once and for all whether our beloved St. Philip School building will once again open its doors to guide, teach and form young souls as it had for 106 years, or will remain forever nothing more than a reminder of the unjust and indifferent actions of those who orchestrated its closing.

As such, we ask that you make a special effort in the coming weeks to redouble your prayers for our committee, our counsel and the members of the Tribunal that the decision to close our School will be overturned.

Like us, many of you pass the school almost every day and feel again that shock of disbelief and betrayal that first afflicted you nearly eight months ago. That’s why, if at all possible, we ask that you visit the courtyard to offer your prayers in the shadow of our School—before or after Mass, on your way to or from work, or at any point during the day. Seeing the school and remembering the immense good it has done for generations of our families can only serve to strengthen the resolve of your intentions and demonstrate the passion of parishioners for saving our School.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

September 29th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

After 106 Years, St. Philip School Is Being Called A “Campus Parish Center.”

What A Disgrace.

The most recent St. Philip Parish bulletin includes an invitation to an event at the “St. Philip Church Campus Parish Center.” What is this never-before-mentioned “Campus Parish Center”? It’s exactly what we said the Bishop, Diocese and Fr. Torquato had in mind all along: the St. Philip School building, home for more than a century to tens of thousands of schoolchildren who owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to the School and the Sisters of Charity for their own treasure of faith.

How sad but how predictable, another sign of the Diocese’s continued abandonment of one of its highest callings: to teach and form the youngest of God’s children and help instill in them a love for Jesus and an embrace of Catholic teaching. You can be sure there will be little teaching of young people at the new “Parish Center”—or much of anything at all genuinely devoted to forming and supporting the youngest members of our community of faith.

So when given the choice where to locate a school with hundreds of schoolchildren and a new “parish center,” the kids get the clearly inferior facility, while the Diocese and whomever it sees fit to put in its “Campus Parish Center” get the clearly superior one.

Contrary to what some are claiming, the St. Philip School building was—and is—in excellent condition, as we detailed in the evidence for our appeals to the Vatican. The building was painstakingly preserved and maintained by generations of parishioners, families, teachers, Sisters of Charity and pastors, and tens of thousands of dollars were invested in the building’s infrastructure over the past several years alone. Indeed, the fact that the building is now being touted as our new “Parish Center”—without any apparent work done to it, and mere months after the last student walked out—puts the lie to any claim that the building was in disrepair or in need of unaffordable upgrades.

If the St. Philip School building had been in need of upgrades, even more money was at the Parish’s and School’s fingertips—as we have documented, $50,000 or more was pledged for the replacement of windows, and no doubt many Parish and School benefactors were at the ready if more was needed to improve the building for use as a school. But the pledged money was actually returned ! And while Fr. Torquato launched a “pandemic appeal” last October under the auspices, in part, of supporting St. Philip School, he knew any money raised would not be invested in the School building for the benefit of the School—which, he knew, was going to close.

Meanwhile, our children continue to be crammed into tiny classrooms with substandard security and broken windows at Guardian Angel Academy, with classes regularly held in the cafeteria and the gymnasium. Yet Fr. Torquato, other clergy, the Diocese, and maybe a cardinal now have a spacious new “Parish Center,” without having even offered a “thank you” to the countless St. Philip parishioners and school families who built and tended the St. Philip School building for so long.

Now the question is, to which Parish will this new “Parish Center” eventually belong? For months, we have said that saving St. Philip School meant saving St. Philip Parish. The recent bulletin makes that point abundantly clear, showing that out of 3,638 St. Philip parishioners, only 621—or 17%—attended mass on the weekend of September 18-19, 2021. And out of 1,797 Parish families, only 250 envelopes—or 14%—were used. The unnecessary and unconscionable closing of our School already has had a severely detrimental impact on the Parish. Again, sad, but predictable.

Which leads to another question: was this the plan all along? To weaken and destabilize St. Philip Parish to the point that only a merger or absorption into a neighboring parish can save it?

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

September 15th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

The Diocese’s PR And Legal Strategy That Continues To Hurt The Kids

Nearly two weeks ago, we issued a public statement detailing the poor conditions our kids were experiencing at Guardian Angel Academy, from overcrowded, non-social-distanced classrooms to a lack of cafeteria service to serious safety deficiencies in the school building to many, many others. And last week, we followed up with an email directly to SRCES Administrator Sharon Brown, every individual SRCES board member (including many diocesan priests), the Bishop, and many others, asking them to correct and repair the many issues we identified for the benefit of the schoolchildren.

The response: nothing. As of today, September 15, 2021, GAA students still have no full cafeteria service or computers of their own. There are still broken windows, old, unsecured school doors, and overcrowded classrooms. And there are still plenty of classes held in the cafeteria and the gym and, to our knowledge, no maintenance staff and no live video security feed to the Greentree Police Department. Yet, no one has heard a word from Ms. Brown, the SRCES board members, the Bishop, or any other diocesan official, let alone an acknowledgment of these problems or assurances that they will be corrected promptly.

We are long past the point where it is obvious what is happening here—the Diocese’s public relations and legal advisors have determined that the best strategy for dealing with those challenging how the Diocese closed St. Philip School and are operating Guardian Angel Academy is to simply ignore them and say nothing. Whether or not that is a sound PR and legal strategy can be debated. What cannot be debated is that kids—hundreds of them, from every walk of life, from Crafton, Ingram, McKees Rocks, the City of Pittsburgh, Greentree, and many other neighborhoods where you live—are again the victims at the hands of the Diocese, collateral damage of the Diocese’s plan. And any institution, any people, who willfully implement a strategy that ends up victimizing children? Well, that speaks for itself.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

September 10th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Committee Asks SRCES and Administrator to Do Their Jobs

Friends, please see the email below that the Committee to Save St. Philip School sent this evening to the SRCES Board, Administrator Sharon Brown, Father Torquato, Father Greco, Bishop Zubik, Father Kunz, and Ms. Michelle Peduto related to the current conditions at Guardian Angel Academy.

Save SPS <savesps2021@gmail.com>

6:38 PM (35 minutes ago)

September 10th,2021

Dear Ms. Brown and SRCES Board Members,

We, the Committee to Save St. Philip School, write today on behalf of our supporters and, in a special way, for those whose children—like our own—presently attend Guardian Angel Academy (GAA). As you should know by now, GAA is woefully ill-suited and ill-prepared to perform its essential function—to educate and care for the hundreds of schoolchildren who are entrusted to its care every school day. This is a fundamental failure of the SRCES, and the SRCES has a duty to the GAA schoolchildren, their parents, and the GAA faculty and administration to make it right.

One week ago, we issued a public statement describing in detail the numerous and severe deficiencies of the GAA school building and the school’s instructional resources and materials. Each of you, as well as many other diocesan officials, received that statement. Yet, despite your responsibility for GAA’s unpreparedness, neither you nor Bishop Zubik, Fr. Grecco, or Fr. Torquato, have responded to our statement or taken any noticeable steps to address the identified deficiencies. As much as we are unsurprised by this continued silence and inaction, we still are saddened and astounded by your callousness, as the children it is your duty to protect and educate suffer in silence.

As unconscionable as all of this is, you and other diocesan officials and clergy (including Fr. Torquato), directly and through GAA personnel, have gone even further. You have stated that the lack of basic instructional resources and materials at GAA somehow is the result of the legal appeals filed by over 700 St. Philip parishioners and School families and alumni to remedy the unlawful alienation and closure of St. Philip School. That is false and the disgraceful attempt at scapegoating those more than 700 people of faith is galling to the extreme. We call on you to recant it publicly and unequivocally. As Bishop Zubik has acknowledged, the men, women, and children who have appealed the Bishop’s unlawful decisions are exercising the legal rights that the Catholic Church gives them, and they will do so until the Supreme Tribunal of the Church issues the final word on the legality of what you and Bishop Zubik have done to St. Philip School.

More importantly, all of this is just a distraction from what is undeniably true: it is the duty of the SRCES and the Diocese to ensure that every school in the south region of the Diocese of Pittsburgh is properly equipped to educate and care for students whose parents pay some of the highest tuition in the Diocese. You have, to this point, failed completely to carry out your obligation and supply our children with the most basic elements necessary for a quality Catholic education.

So today, we call on you to do your job and take the necessary steps to ensure that GAA has everything it needs to provide the highest quality Catholic education to its students. When you announced the merger and selected the former St. Margaret School building as the new school’s location, you said GAA was the “best possible way” to continue to educate the students in this portion of the south region. Prove it.

Emily Anselm

Alexis Barone-Katze

Jessica Bittner

Sharon Gaitens

Mike and Elvira Hoff

Brandi Meredith

Alexandra Sinicrope

Colin & Marie Wrabley

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

September 3rd, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Overcrowded classrooms.

Broken windows.

Ancient textbooks.

Lax security.

This is the Diocese’s “best possible way” to educate our kids?

In announcing the February 2021 decision to locate the new Guardian Angel Academy at the former St. Margaret School building, the Diocese and the SRCES declared that the decision was driven by the desire to find “the best possible way to continue to provide a Catholic school education for the children in the south region.”

The same day, Fr. Torquato wrote that “campus location, building accessibility, and school facilities were considered in the final recommendation to locate the merged school at the Saint Margaret, Green Tree campus[.]” That “campus,” Fr. Torquato maintained, would be “good ... for the merged school” because it would “provide more physical accessibility for students - as well as a full gymnasium, a large cafeteria, convenient outdoor areas, and a sizeable parking area.”

Parents immediately expressed legitimate concerns over the quality, safety and adequacy of the St. Margaret building and location, only to be assured time and again that necessary repairs, updates and improvements were going to be made, and that the building could accommodate all students safely.

Wrong. Predictably, one week into the school year has only confirmed what we all knew back in February—everything the Diocese, the SRCES, and Fr. Torquato said was meritless, and they have failed to deliver on a single promise to improve the St. Margaret building. Their gross and culpable negligence cannot be denied. And what about all the “benefits” of “regionalization,” namely the promised sharing of resources among parishes in the south region? Who is sharing with Guardian Angel Academy? Clearly no one.

Again, it is the children and their families who are paying the price for diocesan negligence. Let us describe what the children at Guardian Angel Academy have experienced in their first week of school:

• No maintenance staff to clean the school.

• Mostly unvaccinated students—who the Diocese claims to want to protect through a mask mandate—crammed into undersized, poorly ventilated classrooms without anything approaching social distancing and in violation of state code.

• Those same students packed into hallways and the gym during what has proven to be a 30-45-minute (or more) long dismissal process.

• A system for drop-off and pick-up of students that can only be described as chaotic, snarling traffic throughout the Greentree area and subjecting students to unsafe conditions as they snake, often hidden, through lines of vehicles.

• Numerous classes held in the cafeteria and the gym due to lack of classrooms to accommodate the student body—is this what Fr. Torquato had in mind when he touted the “large cafeteria” at St. Margaret?

• No cafeteria service.

• No iPads or chromebook computers for the students.

• No catch door to screen visitors for security—and doors to the school left wide open and unmonitored in the morning while the kids are arriving.

• No electronic locks on doors.

• No live video feed to the Greentree Police Department (as promised) to enhance security. Even though parents were told on May 29th that “the school is finalizing the link between the new school security system and the Greentree Police Department which will allow the police to continually monitor the school.”

• No repairs made to broken ground-level windows.

• No drinking water available on high-humidity days where the temperature reached the upper 80s. And there is only one COVID-compliant water fountain (in the gym) with a touchless bottle refill station, but it is NOT connected.

• Graffiti-laced textbooks that are approaching 30 years old.

To say the least, this is far from the “best possible way to continue to provide a Catholic school education for the children in the south region” that the Diocese promised back in February. The fact is, one week into the school year, it is abundantly clear that the Diocese invested no money, no planning, and no effort to prepare the school building, in spite of the high tuition parents are paying to send their children there—$4,600 per child. It is, to put it bluntly, shameful and an insult to the families who made the choice to send their children there.

