These days it seems that another U.S. Catholic school closes every few weeks. Already in 2010, 11 more schools closed in Baltimore, plus others in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Philadelphia.  Last year, 14 schools in Brooklyn shut their doors. The Miracle of St. Genevieve is a true story that bucks this troubling trend. The book explores the successful development and enduring strength of one small Catholic church and school in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

The plight of St. Genevieve’s school and church are intertwined and inseparable.  The story begins during three sweltering days in 1959 when the people of the newborn St. Genevieve Parish almost magically transform an empty warehouse into a church.  Less than one year later, parishioner farmers level a sugarcane field and break ground on and rapidly build a small brick school house.  Boldly, the people of the parish open their school without the assistance of a religious order.  Even after nuns take the helm four years later, the school continues to struggle financially.

In 1970, the School Sisters of Notre Dame leave the school, and against all odds, the St. Genevieve Parish Council votes to forge onward with an all-lay faculty.  As new principal Caroline Cappel takes the helm, she soon learns that her school is in dire financial straits.

It is hard for Miss Cappel to ignore a developing national wave of parochial school closures.  In the 1960s, U.S. Catholic schools are at their zenith with 5.25 million students.  Yet even as the American population grows steadily over the next four decades, by 2008, there will be half as many students  in US Catholic schools.¹