L-P, Oglesby Catholic schools to be named for Carlo Acutis

The L-P and Oglesby Catholic Schools have a new name – and a new patron saint: Carlo Acutis.

Bishop Louis Tylka appeared Thursday at St. Patrick Catholic Church to celebrate an “All Schools Mass” and to announce the big name change. Trinity Catholic Academy in La Salle, Peru Catholic School and Holy Family School will be known as Academy of Carlo Acutis.

The new school name is taken from the first millennial saint although he’s not officially a saint just yet. Carlo will be canonized Sunday, April 27, during the Jubilee of Teenagers in Rome.

The news wasn’t entirely unexpected. Deb Myers, principal at Trinity Catholic Academy, said students at the three schools proposed new names and gradually whittled the field so that Tylka had a short list.

Tylka prefaced the announcement saying he prayed on the subject, but then confided Carlo Acutis was the one hoping he’d be the kids’ nominee.

“The students are beyond excited,” Myers said, who is not less pleased. “We decided it was important for the kids to be engaged in the selection of their patron.

“We think we are making the choices and the decisions, but this is the direction we’re being led. It’s just happening the way it’s meant to happen.”

Acutis was a 15-year-old web designer who chronicled Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions which were later displayed across the globe. The La Salle Catholic Parishes hosted one of the portable displays. All this was done before Acutis died of leukemia in 2006. He was beatified in 2020 and soon will be raised to the altars.

Next will be choosing a school mascot and school colors. While the students have big decisions to make, Myers and her colleagues have even bigger tasks ahead because the three schools will be unified.

As previously reported, the three parochial schools soon will be one school (with three buildings) with a new name, new colors and mascot and, potentially, a new building.

“We will be a new school in the fall,” said Rev. Father Paul Carlson, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Oglesby, explained at the time. “It has moved very fast.”

The clergy had said the teachers will be retained. All three campuses will remain in use, at least for now. A feasibility study will, however, explore the future of the campuses.

Myers further noted the unifying approach will mean more offerings both in the classroom and in extracurricular activities.

“It’s all about sustaining the quality of Catholic education in the Illinois Valley for generations to come,” Myers said.

The process has taken about a year. In early 2024, the priests and principals huddled together for open-ended discussions on how to stay afloat financially. Later, they expanded the net to include secular authorities who agreed that Catholic schools, and school choice, benefit the community as a whole.

The problems driving this are anything but new. Demographics and societal changes that were decades in the making have increased the burden on parochial schools. Households are getting smaller. Fewer families are attending church and, by extension, fewer sending their children to Catholic school.

“The Catholic school model is broke,” said Rich Koehler, Peru Catholic principal, “that model being the church supports the school and the nuns provide the free labor. That’s totally, totally gone.”

All of which has sent education costs soaring. All three Catholic schools are operating at a deficit and have been for the past two years. Meanwhile, physical plants are aging and keeping the lights burning is growing more costly. It doesn’t help that school districts nationwide, public and parochial, are dealing with a shortage of educators.

Educators and clergy have seen it all coming and know it won’t get any better.

“It’s just the right time to address this,” Carlson said.