Most Reverend W.

Francis Malooly
Bishop of Wilmington
P.O. Box 2030
Wilmington, DE 19899

Catherine P. Weaver
Superintendent of Schools
Wilmington Diocese
1626 North Union Street
Wilmington, DE 19806

Most Reverend W. Francis Malooly, Ms. Weaver I am writing to you today to

thank you for the work that you do in teaching the Catholic faith in our Diocese, and to
let you know that I feel confident in your support of our school because of your strong
witness to the faith. I also write to join in the tidal wave of support that has been shown
for SSPP high school. Being the father of a son who has graduated from SSPP High
School as well as three other children who attend SSPP schools, I find it inconceivable
that the current pastor would consider closing our school. The only thing that shocks me
more than the announcement of the closing is the way the message was delivered to both
faculty and parents, by way of a form letter. I suppose that there is really no good way to
deliver bad news but this came as a complete shock to all of us. We are now led to
believe that the school is in such dreadful financial shape and that no hope is possible, a
bad turn of events in tough times, but I speculate that this was done as an intentional act
to appease a select few.
In reviewing the propaganda that was provided by Father Coine to support his
decision in closing the school several things become readily perceptible. This current
manufactured crisis has its roots back in 2004 when Father Coine identified our High
School as being a drain on the parish, this information was passed to the Diocese so as to
“not surprise the Diocese with the closing of the school” yet the people who are being
directly effected now by this closure, i.e. students, parent, and faculty are kept in the dark
for over five years. I can only speculate as to the motive behind not sharing this
information to the parish, the parents, students, and faculty but it does seem quite obvious
that this lack of sharing was done so as to not diminish the anticipated collections for the
parish family life center. Given the choice of spending more funds in these hard
economic times on either a family life center or our school, as you have witnessed over
the past two weeks is overwhelmingly in support of our school.
This perceived problem, once identified back in 2004 was intentionally allowed to
continue for the past several years without any type of corrective action by either Father
Coine, the finance council, or the parish council and remained a secret from the rest of
the SSPP community. This was done I suspect to achieve a “track record” of substantial
loss in revenue for the school and to make the situation appear much worse than it really
is. This course of inaction was followed in July of 2009 with a vote taken by the parish
finance council (all of the board members are appointed by Father Coine) that was
supposedly unanimous in favor of closing our school. None of this information was being
discussed with the fifteen member team that was formed to investigate the feasibility of
building a new high school and in fact, the “letter” as it is now being called was mailed
out on the very day that this group was scheduled to meet to formulate plans for a new
school.
This was then followed by a second, also supposedly unanimous vote to close the
school made by the Pastoral Council (again with all of the members appointed by Father
Coine) also in July of 2009, yet again this information was not revealed to the SSPP
community. Are we to be surprised by the “votes” of people who are appointed to the
governing body of the parish? Their actions appear to be only a “rubber stamp” for a
decision that was previously made by Father Coine.
Father Coine claims that the support for the school from the parish is evidenced
by the parish contributing approximately 2.2 million dollars in the past five years towards
the preservation of the school. This equates to an amount that is well within the Diocesan
guidelines for a parish run school; in other words, this is the amount that the parish
should be contributing to the parish school.
In closing I must state that if it seems that I am upset by possible closing of our
school, I am. Father Coine was entrusted with the well being of our school, the only
Catholic High School on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and home to over 200 students
he has betrayed that trust in favor of building a grandiose structure without care for the
interests of our children. Father Coine has done irrevocable damage to both the parish
and our school and, I know that he has lost the support of a majority of people both
within the parish and the community. This loss of support will unquestionably translate
into less funds being donated to the parish by people who feel betrayed by the recent
actions of Father Coine.
I thank you for your time and your anticipated commitment to keep our school
functioning even in the face of opposition from within the parish.

Sincerely,

Chris Flynn