None of these problems would exist—NONE—had the Diocese made the right, sensible, and obvious choice at the very beginning by selecting the St. Philip School building as the site for the newly merged school. St. Philip School HAS a physically safe facility; ample room in classrooms, necessary during the current COVID case surge among children in Allegheny County; three maintenance staff; enough rooms to keep the cafeteria and gymnasium separate for their intended purposes; COVID-compliant water bottle filling stations; smoothly functioning protocols in place for safe and expedient morning drop-off and after-school dismissal; intact windows; locked and monitored doors; a dedicated and recognized STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) program and lab; computers for EVERY student. And the list goes on and on.

Yet, for reasons the Diocese still refuses to reveal, it did not choose the clearly superior building and location for the new school. Again we ask—why not? Because that decision is having serious, real- world impacts on hundreds of schoolchildren and their families who, despite all the tumult, sincerely desire a quality Catholic education. They certainly deserve much, much more than this.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

August 26th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

What The Congregation For Catholic Education’s Ruling Does NOT Say

While we prepare to escalate our fight to save St. Philip School to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura (the Supreme Court of the Vatican), we wanted to inform you what the Congregation for Catholic Education’s ruling on the closure of the School does NOT say:

• That there is any provision of canon law that specifically authorizes a bishop to “close,” “merge,” or otherwise “substantially alter” a Catholic parish parochial school. There isn’t one.

• That Bishop Zubik, the Diocese, the SRCES, or Fr. Torquato obtained the consent of any Parish Finance Council member or any parishioner or school parent for the closure of St. Philip School. We know they didn’t.

• That the Diocese and the SRCES used legitimate financial data and all relevant information. We know for a fact they did not.

• That the SRCES process was open and honest. It was anything but.

• That the Diocese and the SRCES made the decision that was in the best interests of the children and families of the former St. Philip and St. Margaret Schools. There’s no evidence it was, and lots of evidence—especially after the first day of school today—that it wasn’t.

• That Diocesan officials, Fr. Poecking and Fr. Torquato acted in an open and transparent manner in their efforts to close our School and choose St. Margaret School as the location for the new school. The evidence proves they intended secrecy.

• That the school building chosen is better equipped to accept, protect, nurture and teach students in a safe and secure environment, while also allowing for enrollment growth. No one could reasonably argue that it is.

• That there was no ulterior motive for closing St. Philip School—specific planned uses by specific church officials, but NOT the education of children. We’re virtually certain there was, and we believe those plans are likely being pursued.

• That the Diocese does not target schools for closing based on community income demographics. In fact, it almost always does, as the undisputed evidence shows.


• That the Diocese’s claimed vision for making Catholic education affordable and accessible is working. It’s doing the exact opposite—but perhaps that’s actually the plan and desired outcome.

Our canonical counsel has emphatically stated that the decision from the Congregation for Catholic Education lacks the necessary elements to be considered a legitimate decision. Rest assured the Supreme Tribunal will be informed of all of this—and much, much more. We remain confident in our legal arguments, the impartiality of the Supreme Tribunal, and the Tribunal’s commitment to dispensing justice according to the law and fundamental fairness. We look forward to having our day in that court.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

August 24th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Congregation For Catholic Education Denies Appeal Of Closure—On To The Supreme Tribunal

Friends, Mr. Wrabley has learned that the Congregation for Catholic Education at the Vatican has denied our appeal of Bishop Zubik’s decision to close St. Philip School. This is far from the last word on the matter. Very shortly, we will appeal the Congregation’s ruling to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest court within the Church’s legal system—just as the Diocese surely would have done had we prevailed. The Supreme Tribunal will have the final legal word in the matter. The fight is far from over!

We also will ask the Supreme Tribunal to immediately suspend the Bishop’s closure decision. Unless Bishop Zubik or Fr. Torquato grant our request that St. Philip School be opened this fall—and there are many good reasons why they should—we unfortunately have no ability to open it on our own. As a result, parents who desired a St. Philip School education will have to find another school this fall for their children. This, as it always does, will cause our Catholic schools in Pittsburgh to lose more students in the end—as the Diocese knows and expects.

To be clear, the Congregation’s erroneous ruling in our appeal does not change anything about the unlawfulness and unfairness of the decision to close St. Philip School. The law and the evidence— including the hundreds of pages of documents we submitted—make that clear. Yet the Congregation produced a 1-page ruling that seemingly ignores all of our evidence, as well as the legal brief filed by our Roman Advocate.

The Diocese will see this as a victory, but it is a temporary one—and hollow at best. In fact, it is a defeat for the faith and the faithful. As a result of the Congregation’s ruling, St. Philip School’s hallways will be quiet, its classrooms dark, its courtyard empty, and its schoolchildren absent this fall—for the first time in 107 years. It certainly will live on in those many thousands of living men, women, and children who benefitted immeasurably from their own formative time at St. Philip School. But our next generation of children will, at least for the time being, be deprived of that experience, and that is a tragedy and an injustice of the highest order.

None of this changes our goal and our intention, to pursue our legal appeals to a final conclusion at the Vatican. We maintain that St. Philip School was closed unlawfully and that ultimately, the court with the final say—the Supreme Tribunal—will agree. We will not stop until the Supreme Tribunal renders its verdict.

We want to sincerely thank all of you who have supported our efforts in so many ways—and in ways we are sure none of us even know about. We encourage you to continue to do so, to not lose hope, to not lose faith in the power of prayer. The legacy of St. Philip School and what it stands for are just too important for us—for all of us—to do anything but fight for its reopening. So is the need for full transparency and a true collaborative ethic from the hierarchy—a genuine respect and concern for the people, the laity who constitute the Church.

Unless and until that happens, the faith will continue to be stifled and even, for many, snuffed out, the people left wondering when, if ever, their needs will truly take priority once more in the Church. We hope and we pray something changes—soon.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

August 11th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Release the St. Philip Parish and School Financial Reports

It has come to our attention that the Diocese has produced, and transmitted to St. Philip Parish, final, 2020-21 fiscal year financial statements for both the Parish and St. Philip School. We call for the immediate public release of those statements to the Parish and parishioners at large in the interests of full transparency. We also ask the Parish Finance and Pastoral Councils to support our request.

St. Philip parishioners and school families have been told that the Parish no longer can support the School. Yet, none of them—with a bare few exceptions, including the Finance Council members—have been allowed to see the financial statements that presumably would back up that claim.

We understand that the 2020-21 School financial statement will show that this past school year, the School finished with a surplus despite the monumental challenges presented by the pandemic and the looming threat—which came to fruition in February—that the School would close. And if and when the Diocese and Parish get around to releasing the previous year’s School financial report—which still has not been issued—we believe that statement will further demonstrate that St. Philip School was on continually improving financial footing, requiring a steadily diminishing subsidy from the Parish.

We are curious what the Parish financial statement will show, particularly when it comes to the issues we highlighted in our response to Fr. Torquato’s July 16 video presentation, a response that no one, including Father, the Parish Finance Council, and the Diocese, has yet addressed. For example, what does the claimed $185,000 in Parish fundraising consist of? We know the Parish did not fundraise that amount. And how much money is in the Parish bank accounts? We believe it is a lot.

If we are wrong in what we believe the financial statements show—and we have a high degree of confidence that we are not—then perhaps the statements support Fr. Torquato’s video presentation. In that case, he should have every reason to want to publish the statements now.

But if we are right about what the financial statements show, fundamental fairness and transparency compel that the statements be disclosed to everyone. That way, the people can determine for themselves whether the decision to close the School was justified and whether Fr. Torquato’s video and his prior claims about Parish and School finances hold up.

So many parishioners and School families, like their ancestors before them, have sacrificed selflessly to sustain this great Parish and provide so many generations of schoolchildren the blessings of a Catholic education at St. Philip School. They deserve—and they are legally entitled under canon law—to know how their money is being spent and how their School and Parish are being run. And they deserve to know whether the stated basis for closing our School was legitimate.

In the meantime, the effort to save St. Philip School carries on and we remain optimistic about what the Vatican will rule—or, perhaps, already has decided. Stay the course with us. And pray.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

August 5th , 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Update on Effort to Open St. Philip School

We wanted to take a few moments to update all of you on the effort to open St. Philip School.

Several legal appeals relating to the School’s closure are pending before the Holy See’s Congregation for Catholic Education, Congregation for Clergy, and Supreme Tribunal for the Apostolic Signatura—the “Supreme Court” of the Catholic Church. One of those appeals, before the Congregation for Catholic Education, challenges the closure of the School and is under examination. According to canon law, that period of examination, unless extended by Cardinal Prefect Versaldi, was set to expire earlier this week—meaning that by then, either a decision should have been rendered or a notice of extension of time to issue a decision should have been issued. That doesn’t necessarily mean for certain that either thing has happened yet—or, if it has, we would know about it yet. And in fact, while we do know for sure that the Congregation is well aware of our appeal, as of the publication of this statement, Mr. Wrabley has not received a decision or an extension notice from the Congregation.

Be assured that when we receive word from Rome, we will let you know as soon as possible. Be assured, too, that we have taken every possible step to advance our legal appeals in Rome to a decision. And be assured that we remain hopeful and optimistic that the Vatican eventually will rule that St. Philip School must be reopened.

Will the School be opened this school year? There’s simply no way to know for sure or predict as much. Unfortunately, the Diocese’s delay in announcing the decision until mid-February has made it extremely difficult for the legal process to be completed in time to get a ruling before the school year begins—which we believe likely was by design. But we say again what we have said many times before—we will not stop our efforts to open St. Philip School no matter how long it takes.

In the meantime, as you know, we continue to urge Bishop Zubik and the Diocese to open our School in the best interests of the faithful and the schoolchildren. Our pleas, unfortunately, have been met with silence. We wish this were not the case, but we cannot control how our Church leaders act or respond. They clearly have chosen to simply ignore the thousands of faithful St. Philip parishioners and supporters of St. Philip School who strongly support our School’s reopening.

Through it all, though, our efforts are about so much more than just opening our School, as vital as we believe that is. They are about saving St. Philip Parish, speaking for so many—including the underprivileged—who feel they have no voice in the Church or society at large, and standing up for what is right and what is lawful. If the Church in this Diocese has any hope of being revitalized—and it clearly is in great need of that—it must dialogue and work with its people, it must protect those, the children especially, most in need of protection, and it must follow its own laws. In its decision to close St. Philip School and in its actions since, the Diocese has done none of these things. We sincerely hope and pray it changes course soon—for its own good and that of the faithful who it serves.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

August 3rd , 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

For Our Children’s Safety and the Future of Catholic Education in Our Local Communities, Open St. Philip School

Before and after the Diocese announced the closure of St. Philip School and the decision to locate the merged school at St. Margaret School, many parents raised serious concerns that the much smaller St. Margaret School would not be able to safely accommodate the combined St. Philip and St. Margaret student populations—especially in the midst of COVID. These concerns were met either with silence or assurances from diocesan officials that COVID would “go away” by the 2021-22 school year.

Now, however, we are weeks away from the beginning of that school year and Allegheny County is seeing a substantial increase in COVID infections, likely driven by the “Delta variant.” We’re told that 257 students are registered to attend Guardian Angel Academy. With that number of students (or more), it is not possible for the St. Margaret building to provide the appropriate degree of social distancing to safely educate our children full-time, five days a week. And that means the new Academy likely will need to turn to remote instruction quickly and frequently—something most parents strongly oppose.

Moreover, our respective school communities are blessed with grandparents and extended family who take active roles in caring for our students and regularly attend athletic events and school programs. Given that those particularly vulnerable family members and other immunocompromised relatives interact with our children on a daily basis, not opening St. Philip School poses a substantial threat to the health of our broader communities as well.

Reopening St. Philip School would, however, provide parents, students, and their families a far safer option given the greater number of, and significantly more spacious, classrooms. Indeed, St. Philip School’s superior flexibility to enable students to be spread out during all parts of the typical school day proved successful during the 2020-21 school year in preventing both virus spread and the need for remote instruction—and no doubt would this coming school year, too. Just as importantly, it also would allow much more room for student enrollment growth in the years to come, which is our, and the Diocese’s, ultimate goal.

