War in Lebanon disrupts new school year at Catholic college

Published: 2006-08-04

ROME (CNS) -- Rather than getting ready for a new school year, the head of the Jesuit-run College of Notre Dame in Jamhour, Lebanon, is sending students and alumni to help feed displaced people and filling out the papers parents need to enroll many of the students in schools abroad. Jesuit Father Salim Daccache, rector of Notre Dame, said 200 students and alumni are in Beirut helping students and alumni at the Jesuit-run St. Joseph University prepare and serve 1,000 hot meals each day for the displaced. In an Aug. 4 telephone interview, he said he would not be sending any students that day "because overnight some bridges were bombed so our links with Beirut have been destroyed." Notre Dame is located less than 10 miles southeast of Beirut. But the real problem is that it is less than a mile from a Lebanese army garrison, which also has attracted Israeli bombardments. No one has been injured at Notre Dame, he said, but many of the classrooms no longer have glass in the windows and dozens of doors need to be repaired or replaced.

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