Lloyd Sutter

By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer

ATLANTA—Archbishop John F. Donoghue has announced changes affecting the structure and leadership of the Department of Catholic Education of the archdiocese.

The archbishop has separated the religious education component of the department from the Office of Catholic Schools and created a new position overseeing the religious education staff of the archdiocese.

Lloyd Sutter of Roswell, a candidate in the permanent diaconate class of 2001 from St. Andrew’s Church, has been named senior administrator in the Department of Religious Education.

He has worked extensively as a volunteer catechist for 25 years and in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at his parish for 14 years. Since last December he has been in a staff position as adult education coordinator at St. Andrew.

A retired attorney who worked in the Atlanta law firm of King & Spalding, Sutter, 60, has received the designation of master catechist and he is a graduate of the archdiocesan Pastoral Ministry Formation program. He completes the four-year formation program for the diaconate this December and is scheduled to be ordained next February.

Sutter said that he has worked with most current members of the archdiocesan religious education staff. He expects to be a conduit for the staff to the archbishop’s office and “would like to work with the pastors and their staffs” in facilitating the work of catechesis in the parishes.

The appointment “is the most exciting thing that has happened to me since I passed the bar exam,” he said.

Donald T. Sasso, Secretary for Catholic Education, will continue to have the responsibility for overseeing parochial school education in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Both administrators will report to the archbishop through Kathi Stearns, the former executive editor of The Georgia Bulletin who was named vice chancellor of the archdiocese for special projects, effective Aug. 15.

In a letter outlining his special mandate to the vice chancellor, Archbishop Donoghue said that for a three-year period concluding on or before Dec. 31, 2003, Stearns will assist the archbishop “in reviewing and remodeling the entire educational delivery infrastructure of the Archdiocese.”

“The objective of the project is to implement a ‘lifelong learning’ model incorporating a partnership between parish, parochial, independent, semi-public and public educational institutions and to create a new model for Catholic education that is responsive to economic, pedagogical, political and social challenges and opportunities,” the archbishop’s letter continued.

In implementing this project, Stearns will report to the archbishop and his vicars general, Father Paul Reynolds and Msgr. R. Donald Kiernan, the letter stated.

In an interview, Archbishop Donoghue said that separating religious education from Catholic schools was “part of the mandate” he gave to the vice chancellor and administrators of both aspects of Catholic education would report to her.

“I think both (religious education and Catholic schools) benefit more if separated out,” he said.

When the two aspects of Catholic education are combined, he said, “one gets more attention than the other. I suspect it is religious education that really suffers ... and the majority of our kids are educated in religious education programs.”

At the same time, Archbishop Donoghue said, he is concerned that the Catholic schools, both the new schools and the established schools, “get off on a better foot.”

Stearns will also be a liaison with all independent, semi-public and public educational institutions that offer a Catholic education or formation.

The archdiocese is also using the services of an educational consultant, Gareth Genner, president of Independent School Counsel, Inc. He has previously worked with The Donnellan School in Atlanta and Pinecrest Academy in Cumming, Stearns said.

Stearns said that part of her responsibility will be to develop a marketing plan for the two new high schools, Blessed Trinity High School in Roswell and Our Lady of Mercy High School in Fairburn, so that enrollment at the schools will continue to increase. The high schools opened last week with freshmen and sophomore classes and will add one grade in each of the next two years.

Archbishop Donoghue said the opening of the two new high schools is “magnificent. I’m very pleased with it.”

Enrollment is “way ahead of where we thought we would be” this spring, he said, and he hopes with the additional attention the schools receive in this new structure that they will continue to be strengthened.

Stearns, who has a degree in communications from Mercer University in Atlanta, also said that she will work to improve internal communications among the various archdiocesan offices of education, finance and personnel, in areas affecting Catholic schools. Problems this past spring affecting the new Catholic elementary schools stemmed in part from a lack of communication or miscommunication between archdiocesan offices and the school communities, she said.

Principals of all new and existing Catholic schools of the archdiocese have been asked for input in writing by Sept. 6 to the archbishop on the topic of where site-based management will especially benefit their particular school community. They have also been asked where centralized archdiocesan policies and procedures have benefited the school community or been cumbersome. The letter states that it is the archbishop’s intention to retain accountability and oversight at the archdiocesan level, while empowering each principal to effectively lead his or her school.