Therefore, if the Diocese is truly concerned with the safety, health, and well-being of our local communities and our Catholic school students—and with growing Catholic schools in the region—it will immediately open St. Philip School for 2021-22 enrollment.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

July 23rd, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

No Response to Our Rebuttal of Fr. Torquato’s Parish Financials Video

Late on Sunday evening, July 18, a video narrated by Fr. Torquato and posted on the Diocese’s YouTube channel was emailed to some, but not all, St. Philip parishioners. It purports to lay out the Parish’s financial situation and tries to justify Fr. Torquato’s claim that the Parish no longer can support St. Philip School. The next day, the Committee to Save St. Philip School responded. Here is a summary of our responses and some of the many questions we still have—none of which Fr. Torquato or the Diocese have addressed (notably, Fr. Torquato was already on vacation when the video was sent):

1. Fr. Torquato failed to include any School financials, including those still unreported from 2019-20 and 2020-21. That’s likely because they’re far too favorable to fit his narrative.

2. The presentation used misleading and deceptive graphics with inconsistent date ranges (20 years for population decline, 5 years for offertory collections, 4 years for Parish financial performance).

3. Fr. Torquato claimed $185,000 in Parish fundraising during a pandemic year — an increase of nearly 1,000% over the previous year! Did this include the nearly $185,000 in fundraising that the School generated?

4. Is the Parish financially stable or not? First the picture was bleak, then it was claimed we’re on the road to financial stability, presumably because of potentially having no school. But even if St. Philip School doesn’t open, the parish will still have to pay a sizable annual subsidy to Guardian Angel Academy.

5. How much will that subsidy payment to Guardian Angel Academy cost St. Philip parishioners? And why does Fr. Torquato still insist the Parish cannot subsidize St. Philip School even while he acknowledges the Parish now must subsidize Guardian Angel?

6. There’s no mention of who prepared the content of the video, where the financial data came from, or even if the Parish Finance Council approved. If the Parish Finance Council was not involved in preparing the video—and we don’t believe it was—why not? Who, if anyone, can—and publicly is willing to—back up the video’s claims?

7. Fr. Torquato blames population decline and COVID for the drop in attendance and collections, but that’s scapegoating. The population has leveled off in the last decade and over $300,000 in COVID relief neutralized the now-diminishing impact of the pandemic.

8. Last year’s Parish financial report was six months late. This one comes just two weeks after the end of the fiscal year and includes projections for 2020-21. Why the rush? What prompted such an early — and still incomplete — financial report this year?

9. There was no mention of the future plans for our Parish, but the financial doomsaying hints at what the Diocese and Fr. Torquato may have in store: extinctively merging St. Philip with a neighboring Parish. If they can close a 106-year-old school for as-yet unexplained reasons, they can certainly close our Parish.

10. What are the Parish and Diocese plans for the St. Philip School building?

We hope someone will address our questions and concerns for the good of the entire Parish. If nothing else, the faithful people of our Parish deserve answers and they deserve the truth. Someone knows the truth and we pray they have the courage to come forward and tell it.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

July 22th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Opening Our School

We want to take a few moments to address the (re)opening of St. Philip School. We await a ruling from the Congregation for Catholic Education on our appeal of the “extinctive merger” or closure of the School. We are pleased that the Diocese recently acknowledged in writing, for the first time, that it will abide by the Congregation’s ruling—as it must.

If the Congregation rules that the Diocese unlawfully closed our School, and revokes the decision to extinctively merge it with St. Margaret of Scotland School to form Guardian Angel Academy, that will mean a few things. First, it will mean that our School—St. Philip School—must be reopened, as it existed on February 11, 2021, prior to the announcement of Bishop Zubik’s decision. Second, it means that the merger itself was unlawful, meaning that Guardian Angel Academy was improperly formed and that St. Margaret School once again exists—as it did on February 11.

Per the Diocese’s acknowledgment that it will abide by the Congregation’s ruling, we fully expect the Diocese to move expeditiously to take all steps to open St. Philip School immediately—hiring faculty and staff, opening registration for enrollment, providing for the return or restoration of all property removed from the School since the beginning of June, etc. We assure you—and the Diocese—that we, and all of our supporters and St. Philip School parents, will work collaboratively and tirelessly with the Diocese to open our School.

We also expect to spearhead an immediate and far-reaching fundraising campaign. That effort will be aimed not only at providing a strong foundation for the School’s opening, but also at lessening the need for financial support from St. Philip Parish and substantially enhancing the School’s ability to provide tuition assistance to those who need it and desire a Catholic education. We know the Parish supports many important ministries and we, the School community, want to do everything we can to lighten the Parish load and improve its capacity to carry out and expand all of its ministries—including a Catholic education for children through our School—to all corners of the Parish.

Indeed, as we have reported to you previously, although Fr. Torquato’s recent video omitted it, the fact is that St. Philip School has been significantly diminishing the subsidy obligation of the Parish over the past several years. The School has consistently reduced expenses while improving tuition collection. And even during this pandemic year, with the Diocesan school consolidation process looming over it, the St. Philip community demonstrated tremendous confidence and resilience in generating close to $200,000 in additional fundraising to support the School—and that doesn’t include the additional “Pandemic Appeal” contributions from parishioners who made their donations for the specific purpose of supporting the School. If anyone doubts the School and Parish communities’ ability to raise far greater sums post-pandemic and following a ruling from the Vatican that St. Philip School must reopen, they are just willfully blind to the reality of the enduring strength of St. Philip School and the commitment of the large group that supports it.

In closing, we ask all of you to take a few moments today to pray the Memorare to our Blessed Virgin Mary for our School, our Parish, the St. Philip and St. Margaret schoolchildren and their families, Bishop Zubik, Fr. Torquato, the Diocese, and the broader community of faith here in Pittsburgh.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

July 19th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Responding to Fr. Torquato’s Video

As you know, for many months, we have asked serious questions about St. Philip Parish and St. Philip School School finances and Fr. Torquato’s repeated claims that the Parish no longer could subsidize the School. We received no answers, much less an opportunity to meet. But then, late last night, a limited number of St. Philip parishioners received an email including a nearly 10-minute video from Fr. Torquato professing to lay out the Parish’s financial situation and trying to justify his claim that the Parish no longer could support the School financially. It accomplishes neither goal, though it does reconfirm the substantial financial support the Parish is committed to provide to the newly merged school, Guardian Angel Academy. We urge you to keep reading—and to pass this along to everyone you know—because you won’t hear this from anywhere else.

1. Financially stable Parish—or not? After painting a doom-and-gloom demographic picture of the Parish and documenting its decline, Fr. Torquato does a 180-degree pivot at the end and simply declares the Parish is on the road to financial stability and will even be able to expand Parish ministries (except, of course, the most important one of all—the School). But what is that claim based on? The absence of St. Philip School? That can’t be right because the financial turn-around began with the School still open and, as Fr. Torquato acknowledges, the Parish still will have to make a significant subsidy payment to Guardian Angel Academy. Further, none of this accounts for the impact to the Parish if no school reopens at the St. Philip site. Any reasonable person can see that the loss of the School will severely harm the Parish and its future. We certainly don’t wish for this—but that doesn’t mean we think it won’t happen. It surely will. And our collective hearts ache at the thought.

2. Where are the School financials? There’s a glaring omission from Fr. Torquato’s video: any report on the School’s financials for 2019-20 and 2020-21, as well as the preceding years allowing for context. He does provide this information for the Parish, however. Why not for the School? We know why—the School has shown significant financial improvement over the past few years, entirely apart from the federal PPP funds, and is well on its way to eventual financial independence from the Parish. So what we have is a strong School and, according to Fr. Torquato, a stabilizing Parish now obligated to make—and magically, apparently capable of making—what could be a very substantial subsidy payment to the newly merged school.

3. How would the Parish subsidy to St. Philip School for the 2021-22 school year compare to what the Parish now must pay to Guardian Angel Academy? And how can the Parish afford the Guardian Angel subsidy but not a St. Philip School subsidy? Fr. Torquato doesn’t tell us. But it is quite likely that any subsidy to St. Philip School for this coming school year would be less—likely much less—than what the Parish now must pay to Guardian Angel.

4. Double-talk. We’re told regional population and Parish offertory are on continuous declines, so the Parish can’t subsidize the School. But then we’re told the Parish is doing better now that the pandemic is over—and that the Parish CAN support a substantial school subsidy to the newly merged school. So, the Parish is doing worse and better all at the same time—depending on which suits Fr. Torquato’s particular purposes—and it can pay one school’s subsidy but not another’s. Which is it?

5. $185,000 in Parish fundraising for 20-21? How can that be? A nearly 1,000% increase from just $19,000 the previous year? During a pandemic? From what fundraisers? We’re pretty sure this is just opportunistic mixing and matching of Parish and School numbers, since coincidentally $185,000 is right around what the School generated in fundraising this year.

6. Misleading graphics and unsupported claims. These cast additional doubt on Fr. Torquato’s presentation. Early on we see a graphic showing what appears to be enormous population decline in our region between 2000 and 2020. Looking simply at the bars, it would appear we have lost 2/3 of our population. In fact, however, the decline is only 13% as the headline says. Moreover, the great majority of the decline occurred between 2000 and 2010, at a time when the School and Parish were thriving—the minuscule decline since 2010 hardly provides any explanation for supposed financial problems.

Later, we’re told that the Parish and School likely would not have survived the past year had it not been for the “PPP” money received from the federal government. But again, there’s no data provided on the School, and no mention of the many hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Parish savings account that could have been used to stem the tide until the pandemic eased and things improved. Nor is there mention of the incredible amount of fundraising done by School families in the midst of the pandemic—wait, actually there was, but it was described as Parish fundraising. On top of this, the Parish’s financial difficulties over the past 15 months likely resulted primarily from the pandemic, which itself was the reason PPP money was provided—no pandemic = no PPP but also no (or greatly diminished) financial difficulties. And there is no mention why the Parish's most substantial fundraiser, the Fish Fry, was decreased to a limited pick-up only menu option partnered with local restaurants, or why the Parish festival—another substantial fundraiser—was canceled while neighboring parishes held theirs.

Finally, the presentation uses markedly inconsistent data ranges to try to make its points—a 20-year range for population decline, 10 years for mass attendance decline, 5 years for offertory decline, 4 years for Parish financial performance—and zero years for School financials (because, as noted, none are shown). Hardly apples to apples. No doubt using the same date ranges would have undermined Fr. Torquato’s assertions.

7. Who prepared the content of the video, where did the financial data presented come from, and did the Parish Finance Council approve the content?

8. Why is this only coming out now, with hastily prepared and projected 2020-21 fiscal year financials? Remember when we didn’t get 2019-20 fiscal year financials for the Parish until December 2020—nearly 6 months after the end of that fiscal year? And we still have never seen School financials for 2019-20. Yet we’re seeing 2020-21 fiscal year Parish financials just a little over two weeks after the end of that fiscal year (June 30)? Why the rush?

9. Who’s accountable? We would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the elephant in this room—the absence of any accountability for the decline in mass attendance and offertory collections, or any explanation for how Fr. Torquato and the Diocese intend to work to reverse it. Since the parish merger in 2016, our much loved former principal, St. Geri Marr, was pushed out; we were assigned a pastor who admitted to past misconduct; and all we have heard about is the growing storm cloud of school consolidation steaming our way. No wonder Parish growth and School enrollment stagnated. Yet we’re to believe that now, because of temporary financial challenges for the Parish caused by the pandemic, the Parish never again can support the School it gave life to and has supported for 106 years—even though, as Fr. Torquato concludes, the Parish now is on firmer financial footing?

10. Is the long-term plan to extinctively merge our Parish? Months ago, Fr. Torquato stated that our Parish Share requirement was being slashed due to decreases in donations. We told you that this was the beginning of setting the stage for extinguishing St. Philip Parish. The beginning of this video is further setting the stage to say that our Parish—one older than the Diocese itself—is endangered.

