Heaven aid them.

A complete of 17 town Catholic faculties will permanently shutter owing to the suffocating economic influence of the coronavirus disaster, officials introduced Thursday.

With innumerable doing work course mothers and fathers thrust into unemployment, hundreds of 1000’s of pounds in tuition payments have gone unpaid and registrations for the impending educational year have plunged, officials explained.

“Children are generally the most innocent victims of any crisis, and this COVID-19 pandemic is no exception,” claimed New York’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan. “Too numerous have shed parents and grandparents to this insidious virus, and now thousands will not see their beloved school all over again.”

The wreckage contains some of New York’s oldest and most venerable parochial universities, such as the 90-calendar year-aged Our Woman of Pompeii in Greenwich Village.

The Archdiocese of New York, which operates colleges in Manhattan, Staten Island and The Bronx, said 11 of their structures will completely near their doorways. The shutterings will affect 2,500 little ones and 350 staff members, officers mentioned.

The Diocese of Brooklyn, which also oversees colleges in Queens, announced that six of their properties will close.

“This is an unbelievably unfortunate working day for our Catholic local community to have to near these educational facilities, but the devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic is insurmountable. The hard selections occur soon after the extreme investigation of the economical picture of just about every academy,” reported Thomas Chadzutko, Superintendent of Educational facilities.

The Diocese of Brooklyn claimed extra than $600,000 in tuition payments are nonetheless superb from this earlier calendar year.

The business reported they will attempt to enroll impacted young children in other parochial colleges and will offer a $500 subsidy to support these families with tuition at Catholic solutions.

Parochial educational facilities have observed declining university student populations for several a long time, and officials explained the COVID-19 calamity was insurmountable for lots of of them.

Catholic educational facilities have very long relied upon as an economical different to general public schools for people of modest usually means – specially in minimal-income neighborhoods.

A complete of six educational facilities will close in the Bronx, 4 in Queens, 3 in Staten Island, and two every single in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

“This is a incredibly unhappy day for every person in the extended Catholic school community,” stated Thomas Deegan, Superintendent of Educational institutions for the Archdiocese of New York. “I deliver my love and prayers to the people, academics, principals and workers of the influenced educational facilities.”