Welcome to Wednesday. Three months after the Philadelphia Archdiocese announced that John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls' High School would close, the school's students, alumnae and parents are still pushing Archbishop Nelson Pérez to reverse the decision. In a Soul Seeing for Lent column, the writer says maybe it's time to give up what you were planning to do without this Lent and look to the Psalms instead.

Philadelphia community fights to save oldest US diocesan all-girls high school

When Jill Kimrey, a junior at John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls' High School, learned that the Philadelphia archdiocese would be closing her school in June, she and her family were shocked. Jill loves Hallahan and she was looking forward to graduating with the class of 2022, joining more than 100 years of alumnae from the oldest Catholic diocesan all-girls high school in the United States, her own grandmother among them.

She made a pact with her friends that they would stay together for their senior year, she told NCR. She cried for hours after visiting another high school as a prospective student, her mother Kim said. Registration deadlines forced her to enroll at the other school, but she is still holding out hope that the archdiocese will agree to keep Hallahan open for at least another year.

Three months after the announcement of Hallahan's impending closure, the school's students, alumnae and parents are still pushing Archbishop Nelson Pérez to reverse the decision.

A coalition of alumnae and parents started a group called Friends of Hallahan in early December to coordinate efforts to save the school. Their primary goal is to convince the archdiocese to operate Hallahan for at least two more years so that current sophomores and juniors can graduate, but they have also begun making plans to run the school independently if the archdiocese refuses.

You can read more of the story here.

For Lent, it's watermelon and large curd cottage cheese versus the Psalms

In the latest Soul Seeing for Lent column, Peter Gilmour says that instead of giving up something significant for Lent, he plans on revisiting the Psalms.

"I am fed spiritually by the poetry of belief much more than Lenten pieties," he writes, going on to talk about the book The Abbey Psalter, a gift from a friend that contains the texts of all 150 Psalms transcribed in striking calligraphy by one of the monks of the Abbey of the Genesee.

"The relevance of Psalms written, some perhaps set to musical accompaniment thousands of years ago, is a contemporary miracle," Gilmour writes. "This poetic collection of human and divine insight provides us both with a reflection of and a prism for our lives today. Psalms function as a reflection of our own many and varied life experiences so similar to the faithful people of Yahweh. They also function as a prism helping us to see the many colorful manifestations of the divine presence, sometimes hidden in the depths of our own lives."

You can read more of the column here.

More background:

• Catch up on all of our Soul Seeing for Lent series here.

More headlines

• In the latest Francis Effect podcast, NCR executive editor Heidi Schlumpf, Franciscan Fr. Daniel Horan and David Dault talk about talk about the recent effects of winter storms on Texas and the re-establishment of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships by the Biden administration. The podcast included special guest Jesuit Fr. Jim McDermott, who talked about his recent article published in NCR on being gay in the priesthood. All of the episodes can be found here.
   
• NCR political columnist Michael Sean Winters writes about how the media and our nation can reclaim the truth in a post-Trump world, starting with the most essential intellectual tic of liberalism — skepticism.
   
• With Sr. Norma Pimentel as the film's "heroine," the audience can see the realities on the border in a "highly compassionate, not preachy way," says Robert Bilheimer, director of the 10-minute documentary "Oh Mercy."

Final thoughts

Global Sisters Report is hosting a virtual event with Social Service Sr. Simone Campbell, in which she will share highlights from her years guiding "Nuns on the Bus," how she kept grounded through the resurgence of discord and division in our nation, and some of her plans as she prepares for retirement as executive director of Network. The event is scheduled for next Tuesday at 2 p.m. Central.

Until Thursday,

Stephanie Yeagle
NCR Managing Editor
[email protected]
Twitter: @ncrSLY

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