We might be accused of caring too much. But that’s far better than caring too little—as evidenced by the title of the video’s egregious misspelling of Philip as “Phillips.” The hallowed name of a parish older than the Diocese itself surely ought not be misspelled. That it is—repeatedly—speaks volumes.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

July 18th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

The Truth Will Set You Free

For nearly 5 months, we have asked Bishop Zubik, Fr. Torquato, and the Diocese numerous questions about St. Philip School and the decision to close it. The questions we have asked are those any reasonable person would expect from the faithful, from generations of good people who attended, taught at, and educated their children at St. Philip School and witnessed firsthand the abundant blessings of an SPS education.

Sadly, we have gotten no answers. Yet we are hopeful that the spirit of compromise and unity will move all interested parties to agree that St. Philip School be opened for instruction next month.

If the Diocese nevertheless declines to open St. Philip School this coming school year, and the Vatican thereafter rules that the Diocese unlawfully closed our School, we wonder: How will the Diocese explain its refusal to open our School NOW to the hundreds of displaced St. Philip School students, parents, and faculty, and the thousands of School supporters? Will the Diocese insist that it genuinely believed its decision was lawful? If that were the case, why has the Diocese never said so and explained why?

We, all of us, have debates and disagreements all the time—at work, at home, at school, in the neighborhood. When we believe we are right, we say so—and we say why. So if the Diocese believes it is right, believes that what it has done here to St. Philip School is lawful, why hasn’t it told us that and explained its reasoning?

We also wonder this: Even if the Diocese does truly believe the closure of our School was lawful, why not suspend the closure right now and allow the School to open next month for instruction? After all, as the Diocese has rightly acknowledged, the Vatican will ultimately decide if the closure was lawful in ruling on our appeals, and the Diocese has said it will abide by the Vatican’s ruling. Suspending the closure would avoid harm to anyone and allow the legal process to effectively run its course to a conclusion.

Some may view us as adversaries of the Diocese. But we are not. We are the faithful, we are practicing and belief-filled Catholics in the Diocese of Pittsburgh who yearn to be in unity with all of our fellow Pittsburgh Catholics, lay and clergy alike. We respect the Bishop and his office, and we respect the priests of the Diocese who advise him and have committed their lives to Christ and his people. But we believe with certitude that canon law was violated here—and that St. Philip School, and all the good it has done and has stood for over this past century, are worth fighting for. Given that, why would anyone expect us to do anything but advocate vigorously for the survival of our treasured School?

We have also heard it suggested that we are just a small group. That is wrong, too. The appeals to save our School are supported by approximately 700 “mandaters”—individuals who signed notarized documents attesting to their support of our legal appeals—in addition to thousands of other individuals who are in favor of keeping our School. This isn’t hyperbole—it’s fact.

The Bishop long has emphasized the Diocese’s commitment to work for unity in the Church, and rightly so. We wholeheartedly support that ideal and we stand at the ready to join the Bishop in working to realize that ideal here in our parish and school communities. But unity is a two-way street and it often requires compromise. We have offered compromise—over and over—but our pleas have been ignored.

So we implore someone at the Diocese to come forward and do the right thing. Millenia ago, St. John the Evangelist clearly marked the path forward here when he wrote those powerful words: “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

Here, the truth is plain to see—our School was illegally closed and it should be opened immediately for the continued benefit of the faithful in Crafton and its surrounding communities.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

July 16th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Inside the Vatican

Friends, in recent days, we have significantly accelerated our legal advocacy on the ground at the Vatican. We have retained well-regarded Italian legal counsel approved to practice before the Congregations and the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and our counsel have already begun to actively press our case before both tribunals.

In recent days, Mr. Wrabley filed a request with Cardinal Stella asking him to further clarify his ruling on alienation of the School, and followed that with an appeal of that ruling to the Supreme Tribunal. The latter appeal explicitly asks the Supreme Tribunal to suspend Bishop Zubik’s decision to close our School.

Suffice to say, this only begins to capture the lengths to which we are going to save our School. We won’t stop until we do.

In the meantime, we call on the Bishop and the Diocese to open enrollment for St. Philip School for the upcoming school year.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

July 10th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Thank You—And Pressing Forward In Rome

We first want to thank all of you again for your prayers and your support over these last 5 months—they certainly have been grueling and frustrating for so many of us who love our School and know how uniquely special its contributions to our families and the broader community of faith have been over the last century. But you have not wavered in your belief that St. Philip School should and must be saved. We can’t tell you how inspiring that has been, and we know that belief, that spirit, will live on no matter how the current disagreement is resolved.

We also want to thank you for your financial support of the St. Joseph Foundation, without which we would be left with just the many words we have written—but that the Bishop and the Diocese refuse to hear. Soon, we will be asking you for more financial support and we will explain why. We hope, we know, really, that those who are able will rise to that occasion.

The reality we face is plain: we simply cannot allow the Diocese to continue to “do business” the way it has done it here in trying to erase the legacy of St. Philip School. It tries to justify its decision, as it does so often in closing our parishes, churches, and schools, with pleas of supposed financial distress, but then spends hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars of our hard-earned money refurbishing closed schools into “parish” or “pastoral” centers—for the benefit of whom?

The Diocese also acknowledges that the Vatican will decide the merits of our appeals, and even recently said it will abide by the Holy See’s rulings, but then it defies one of those very rulings by taking property out of our School, knowing that there isn’t a Vatican “police” force here in Pittsburgh to stop it.

The Diocese’s decisions regarding St. Philip School also do real harm to the laity, most especially the schoolchildren, many of whom are dislocated from the only school they have ever known. In so doing, the Diocese ignores and diminishes the countless and unrecognized works of so many of the faithful who, with their own blood, sweat and tears, built and sustained our School, not for wealth or fame but for their children, grandchildren, and generations to come, driven by their heartfelt desire to give glory to God through their extraordinary commitment. These are the people, and theirs are the sacrifices, that our School embodies—and that we cannot ever forget. They spur us on every day. As do you.

We have said it before and we will say it again—our Catholic faith is our faith, each and every believing woman’s, man’s, and child’s. It is not the exclusive property of Bishop Zubik, our parish priest, a cardinal, or even Pope Francis. It is both theirs and ours—not belonging to one more than the other. How the self-appointed leaders of our Church choose to administer the faith on earth is very much our business. The people have a voice and they should use it—respectfully but bravely.

In the meantime, we continue to press our legal appeals forward in Rome with new filings and new evidence, even as we continue to explore every possible legal option available to us. And we continue to work on plans to reopen our School next month.

We will stay the course.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

July 2th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Diocese Admits Taking Property From School—Which Cardinal Stella Ruled Belongs To Our Parish

In statements made to the Tribune-Review in an article published today (“Committee to Save St. Philip School, Pittsburgh diocese clash over items removed from building”), the Diocese of Pittsburgh admits that it took property out of the St. Philip School building yesterday, and refuses to acknowledge Cardinal Stella’s ruling that all “ecclesiastical goods” of the School belong to St. Philip Parish. Indeed, the ruling makes clear that no property has been taken by or given to the South Region Catholic Elementary Schools, Inc. (SRCES), either “canonically or civilly.”

The Diocese’s statement says that Cardinal Stella denied Mr. Wrabley’s petition, but it conveniently ignores the heart of the Cardinal’s ruling that the Parish owns the School and all its contents. Nor does the Diocese make any effort to explain how its admitted removal of property can be reconciled with the Cardinal’s ruling.

Instead, the Diocese claims it removed “government” property and did so consistent with “government regulations.”

So, let’s get this straight. The Diocese is acting as an agent of the government, pursuant to civil regulations, and carrying out a seizure of property from a parish school. The Diocese further claims—without any support or even a word from the “government” itself—that the property it has taken belongs to the government, even though a Cardinal Prefect at the Vatican has ruled the property belongs to the Parish, both “canonically” and “civilly.” And the Diocese is carrying out this mission even though, as the Diocesan director of canonical services himself acknowledges, we do not yet have a ruling from the Vatican on whether our School was lawfully closed in the first place. What could possibly happen next?

In the meantime, the Diocese’s statement only raises more questions. What “government” allegedly owns the removed property? Did that “government” authorize the Diocese/SRCES to take that property? Why would the government have the Diocese take care of its property? What property was removed? Where was the property taken and where is it now? Why did the SRCES wait until the very first day after Principal Dougherty’s contract expired to conduct its clandestine operation? And why did the SRCES personnel tell the Crafton Police Chief yesterday that they were inventorying items when, mere minutes after the Chief departed the School, several individuals began hurriedly taking numerous pieces of equipment and boxes of materials out of the School, loading them into their vehicles, and driving away with the property to an undisclosed location? “Inventory” is not the same as “take.”

Yesterday’s events and comments are, unfortunately, fully in line with the lack of transparency, full honesty, and Christian charity from the Diocese, the SRCES and St. Philip Pastor Fr. Torquato that has marred this entire school merger process.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

June 30th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Vatican Rules St. Philip School Not Taken By SRCES, Belongs To Our Parish

The “ecclesiastical goods” of St. Philip School belong to St. Philip Parish and have not been taken by or given to the South Region Catholic Elementary Schools, Inc. (SRCES), either “canonically or civilly,” according to a ruling in a recent letter from Beniamino Cardinal Stella, Prefect for the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy, to Mr. Colin Wrabley.

Among our appeals to the Vatican is our challenge to what appeared to be the Diocese’s claim, back in March 2021, that it had “alienated,” or taken, St. Philip School. Later statements by the Diocese seemed to cast doubt on that claim. Those statements, in turn, likely are what led to Cardinal Stella’s conclusion that there was no taking, so there was no need to award us the relief we sought in our appeal. Cardinal Stella in no way even suggested, however, that, had the Diocese in fact taken the School, that taking would have been lawful under canon law—it clearly would not have been.

Further, Cardinal Stella’s ruling makes a point to note that our appeal of the closure of the School remains under examination for decision by Cardinal Versaldi and the Congregation for Catholic Education. In that appeal, we argue, consistent with Cardinal Stella’s ruling, that St. Philip School is the property of St. Philip Parish—indeed, Cardinal Stella refers to it as “St. Philip Parish School.” Therefore, we argue further, under canon law, the School could not lawfully be closed or merged without a proper process involving the knowledge and consent of the Parish and the parishioners—a process that, as admitted by the Diocese, did not occur here.

Obviously, the SRCES, which had no ownership or control of our School, could not close it. And the SRCES’s recommendation to do so—which, according to Bishop Zubik’s March 17 letter to the St. Philip community, was the basis for his decision to close our School—should not have been given a shred of weight.

We continue to await a ruling from the Congregation for Catholic Education and we ask for your ongoing prayers that the fair and just outcome is reached.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

June 16th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

With New Evidence Further Demonstrating the Unlawful Closing of St. Philip School, a Third Appeal is Elevated to Rome

A new appeal aimed at reversing the alienation and closure of St. Philip School, now on its way to the Holy See in Rome, sheds further and disturbing light on a deeply flawed and canonically invalid process.

This third appeal to the Vatican follows 90 days of silence from the Bishop relating to a March 3 petition sent by Mr. Wrabley on behalf of nearly 700 interested parties. The petition, set forth in a conciliatory letter from Mr. Wrabley, asked the Bishop to revoke or suspend the alienation and “extinctive merger” of the School and enter into dialogue aimed at “avoiding litigation and resolving the dispute.”

To recap, the Committee’s first appeal asks the Vatican to overturn the decision to close the School due to several well-documented violations of canon law. The second appeal aims at reversing the seizure of the School from St. Philip Parish, which also violated settled canonical processes. Both appeals are currently under review in Rome.

With this new appeal, Mr. Wrabley presents further evidence of a process that the Committee believes was orchestrated to arrive at a pre-determined decision, including:



• The manipulation of financial data to show that St. Philip Parish and School supposedly were in dire financial condition when in fact they were not—and are not;

• The Diocesan pattern of closing schools and churches through mergers that benefit more affluent communities to the detriment of underserved families, children and communities;

• The plan of the Diocese, through the SRCES, to remove property from the School which the Diocese admits it does not own;

• Continued, multiple refusals of the Bishop to speak or meet with the Committee and our counsel, Mr. Philip Gray, JCL, to reach an amicable agreement; and

• The extensive—and expensive—facility improvements needed at the selected school location that would not be required at the St. Philip School building.

