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Catholic School Who Removed Statues Says ‘Controversy’ Was Made Up

Catholic school removes statues

A leader at the school says media purposely twisted the story to create controversy.

With the right-wing media jumping into the fray, officials of San Domenico School have asked for calm after there was widespread publicity sourced from a story published during the third week of August concerning the move of a few religious statues present on the campus. The list of statues removed from their original position included baby Jesus and mother Mary. The reason for this removal is the concern that the presence of such busts may alienate the prospective students.

California’s First Catholic School Removes Statues and Ignites Controversy[/tweetthis]

The San Domenico school was described by one official as the oldest independent educational institution in California. It is also the maiden Catholic school to be founded in the region. The official said that a considerable number of statues were relocated to other areas of school campus. A few were even donated to the “appreciative recipients.” Kimberly Pinkson, the spokeswoman of the school, said that the statue of the patron saint of this school has been relocated to a central position in the campus.

Skewes-Cox, the chairperson of board of trustees of the school, said, “If you walk on the campus and the first thing you confront is three or four statues of St. Dominic or St. Francis, it could be alienating for that other religion, and we didn’t want to further that feeling.” This may alienate people of other faiths, and the administrators of the school does not want to increase their sense of hurt. This has been confirmed by the behavior of parents of a few prospective students who recently visited the campus. The educational institution was established in 1850. About 671 students attend grades K-12.

According to Cecily Stock, who heads San Domenico, most students are non-Catholic. She said that, “Over the last few years we’ve had fewer Catholic students as part of the community and a larger number of students of various faith traditions. Right now about 80 percent of our families do not identify as Catholic.”

Stock continued on to claim that the recent news concerning the statues were expressly made to mislead and also create controversy. In her letter to parents, she assured them the school is totally committed not only to continuing, but also strengthening the institution's 167-year old heritage of Dominican Catholic origin. She said that the school looks forward to working with all community members and be inclusive of their perspectives in the present and also in the future.

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