"As we’ve said from the beginning, we’re confident in the merits of our arguments and we’re hopeful that the Vatican will agree,” Mr. Wrabley said. “St. Philip School is a unique and irreplaceable blessing that serves families from across the socioeconomic spectrum. We will leave absolutely no stone unturned in ensuring that St. Philip School continues its mission for future generations—and that the Diocese will come to realize that the decisions it is making about our parishes and schools, and the way it is making them, must change if we are to grow and strengthen the Church in Western Pennsylvania

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

June 16th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

With New Evidence Further Demonstrating the Unlawful Closing of St. Philip School, a Third Appeal is Elevated to Rome

A new appeal aimed at reversing the alienation and closure of St. Philip School, now on its way to the Holy See in Rome, sheds further and disturbing light on a deeply flawed and canonically invalid process.

This third appeal to the Vatican follows 90 days of silence from the Bishop relating to a March 3 petition sent by Mr. Wrabley on behalf of nearly 700 interested parties. The petition, set forth in a conciliatory letter from Mr. Wrabley, asked the Bishop to revoke or suspend the alienation and “extinctive merger” of the School and enter into dialogue aimed at “avoiding litigation and resolving the dispute.”

To recap, the Committee’s first appeal asks the Vatican to overturn the decision to close the School due to several well-documented violations of canon law. The second appeal aims at reversing the seizure of the School from St. Philip Parish, which also violated settled canonical processes. Both appeals are currently under review in Rome.

With this new appeal, Mr. Wrabley presents further evidence of a process that the Committee believes was orchestrated to arrive at a pre-determined decision, including:



• The manipulation of financial data to show that St. Philip Parish and School supposedly were in dire financial condition when in fact they were not—and are not;

• The Diocesan pattern of closing schools and churches through mergers that benefit more affluent communities to the detriment of underserved families, children and communities;

• The plan of the Diocese, through the SRCES, to remove property from the School which the Diocese admits it does not own;

• Continued, multiple refusals of the Bishop to speak or meet with the Committee and our counsel, Mr. Philip Gray, JCL, to reach an amicable agreement; and

• The extensive—and expensive—facility improvements needed at the selected school location that would not be required at the St. Philip School building.

"As we’ve said from the beginning, we’re confident in the merits of our arguments and we’re hopeful that the Vatican will agree,” Mr. Wrabley said. “St. Philip School is a unique and irreplaceable blessing that serves families from across the socioeconomic spectrum. We will leave absolutely no stone unturned in ensuring that St. Philip School continues its mission for future generations—and that the Diocese will come to realize that the decisions it is making about our parishes and schools, and the way it is making them, must change if we are to grow and strengthen the Church in Western Pennsylvania

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

June 15th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Appeal to Bishop Zubik Aims to Halt “Theft” of Property from the St. Philip School Building

Noting that the Diocese’s Vicar for Canonical Services, Fr. Thomas Kunz, recently stated in a letter that the SRCES does not own the materials and property in the St. Philip School building, Mr. Colin Wrabley today filed an appeal with Bishop Zubik, requesting that he direct the SRCES to cease and desist in removing any property from the School. Any such removal, the appeal states, “would amount to trespass, conversion, theft—or all of the above.”

As you know, this is not the first time the Committee to Save St. Philip School has raised concerns about the fate of the valuable property still remaining in the School—and asked the Bishop to ensure its safekeeping in the School building while the Committee’s appeals run their course in Rome. Yet to date, neither the Bishop nor anyone else at the Diocese has responded to us and our reasonable and straightforward requests.

Today’s appeal also asks the Bishop to “identify who is acting on your behalf in all matters concerning the closure of St. Philip School.” The question was prompted by the fact that Fr. Kunz’s recent letter did not purport to speak on the Bishop’s behalf. It also followed from the fact that, when the Committee’s advocate, Mr. Philip Gray, recently attempted to initiate a phone conversation with the Bishop, a Diocesan staff member responded surprisingly that “the Bishop is not handling that issue (i.e., the St. Philip School closure).” That’s certainly news to us.

We’ll have more to report very soon as we await a decision from the Vatican and continue to exercise the canonical legal rights of the thousands of supporters of St. Philip School.

Friends—keep the faith!

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

June 10th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

How Could The Diocese Close Such A Thriving School?

Those of us who truly know St. Philip School know how unique and special it is—we need no further proof of it. But if more were needed, consider this, which only begins to scratch the surface:



• Two 2017 St. Philip School graduates were named valedictorians of their 2021 graduating classes at Bishop Canevin and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) High Schools, and one, a Central Catholic graduate, was named a National Merit Finalist.

• Many St. Philip School graduates finished their high school tenures this year ranked academically at the very top of their classes at several outstanding area high schools, including Bishop Canevin, Central Catholic, OLSH, and likely others—just as so many St. Philip School graduates have before them at those schools, Oakland Catholic, Montour, Carlynton, and others.

• Numerous St. Philip School graduates will enroll in prestigious colleges and universities in the fall, many with the support of significant scholarships and financial awards achieved through their academic, athletic, civic and other accomplishments while in high school.

• Several St. Philip School graduates have been admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy, serving their country with distinction and even training future fighter pilots.

• The honor rolls at area high schools and Dean’s lists at colleges across the country routinely overflow with the names of St. Philip School graduates—far too many to count.

• Our St. Philip School students consistently earn scholarships to local high schools based on their performance at St. Philip School.

• Year after year, as far back as we can remember, at least one St. Philip School student has received the prestigious Carson Scholarship, and many have received Junior Achievement scholarships—this year included.

• This year alone, St. Philip School graduates from the past four years—both girls and boys—played critical roles for area high school teams that qualified for the WPIAL and PIAA playoffs in numerous sports, won WPIAL soccer and basketball championship games, and even captured a PIAA state basketball championship. Many St. Philip School graduates also secured numerous medals at the WPIAL track championships and qualified for the PIAA state track championship meet.

• One 2017 St. Philip School graduate, who will play high-level college basketball starting this fall, was named for the second year in a row to the first team all-state boys basketball team for Class AA.

• Our St. Philip School graduates consistently stand out, not only for their accomplishments but, more importantly, for their high character and the example they set for those around them—in high school and beyond.

• Three of our current St. Philip School soccer teams won Diocesan championships this past spring season, another finished as Diocesan runner-up, still others had very successful end-of-season tournament runs, and many of our individual players were named to the Diocesan all-tournament teams.

• Our St. Philip School track and field team captured numerous medals at the recent Diocesan track and field championships and several athletes broke Diocesan championship meet records, including an eighth-grader who ran a sub-5-minute mile.

If past is prologue, we can only imagine the future feats today’s 200-plus St. Philip School students will accomplish. One would think every stone would be unturned to ensure that all of us—and our society more broadly—would get to see and benefit from them. Instead, we get machinations aimed at squelching them.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

June 8th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Where were the Bishop and Diocesan Leaders Today?

Why weren’t you at St. Philip School today for what, if you get your way, is its last day ever? How about you, Fr. Torquato? Why did you hurry away from the School before 8 o’clock this morning rather than stay to console your people on such a heart-wrenching day? And why weren’t you present on Friday for the end-of-year School picnic?

Where were any of you to witness the unnecessary, unjust, unconscionable pain you caused over 200 students, their parents and teachers by marking our school for extinction? Could you not stand to see the tears for yourself or are you afraid of the very people you claim to be serving?

None of you were here today to see what you’ve done. But of course, none of you have ever stood before our children and all of us previously and explained your despicable decision to close our School or tried to defend how it was lawful. We deserve far, far better than this from the leaders of our Diocese—and we demand it. It is, after all, our faith and our Church, not yours alone.

Sadly, however, our Diocesan leaders’ “superiority complex” is the very cause of the crisis in our Pittsburgh Catholic community—the mindset of our leaders that the faith is theirs, that they have some special claim to it, some right to decide “winners” and “losers.” Of course, they don’t, and it is high time all Catholics in Pittsburgh stand up and say so.

The purported “financial difficulty” and other duplicitous rationales for the closure of our School have long since been thoroughly debunked and discredited. So we ask again—what was really driving the decisions to assign us a pastor with a questionable past and who patently did not want a school, and then close our thriving School? What do you all have in store for the School building and our Parish?

Will anyone in the Diocese stand up and answer? Anyone? After all these months of asking, we are still waiting for someone with the courage to tell us the truth.

In the meantime, we’ll keep working as long as it takes to ensure that this was NOT the last day ever for St. Philip School.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

June 7th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Dear St. Philip School Parents and Supporters,

As this St. Philip School year reaches its conclusion, we wanted to say a few things to the St. Philip School community and all those who have supported the effort to keep St. Philip School open. We know how heart-wrenching the past several months have been for all of you, seemingly worsened with each passing day as we learn more about the unfairness and injustice of the decision to close our treasured School. In particular, we know how trying these days are and will be for St. Philip School faculty—forced to make serious career decisions—and parents of current and prospective St. Philip School students—forced to decide where to enroll their children next school year. We are walking this very challenging path with all of you, and there is nothing we want more for all of you than a clear future where St. Philip School carries on its mission of educating the next generation of young children in our communities in the faith.

And please know this—we believe, more than we have at any time since our efforts began all those months ago, that we will win our appeals in Rome and that St. Philip School will rise again. We also believe that the decision may very well come in the next few months. And when it does, we have every intention of opening St. Philip School for the 2021-22 school year—and with your help, to do everything possible to make the coming school year the greatest our school has ever had.

Critically, though, we need your continued help and effort. We need—we ask—all of you to remain hopeful and committed to the cause. Don’t give up hope. Don’t despair. We have only just begun to fight. And our cause—the cause of the thousands of people who support St. Philip School, the cause of preserving an institution that has done as much as any in our region to instill and pass on the Catholic faith to our children for over a century—is truly right and just.

We all know that St. Philip School is unique and special. It is far from just a school. It is a community of faith committed to passing on the love for Jesus and an understanding of how to live his example in our lives. It is a legacy of faith handed down across many generations of the faithful, now scattered across the globe but always with the shared bond of St. Philip School. We owe it not just to our own children and grandchildren, but to those many generations who sustained the school through very tough times, when its very existence was threatened. If anything is worth fighting for, it certainly is St. Philip School.

But even more importantly than saving our School is saving the faith itself through the fires we are now enduring. Hold fast to your own faith. Do not let it be taken from you or weakened, trampled by the unjust acts of men, our religious leaders. Your faith is not dependent on them, nor is it theirs to give and take at their whim. It is yours. It is ours. That is God’s fundamental promise. No matter what happens in the months ahead—no matter what men may decide about the fate of our School—that cannot and should not change. Do not let them take from you what God Himself has given.

So we implore you to recommit yourselves to prayer, that the Almighty will hear our heartfelt pleas, see that justice is done, and strengthen our faith in these trying times in our Church.

We are ALL in this together!

The Committee to Save St. Philip School

May 28th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Bishop Zubik—When Are You Going To Tell Us How Your Closure Of Our School Was Legal?

Following the February announcement that St. Philip School would close, nearly 700 St. Philip parishioners, benefactors, and supporters appealed the decision under canon law—an almost unprecedented groundswell of support for such an effort. Remember the first thing the Diocese said in response? It said it didn’t have to follow canon law because canon law didn’t govern the “closure” of a parish school.

A few weeks later, the Diocese changed its tune, claiming our School was only “merge[d],” not actually closed.

Then, a few weeks after that, the Diocese did a 180 altogether, telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the closure of St. Philip School was in fact “made in keeping with canon law.”

So Bishop, what is the Diocese’s actual position? And if it’s that the Diocese followed canon law, then we ask again—how so? Tell your people. If you truly believed that what you did here was legal, there would be no reason to stay quiet.

Maybe—likely—the Diocese’s strategy is to string all of this along, hoping that a ruling from the Vatican ordering our School to be opened comes so far into the future that we won’t be able to revive our School. Think again. Our School has been around for 106 years. And there are thousands of people, more really, that have such a deep and enduring love for the School that they—we—will stop at nothing to reopen it and rekindle the spirit of the Sisters of Charity and so many others who selflessly served the School and its students for more than a century. If only the Diocese would model the Sisters of Charity!

Time after time, we have asked the Bishop to suspend the decision and keep our School open until the Vatican decides our appeal. The Diocese itself has acknowledged—as it must—that the Vatican will decide if our appeal has merit. We know the Vatican is taking the matter seriously—Cardinal Versaldi himself, who oversees Catholic education worldwide, said so in his May 4 personal letter to Mr. Wrabley.

So why aren’t Bishop Zubik and the Diocese taking our appeal seriously? Do they think themselves superior to Cardinal Versaldi and the Holy See? And how can they sit back and watch the grave harm and displacement—of people, of families, of children—knowing that the Vatican, someday soon, may say they broke canon law from the start and must reopen our School? How?

Bishop Zubik and the clergy of this Diocese—your people want answers. How long are you going to stonewall them?

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

May 27th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

What About The COVID Relief Money?

Remember when we told you that St. Philip Parish and School received over $300,000 in federal COVID relief (PPP) last year? Money never accounted for in the Parish financial report for 2019-20 that showed a $150,000 Parish deficit, which then was used to support Fr. Torquato’s baseless sky-is-falling predictions that the Parish would run out of money by June?

Now there’s more.

In March of this year, or likely earlier than that, the SRCES applied for and later received its own big chunk of PPP money, likely far in excess of $1 million. Have you heard about that? And, as we understand it, the SRCES used schools it is closing—including St. Philip, St. Elizabeth and their faculties who soon will lose their jobs—to increase the amount of PPP money it was asking for, and then received.

How is the SRCES going to spend its new riches? As we understand it, a portion will be allocated to St. Philip to help pay for current faculty salaries through the end of August. But that will only further reduce what Fr. Torquato menacingly called that “very high” school subsidy that supposedly threatened the very existence of the Parish. His constant fear-mongering about the Parish’s dire financial condition was just that. And utterly baseless.

One may say, well, there would have been financial trouble without the PPP. No kidding. The pandemic hit everyone. The first round of PPP compensated for any Parish shortfall in its subsidy obligation to the School caused by the pandemic. But without the pandemic, there’s no Parish shortfall. And even with the pandemic, the School was in sound financial condition—it is even poised to surpass its fundraising goal this year by nearly $25,000!

All of us—thousands of St. Philip faithful—still wait for answers that the Diocese and our Pastor simply refuse to give. The fact of the matter is—and it deeply saddens us to say it—no institution, including the Catholic Church, can continue to act this way toward its own people and expect them to remain in the fold. If you’re wondering why people keep leaving the Church in droves, this entire St. Philip School closure experience is Exhibit A.

When will the Bishop and the Diocese realize this? We pray that they will before it’s too late.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

May 26th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Fr. Torquato’s Baseless Claim That St. Philip

Would Run Out Of Money By June 30

Remember when Fr. Torquato said the Parish “will be entirely out of reserve funds by June 30” and tried to blame it on what he called “a possible $250,000 school subsidy”? Just a few weeks before the February 12 decision to close St. Philip School? Then, immediately after the closure decision was announced, when he claimed the “very high” school subsidy had “depleted our parish’s financial reserves” and simply couldn’t be continued if our Parish were to survive?

Father, more than three months later, are we almost out of reserves?

We highly doubt that we’re even close—or that we were several months ago when you made your claims. Did you know that at the time? It’s hard to imagine you didn’t. And what did Diocesan officials have to say about the Parish’s current financial condition in the meeting this past Monday night? The one attended by you and the Finance and Pastoral Councils? When do you and the Finance and Pastoral Councils plan to tell all your parishioners how much of their money the Parish currently has in its bank accounts and what financial condition their Parish is in? They are entitled to know.

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

May 25th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Vatican Confirms Its Examination Of Appeal Of Closure Of St. Philip School, While The Bishop And Diocese Continue Their Campaign Of Silence

Yesterday, Mr. Wrabley received a letter from Cardinal Versaldi, Prefect for the Congregation for Catholic Education, confirming that he and his staff have for weeks been examining our appeal of the closure of St. Philip School and will do so within the timeframe set by canon law.

Yesterday, Mr. Wrabley also received a letter from the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, confirming that our most recent appeal of the seizure of the School has been sent by diplomatic pouch to the Holy See for a decision.

The effort to save our School is fully alive and well.

So, even while a Cardinal Prefect in Rome and the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States provide regular and respectful responses to us, Bishop Zubik and this Diocese continue to outright ignore their faithful. They won’t even confirm that property in St. Philip School paid for by the generous donations of many SPS faculty and living and deceased SPS benefactors will not be unlawfully taken. No respect. What a shame.

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

May 24th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Has Anyone Seen the FY ’19-’20 School Financials?

Here we are, almost to the end of fiscal year 2020-21. Where is the St. Philip School financial report for fiscal year 2019-2020? You know — the one that supposedly would show the dire financial state of our School and presumably would have been considered by the SRCES Board in recommending that our School be closed?

Has anyone seen it? Wonder why?

If the numbers were as bad as Father Torquato, Father Poecking, the Bishop and the Diocese claim they were, why haven’t they shown them to us as proof of the need to close our school for “financial reasons”?

What are they hiding?

We are ALL in this together!

Committee to Save St. Philip School

May 20th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Bishop Names “New” School but Still Hasn’t

Confirmed that the Diocese Won’t Confiscate

Property from the St. Philip School Building

Friends, yesterday, with pretend fanfare, the Diocese issued a statement announcing the naming of the newly merged school. It says nothing about our appeals of the closure and seizure of St. Philip School. Nor does it mention our appeal of the SRCES's planned taking of property from the School or affirm that no one will remove property from the School while our appeals to the Vatican are pending. As if ignoring all of this and simply naming the new school will somehow make us and our appeals go away. They won’t.

Think about this: imagine if the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania decided to try to close, say, Mt. Lebanon High School over the opposition of thousands of Mt. Lebanon residents and without their consent, merge it with Keystone Oaks High School, and then ransack Mt. Lebanon and distribute its property to Keystone Oaks and other public school districts—even though the Commonwealth didn’t own that property or have authority to close and merge the schools. Or just insert your school districts of choice into the hypothetical. That’s what’s happening to St. Philip School and those responsible need to be held to account.

As for the contrived enthusiasm of the Diocese, it is plain as day. The Diocese and the SRCES try to portray 202 registered students at the new school as a positive sign. That borders on the absurd—it is fewer students than St. Philip School has right now! And the truth is, it is far from certain that many of those registered will actually enroll in the new school come August.

To be crystal clear, this is the opposite of what we want and are working to achieve. We have never advocated that people not register for the new school. Rather, what we want and envision is a school with 300-400 students (or more!), with the St. Philip School building used to house it. We know that St. Philip School has the building that can accommodate that number of students, while also providing all the space needed for special STEAM and other enrichment. The School has dedicated rooms for computer, STEAM, band and art instruction, as well as a library and science lab with equipment. The Diocese’s own website touts our Catholic schools as places to receive a state-of-the-art education because of the “state-of-the-art facilities, stem labs and classrooms, visual and performing arts venues, small class sizes, and beautiful and safe campus environments.” So again, why is St. Philip School—which meets each of these criteria—being closed?

That the new school may have 40% fewer students than the two merged schools right off the bat, however, is not a surprise to the Diocese—it is precisely what the Diocese’s own data tell them will happen! Dave Poecking, the architect of this sordid decision, said so himself in meetings with our peer

parents last fall.

In an email to Mr. Wrabley last month, the Bishop informed that he would not suspend the merger because he was concerned about ensuring a Catholic elementary school option in this particular part of the “South” region. But how is the Diocese growing and strengthening Catholic education in the region by

knowingly and effectively ejecting 40% of students out of the Catholic school system and into public schools or the like? Obviously it isn’t.

Bishop Zubik—suspending the merger and reopening our School building is, in fact, exactly what you would, and should, do if you were really concerned about preserving Catholic education in our Crafton/Greentree/West Pittsburgh communities and looking after the needs of the faithful.

The Bishop also refused to suspend the merger because he didn’t want to “undermine” the work of the SRCES Board. So what he does is favor a 19-member board—several of whom have resigned in recent months—to the great detriment of hundreds of schoolchildren and thousands of faithful. And let’s be clear—the decision not only disadvantages St. Philip students. It disadvantages St. Margaret students as well, who will be deprived of all the curricular benefits that can only be provided by keeping the St. Philip School building open.

One final message to the local media: throughout this process, we have provided compelling evidence of the unlawfulness and unfairness of the decision to close St. Philip School. We have detailed the grave harm that this decision has done to our Parish and, if left to stand, to our communities—especially to families living below the poverty line. The Diocese does not feel obligated to answer our many questions. As has been the case for many years, it believes itself above accountability to the faithful. Maybe it will be accountable to you. We implore you to look at the evidence, to dig into the facts, and to press the Diocese for answers.

We will stay the course and continue to pray for the just resolution of our cause—we know all of you will, too. The Diocese has tested our faith many times before. But our faith is not in the Diocese or any bishop or priest—it is in Jesus Christ and the redemptive power of his Resurrection. Hold fast to that no matter what comes our way in the weeks and months ahead.

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

May 13th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Second Appeal Escalated to Vatican: Committee Asks

Rome to Strike Down SRCES

Takeover of St. Philip School

Citing “invalid alienation of parish patrimony,” Mr. Colin Wrabley yesterday advanced an appeal by the Committee to Save St. Philip School to Rome, asking for the Vatican to “restore St. Philip Parish School to the patrimony of St. Philip Parish.”

The appeal is the Committee’s second to arrive at the Vatican. The first, filed in March, asked to revoke the decision of Bishop Zubik to extinctively merge St. Philip School into St. Margaret of Scotland School after the Bishop rejected the Committee’s formal request that he do so himself. In that rejection, the Bishop claimed that “St. Philip School is not a program of Saint Philip Parish and has not been since its inclusion in the South Regional Catholic Elementary Schools, Inc. on July 1, 2020.”

“That was the first time that the Diocese publicly revealed that the School had been taken from the Parish,” according to the Committee. “The SRCES had been positioned as having an administrative role, not complete ownership and control. This clear violation of canon law is why we filed a second appeal with the Bishop.”

This appeal, too, was rejected by the Bishop on the stated grounds that the physical (temporal) property of the School—including the actual building—were not alienated from the Parish in the transfer to the SRCES.

“Their argument is that they took away all school management from the Parish, they took away all school decision-making, they took away hiring and firing teachers and every aspect of operating a school including whether or not to keep it open, but since they didn’t take the building, they didn’t take the School itself. It’s an absurd proposition,” the Committee added. “The School is recognized ‘patrimony’ of the Parish—indeed, it is the heartbeat of the Parish, integral now, as it has been for over a century, to the life and faith of the St. Philip community.”

This latest appeal argues that removing the School from Parish patrimony would have required consultation of the Pastor with parishioners, School officials, and parents of students, as well as with donors, particularly those who had made restrictive donations, adding that “No such consultations occurred.” It would also require the consent of the Parish finance council, the Diocesan finance council, the college of consulters, and parishioners, families, and faculty/staff. Again, “No such consent was given, and no consultation was made as expected in [canon] law.”

The appeal goes on to say that “The act of alienation outside a legitimate process in law…violates the necessary trust that must be exemplified by a Pastor and a Bishop. If we cannot trust our Pastor and Bishop to fulfill their duties for the good of souls, then who can we trust?”

Also, in contradiction of the Bishop’s claim that no physical property was transferred to Diocesan ownership, the Committee learned last week of SRCES plans to inventory and remove items from St. Philip School at the end of the school year, including a state-of-the-art wi-fi/internet system that was installed less than a year ago at a cost of nearly $25,000. On May 7th, the Committee formally appealed to the Diocese to cease and desist. Having received no response to this request, Mr. Wrabley sent an urgent petition to the Vatican for emergency relief to stop the Diocese and SRCES from taking any property out of the St. Philip School building.

“This is just another example of the Bishop and the Diocese disregarding fundamental fairness and the law, then turning a deaf ear to the legitimate concerns of the Committee and the thousands of parishioners, alumni and parents we represent,” the Committee added. “This is not the way it is supposed to work in the Catholic Church, and we will not stand by and accept such actions. This is our School and Parish, and our faith is telling us to stand up and defend both.”

The Committee remains confident that the decision from Rome will be in their favor. “If and when it is, and the Vatican says the Bishop and Diocese must restore the School to full operation, how will the Bishop and the Diocese justify their actions—and all the pain, suffering, and displacement they have caused—in breaking canon law? That’s a question we’ve asked again and again, and still we have no answer.”

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

May 11th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Committee Pursues All Possible Avenues To Save St. Philip School

Friends, earlier today, Mr. Wrabley faxed an extraordinary petition to the Vatican seeking emergency relief to stop the Bishop, the SRCES, and any other diocesan official from taking any property out of the St. Philip School building. That petition became necessary when, yet again, neither the Bishop nor the Diocese responded to another of our requests—that they publicly affirm, consistent with the Diocese’s April 28 letter to Mr. Wrabley, that they will not remove any property from the St. Philip School building. And that is why we continue to seriously explore other legal avenues to stop the abusive and unlawful tactics of the Diocese.

It is simply unbelievable and indefensible that the Bishop and the Diocese continue to routinely ignore us and our reasonable questions and requests—“us” meaning the thousands of mandaters, parishioners, and supporters of the effort to save our School. When friends of other religious faiths hear the story of our collective fight to save our School, they are mystified and astonished that our shepherds and leaders have turned a deaf ear to their people. They really can’t believe it. After all this time, we still can’t either.

In the coming days, the Committee will file a second appeal to the Vatican—this one from the Bishop’s unconsented-to and unjustified alienation of St. Philip School from St. Philip Parish. That appeal will include a further request that the Congregations for Clergy and Catholic Education suspend the Bishop’s decision pending a final decision of our appeals.

Please know that we will leave no stone unturned in our effort to overturn the Bishop’s deeply harmful and clearly unlawful decisions—and to expose the decisions, and the process by which they were recommended and made, for what they are: a travesty, pure and simple.

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

May 7th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Closing of St. Philip School is the

Latest Example of the

Diocese Following the Money

Since the Diocese’s “Church Alive” effort began, the vast majority of school closings and extinctive mergers have benefited higher-income communities over lower-income communities, regardless of enrollment or amenities, according to evidence compiled in the closing appeal of St. Philip School.

“Almost without exception, these decisions reward higher-income communities at the expense of lower-income parishes and families,” said the Committee to Save St. Philip School.

“Ours is among the most glaring examples: the median household income of Crafton is $52,449, while that of Greentree stands at $84,952."

The attached chart, in the link below, demonstrates a clear pattern of the Diocese abandoning the areas where an “affordable and accessible” education is needed most. WHEN WILL IT END? WHO WILL STAND UP AND STOP IT?

Local Mergers Closures Chart



While the Diocese pays lip-service to a concern for the poor, its actions tell a different story. “20% of St. Philip School students are from families at or below

the poverty line. For many of these families, St. Philip is the only viable educational option. That’s being taken away by the Diocese, and none of the reasons it cites hold up to even the most minimal scrutiny. Plain and simple, it follows the money. Again.”

Only yesterday, we saw yet another example with the announced closure of Holy Spirit Academy in New Castle—the last remaining Catholic elementary school in all of Lawrence County—where the median household income is less than $34,000.

This is especially troubling in light of Pope Francis’s emphasis on the need “always” to take “into account the whole person, both in the present generation and the ones to come[,]” and pursue actions and policies “that leave[] no one behind, that discard[] none of our brothers and sisters[.]” That, he says, “is a noble aspiration, worthy of []our best efforts.” So it is.

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

May 6th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Diocese Says It Never “Alienated” The St. Philip School Building Or Its Many Valuable Contents—The Bishop Must Therefore Ensure That The Contents Of The Building Be Preserved And Not Removed

In an April 28 letter to Mr. Wrabley, the Diocese communicated Bishop Zubik’s decision to deny the Committee’s appeal of his seizure (“alienation”) of St. Philip School. We have 15 days to appeal to Rome, and we are well on our way to completing that appeal—as well as a supplemental submission and evidence supporting our prior appeal of the School’s closure.

The April 28 letter, not authored or signed by the Bishop, is just more distortion and misdirection. It argues that we filed our alienation appeal too late—presumably because, unbeknownst to anyone in the St. Philip community, as our nearly 200 affidavits prove, the alienation was executed in July 2020. But that ignores the fact that the Bishop once again failed to issue any formal decree when he seized the School from the parish—as canon law requires—and never explained that that is what he was doing. Nor did he inform the faithful of St. Philip that they had a right to appeal—as canon law also requires.

In other words—the Bishop (i) does severe and irreparable harm to the St. Philip community and thousands upon thousands of members and benefactors, for whom he is supposed to be their shepherd; (ii) doesn’t tell any of them about it—not even the schoolchildren, their families, and the faculty and staff of the School; and (iii) on top of that, he doesn’t tell them they have legal rights to appeal his ruling to the Vatican, as he’s required to do.

Additionally, the April 28 letter goes on to claim that the Diocese has not in fact “alienated”—that is, taken control or ownership of—the “physical” St. Philip “school building” or the “temporal goods” contained in it. Of course, the Diocese couldn’t do that under canon law. Nor does the Diocese’s claim have anything to do with our legal argument, which is that the School itself has been taken. The Diocese’s letter is careful to avoid even mentioning this, let alone disputing it—because it can’t. And we are confident the Vatican will agree with our argument—and resoundingly reject the unlawful and improper usurpation of our School from our Parish. So we forge ahead.

As for the “goods” presently in the School building, they include valuable and even priceless equipment, furnishings, and other items, much of which were donated or purchased with donations given so generously to our School over many decades. Many of the benefactors who made these donations have now passed on, their legacy preserved—among many other ways—in the incredible charity they extended to our School over the years. We care deeply about those benefactors, many of whom no longer can speak for themselves.

To honor their memory and intentions and ensure that canon law is followed, we therefore call on the Bishop and the Diocese to publicly affirm and ensure that no one at the Diocese’s direction, or the SRCES or anyone at its direction, will take any steps to remove anything from St. Philip School building—consistent with what the Diocese expressly stated to Mr. Wrabley in its April 28 letter.

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

May 4th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Bishop Zubik Again Refuses To Meet With The Committee Or To Consider Keeping St. Philip School Building Open

Friends, in recent weeks and in good faith and full transparency, we have worked very hard to open dialogue with the Bishop and the Diocese toward a mutually agreeable resolution to avoid the closure of the St. Philip School building. As signs of our good faith and as you likely have noticed, we have largely refrained from making public statements about our disagreement with the Bishop’s decision. And we have even offered to take significant actions against our own interest in an effort to keep our School building open.

Unfortunately, the Bishop again has declined to meet with us to discuss a mutually agreeable resolution and listen to the people’s concerns, and he has made it clear that he is not open to the possibility of keeping the St. Philip School building open to house the newly merged school. That refusal to consider the needs of the St. Philip faithful—thousands of us—speaks volumes.

It also puts the newly merged school at serious risk of surviving no more than a few years. Enrollment at the new school is stalled at 186 students—150 students less than the number presently enrolled at St. Philip and St. Margaret combined, and 20 or so students less than those enrolled at St. Philip School alone. If our School building housed the new school, can there be any doubt the enrollment would be far greater? We’re also told of massive new expenditures needed to upgrade the St. Margaret building—none of which would be necessary at St. Philip.

The Bishop claims he wants to make sure we keep Catholic education in this region, but nothing that he and the Board have done is designed to achieve that claimed goal. Instead, consistent with the pattern of this Diocese, it closes the school in the less well-off community, snuffing out what for so many is the only viable place to educate their children.

It also has to make you wonder: why decline to keep open a spacious and well-kept school building with such a rich history and track record of excellence, so essential to the surrounding communities for over a century, with over 200 students presently enrolled? What does the Diocese have planned for the glorious building that has been St. Philip School for 106 years? If not a school, what? A “pastoral center?” You’ve seen those, right? They’re the former Catholic school buildings now totally bereft of the innocent voices of young schoolchildren, transformed using your generously provided donations into palaces for the adult clergy—while in the same breath the Diocese poor mouths about how keeping schools open for the children is just too expensive. It’s almost hard to believe, but the evidence is right in front of our faces.

Or, is the Diocese planning to move in a former cardinal (or two), now retired and looking for a comfortable, seemingly private place to live and “work?” What is the Diocese planning here? The students and families of St. Philip School, and the parishioners of St. Philip Parish, deserve to know. Tell us.

This is a wake-up call for all of us. The Diocese has an agenda—one that is not really designed to genuinely support us and our families in our lives of faith—and it will pursue that agenda no matter the destruction it leaves in its wake. It is time for the faithful to stand up and say, "No more!"—with your voices, with your pocketbooks, and with your very hearts and souls. The time is now.

In the meantime, we forge ahead with our legal appeals and look forward to rulings from the Vatican.

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

A novena to Our Lady of Fatima with daily prayers can also be found at the following website:

http://www.praymorenovenas.com/novena-our-lady-fatima

Continued prayers and many thanks,

We are All in this together!

The Committee to Save St. Philip School

April 17th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Though Acknowledging That a Final Decision on St. Philip School is

“For the Vatican to Determine,"

Diocese Plows Ahead with

Disputed Closure Plan.

Despite the fact that one appeal by the Committee to Save St. Philip School is already under review by the Vatican and a second may follow it in the coming days, the Diocese of Pittsburgh continues to move ahead with its plans to close St. Philip School while acknowledging that the legality of its actions is still to be determined in Rome.

“We maintain that the decision to seize and close our School is illegal under canon law, and the Diocese itself has said that it’s up to the Vatican to decide if our case has merit,” said the Committee. “Yet the Diocese is proceeding with implementation of the closure and now has even hired a principal for the merged school, acting like the outcome of the Committee’s appeals is a foregone conclusion. It is anything but—and the Diocese knows that.”

The Diocese on Friday announced that current St. Margaret of Scotland School principal Robert Munz will serve as principal of the proposed “new” school formed by the merger of St. Margaret and St. Philip Schools and located at the St. Margaret campus.



“Apparently, the Diocese fully intends to move ahead with hiring and firing teachers and staff, displacing hundreds of students and families, and further harming Crafton and neighboring communities and St. Philip Parish, while disenfranchising thousands of faithful Catholics who are losing trust and patience with a Diocesan leadership that is just ignoring their valid questions and concerns.”

The fact of the matter is that if the Vatican reverses the Diocese’s seizure and closure, as we expect it will, the Diocese will have wreaked needless havoc on two parish and school communities, while it could instead have done the fair and just thing by suspending its decision and waiting for the legal process at the Vatican to run its course.

“What happens when the decisions regarding our School are overturned?” the Committee asked. “You’ll have teaching vacancies that will need to be filled quickly, tuition and enrollment fees that have to be reimbursed, a new principal that will need to be hired, parents caught in the middle, and two schools that are less stable than they were a year ago. And if you are a parent of a child at one of these schools, how would you view the Diocese going forward after all this?

“The Diocese can prevent all of this harm, and we urge it to do so now by putting its disputed plans on hold until there’s a final decision from the Vatican.”

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

April 13th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Legal Appeal to Save St. Philip School Arrives

at the Vatican

April 3rd, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

With St. Philip Community in Peril, Committee Presses Diocese to Answer its Meeting and Settlement Proposals

Time is of the essence, and still no answers and no meeting. The unsubstantiated decisions of the Diocese continue to wreak havoc and inflict harm on the St. Philip Community and its students.

In the letter below, the Committee presses the Diocese to respond to its meeting and settlement proposals, and lays out the evidence and legal argument supporting reversal of the Bishop's decision.

We continue to ask for your prayers and support.

The Committee to Save St. Philip School wishes all a Blessed Easter!



We are ALL in this together, and we ALL have a right to these answers.

March 31st, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Committee to Save St. Philip School Appeals Bishop’s

Closure of School to the Vatican

Earlier today, and as promised, the Committee to Save St. Philip School filed an appeal to the Vatican in Rome of Bishop Zubik’s decision to close St. Philip School. The appeal, supported by nearly 170 affidavits attesting to a lack of transparency, failure to adhere to canon law, and negligence on behalf of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and the St. Philip Parish pastor, as well as 45 pounds of supporting evidence, will be delivered to the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See to the United States in Washington, DC. From there, it will be forwarded to three Cardinals who have jurisdiction over the case.

The appeal specifically asks that Vatican authorities revoke the Bishop’s decision to extinctively merge St. Philip School into St. Margaret of Scotland School, declare invalid the alienation of the School from St. Philip Parish without consultation or consent, and return the School to the patrimony of St. Philip Parish. It also seeks an immediate suspension of the alienation and closure decisions due to the grievous harm they inflict on faculty, staff, students, families, parishioners and the overall well-being of the Parish and broader communities.

“As we have said from the beginning, we are very confident in the merits of our appeal and are hopeful that the Cardinals in Rome will see what is so abundantly clear to us and our thousands of supporters—that there was no justification, no proper process and no legal authority for closing our school,” said the Committee to Save St. Philip School.

The appeal comes in the wake of repeated efforts by the Committee and Procurator Mr. Colin Wrabley to meet with Bishop Zubik and Father Torquato, which the Bishop and Father Torquato have rebuffed or ignored completely. “We had hoped to avoid further litigation in this matter through collaborative dialogue with the Bishop and Father Torquato and an amicable resolution that protects the interests of the entire St. Philip family, but sadly, they will not even respond to our requests,” the Committee said. “And though we remain hopeful that a peaceful solution can be found, we were left with no choice but to appeal the Bishop’s unlawful decisions to a higher tribunal today.”

Acknowledging the sacred nature of Holy Week, the Committee will wait to hold a press event until next week, at which time we will provide additional details and address questions around the specifics of the appeal. Please look for more information on Monday, April 5.

We wish all of you a blessed, happy Easter.

Committee to Save St. Philip School

March 26th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

The Committee to Save St. Philip School Files a New Appeal Over Diocese

Taking of School from St. Philip Parish on July 1, 2020

Stating that the “Diocese unlawfully took St. Philip School from the Parish” and thereby “deeply harm[ed] the fabric of St. Philip Parish and the Faithful who constitute the Parish[,]” this afternoon, Procurator Mr. Colin Wrabley filed a new appeal with Bishop Zubik on behalf of the Committee to Save St. Philip Schools and the more than 670 mandaters.

The new appeal challenges the Diocese’s taking or “alienation” of St. Philip School from St. Philip Parish, which it announced in a March 17, 2021, letter stating that last July, the School “program” was removed from St. Philip Parish and “inclu[ded] in the South Regional Catholic Elementary Schools, Inc.” (SRCES).

As you know, last month, more than 670 St. Philip parishioners, donors, School parents and students signed mandates supporting the Committee’s appeal of the Bishop’s decision to close St. Philip School and its building in connection with the announced merger of St. Philip and St. Margaret of Scotland Schools. In a letter to Mr. Wrabley dated March 17, Fr. Thomas Kunz, Diocesan Vicar for Canonical Services, speaking on behalf of the Bishop, stated that “St. Philip School is not a program of Saint Philip Parish and has not been since its inclusion in the South Regional Catholic Elementary Schools, Inc. on July 1, 2020.”

Under canon law, any such seizure or alienation of St. Philip School could only have been carried out with the knowledge, consultation, input, and consent of and by St. Philip parishioners, Parish Finance and Pastoral Council members, current School parents, faculty, and staff, and Parish and School donors. As the signed affidavits we have already secured from more than 130 individuals representing each of these categories confirm, however, that did not happen here. Simply put: the Diocese claims that it took our School without our knowledge, opportunity to be heard, input, or consent. That was, and is, unlawful.

The new appeal asks the Bishop to revoke the seizure of St. Philip School from the Parish to the SRCES and return it to the Parish. It separately requests that the Bishop suspend the seizure and “sequester all assets associated with” the School “pending full and proper conclusion of all recourse associated with the School.”

The Bishop has thirty (30) days to respond to the new appeal.

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

March 25th, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Why Won’t Our Pastor Meet With Us

And

Why Won’t He or the Bishop Answer Our Questions From March 10?

Brothers and sisters, it has been three weeks since we asked our St. Philip Parish Pastor, Father Torquato, to meet with us. Still no answer and still no meeting. Why? Is this what our Church and our Parish have come to, where our own pastor will not meet with his flock?

It also has been more than two weeks since we sent serious written questions about the administration of St. Philip Parish and the decision to close St. Philip Parish School to Fr. Torquato and asked him to answer them. In that letter, we requested that Bishop Zubik and Diocesan officials require Fr. Torquato to answer the questions if he otherwise wouldn’t on his own—or to investigate

and answer the questions themselves. As you know, last Saturday, Fr. Torquato issued a “response” that answered NONE of our questions and claimed an “obligation” to keep secrets from all of us. And still, neither the Bishop nor any Diocesan official has responded to our request that they

require Fr. Torquato to answer our questions—or that they investigate and answer the questions themselves. Again, why? What do they have to hide? Remember what St. John the Evangelist wrote—“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32.

However much it may pain you, please be honest and ask yourself: What sort of religious organization, particularly one founded by Jesus Christ and guided by the Gospels, operates this way—in the shadows, refusing even to talk to its members, seemingly callous to the harm inflicted on thousands of children, women and men in our Parish and School communities? Does that religious organization unlawfully and clandestinely seize a 106-year-old parish school from the parish itself—which, according to Fr. Kunz in a letter to Mr. Wrabley last week, the Diocese did to St. Philip School back in July 2020, in the middle of a pandemic? And does it do that without consulting with or even informing the parishioners, school parents and children, and donors and benefactors, and then—again without consulting with or informing us—just close the school entirely?

Why are they doing this to us? What are they hiding? Why won’t—why didn’t—they work with us and give us a reasonable opportunity to preserve an institution that has spread the Word of God for more than a century and helped so many families in their most crucial task—teaching their children the faith and guiding them to heaven? Lots of questions—no answers.

Brothers and sisters, Catholicism does not belong to any one cardinal, bishop, priest, or the pope himself—it belongs to all of us who believe, all of us who strive on this earth for the eternal life we are promised if we follow God’s law. For many of us, it is our most cherished treasure, peace for our souls, solace for our grief, our very reason for being.

So it is long past time that the faithful embrace this truth and demand that Church hierarchy and clergy act accordingly. Respectfully, you must make your voices heard—loudly and over and over again—until we have answers and are treated with the dignity and respect our Church leaders so often tell us we have, but, as here, don’t always show us.

Email dzubik@diopitt.org, jsioli@diopitt.org, jgizler@diopitt.org, ldinardo@diopitt.org, tkunz@diopitt.org, and jtorquato@diopitt.org.

We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

March 24th, 2021

March 24, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Mr. Colin Wrabley Offers to Meet With Bishop Zubik and Presents a Detailed Proposal for Amicably Resolving Differences Over the Decision to Close St. Philip School

Late last week, Mr. Colin Wrabley received an invitation for members of the Committee to Save St. Philip School to meet with Bishop Zubik, without canonical legal counsel present. Yesterday, Mr. Wrabley agreed to meet with the Bishop—with or without counsel present—to engage in collaborative discussions regarding the future of St. Philip School.

Mr. Wrabley also presented a detailed proposal for amicably resolving the St. Philip community’s serious differences with the decision to close St. Philip School and locate the newly merged school solely at St. Margaret School. The proposal, which could avoid further litigation at the Vatican, calls for a transparent, collaborative and sustainable framework in which broadly representative groups of stakeholders from the two Schools, as well as from St. Philip and St. Raphael Parishes, would work together with the Bishop

and the Diocese on any plans relating to the existence and operations of the two existing Schools. We look forward to the Bishop’s response.

In the meantime, we are winding down the preparation of our appeal to the Congregation for the Clergy at the Vatican in Rome, and we expect to file the appeal in the coming days.

As always, we are deeply grateful for your ongoing prayers and support and we will continue to keep you informed as we move forward through this process.



We are ALL in this together!!

Committee to Save SPS

www.savesps2021.com

March 21, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Exposing Fr. Torquato’s “Response” to Questions from The Committee to Save St. Philip School—A Synopsis

In a March 20 letter to the St. Philip Community, our Pastor, Fr. Torquato, gave his response to our March 10 open letter, which asked 25 questions regarding the proposed closure of St. Philip School, his administration of the Parish, and the state of School and Parish finances.

We hope you’ll read our full letter responding to Father Torquato’s response—Linked here.

Here is a synopsis of our letter:

Father Torquato’s response answered none of our questions and specifically said NOTHING about:

• His complete reversal on the solution for the merged school—from keeping St. Philip School open for K-8 education to closing the School entirely;

• His complete reversal on the School’s financial condition—from “doing well” and “has a strong enrollment” to untenable and unsustainable;

• His complete reversal on the amount of Parish subsidy needed for the School—from likely to be far less “now and in the coming years” to so unaffordable it would ruin the Parish;

• His failure to account for $300,000+ in federal COVID relief funds received by the Parish and/or School;

• The estimated $800,000+ in Parish coffers;

• His total failure to openly and honestly inform parishioners on the SRCES Board process; or

• Whether it’s true he plans to sell off the Ascension worship site, and more.

Fr. Torquato’s “response” was nothing more than a continuation of the secrecy that delegitimizes the entire SRCES Board process. His letter shows that he expects the faithful of St. Philip to stay silent, question nothing, and simply accept the demise of our beloved School and whatever other secret plans may be in store for our Parish.

As parishioners and school families, we cannot and will not stand idly by as unsubstantiated decisions destructive of so much we hold dear are made in secret. Our Parish is at stake. Our community is at stake. Our children’s futures are at stake. It’s time we had a Pastor who takes seriously his duty to protect and preserve our Parish.

The Committee to Save St. Philip School

More to come—very soon.

We are ALL in this together!!

March 18, 2021

CONTACT: savesps2021@gmail.com

Onward!

Most of you probably know by now that unfortunately—but not surprisingly—Bishop Zubik has denied our February 22 request that he revoke or suspend his decision to close St. Philip School. We expected this to happen, which is why for weeks we have been preparing our appeal to Rome. We, the members of the Committee to Save St. Philip School, want to speak to you, the supporters of St. Philip School and Parish, very directly and make sure you have as much information as we can possibly provide to you.

Before we get to that information a bit later today, we want you to know this, and we cannot say it emphatically enough—we will not relent and we will not surrender in our pursuit of the truth and the preservation of our treasured School and Parish, no matter what, or how long, it takes. We have been disparaged and now, in a letter sent yesterday to the School and Parish communities, even called “unchristian” and accused of failing “to reflect the spirit of Jesus” by our own Bishop. We know that is false, we know our cause is righteous, and we know we will prevail.

How sad that our own Bishop would besmirch his faithful even as, yet again, he and the Diocese hide the truth and expect us to fall in line behind their destructive decisions. Many of us did that once, in the not-too-distant past, and we all know what happened. We won’t let it happen again.

In his letter, the Bishop says “some people” are disappointed by his decision—accurate if you consider our 2,600-plus supporters (and likely many more) to mean “some.” He also says “[o]ur children are watching.” Yes they are. And the children are wondering why, before the Bishop made his decision, he didn’t meet them face-to-face, observe them in their unmatched learning environment, listen to their concerns, and hear their innocent and heartfelt pleas to “Save St. Philip School.”

Much as it pains us, we must be honest here—the only ones failing “to reflect the spirit of Jesus” are those at the Diocese who coldly and calculatedly are bent on wiping a 106-year-old school off the map with no concern for the children, families, and communities soon to be stripped of a cornerstone of their lives and their faith. Who’s being “unchristian” here?

We appreciate your ongoing prayers and support and we urge you to continue to make your voices heard to the Bishop, Fr. Torquato, and everyone at the Diocese who has enabled this unjust decision.

More to come—very soon.

We are ALL in this together!!