SAN DIEGO — When you think of “the missions,” what do you imagine?
Would you be surprised to learn that there is still mission territory in the continental United States?
Just ask Piarist Father John Callan, headmaster of The Piarist School, a college-preparatory school located in Hager Hill, Kentucky.
Outside the airport in Lexington, he said, you’ll see “beautifully landscaped” horse farms.
“If that’s the only thing you see about the Diocese of Lexington,” he said, “that’s a very poor impression of the diocese.”
The Piarist School is located about two and a half hours to the east, in the midst of Appalachia, one of the most impoverished regions in the country.
“Seventy-four percent of the people live below the federal poverty line,” said Father Callan. “Addiction to alcohol and drugs is extremely high, and it just seems to continue from generation to generation.”
Over the summer, Father Callan made mission appeals at parishes on behalf of The Piarist School, as well as four other mission projects — in Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico and Puerto Rico — that are sponsored by the Piarists’ Province of the United States.
The Piarist School opened in 1990 in Floyd County, Kentucky, under its founding principal, Piarist Father Thomas Carroll. After the 2014-2015 academic year ended, it moved to its present-day location in Johnson County, where it also serves students from the five surrounding counties.
Father Callan became principal about two years ago, after Father Carroll’s death.
In the six eastern counties from which the school draws its students, about 85% graduate from high school, but only 15% attend college, he said. But, since The Piarist School opened, it has graduated 253 students, each of which has continued their education at the college level.
The school currently has 47 students in grades six through 12, whose families pay no tuition.
It has six vans and two buses. Faculty and staff members take the vehicles home in the evening and, each morning, provide the students with free transportation to school.
Students also receive breakfast and lunch at no charge. Father Callan said that some of them are so poor that, if it weren’t for these free meals, they would go without.
Father Callan is especially proud of what is known as the Piarist Outreach Program. The program, which provides students, faculty and staff with an opportunity to help others, offers free food, toiletries, clothing, and even emergency home repairs for the local community.
“One of the nicest things … about the outreach program is that, every year in December, Santa Claus comes for a visit,” said Father Callan, “and, believe it or not, he looks an awful lot like one of our priests.”
Last December, he said, Santa brought toys to more than 900 children, traveling up the windy, unpaved roads to do so.
“You should see the smiles on their faces,” Father Callan said of the children, for whom it is “rare” to receive Christmas presents.
Father Callan said that about 90% of the people in the region are Christian, but fewer than 1% are Catholic.
“Even though we’re all Christian,” he said, “some of the denominations that we live with are not always so trusting of the Catholic Church.”
He noted that, when Santa delivers the presents, it isn’t with a reindeer-drawn sleigh, but rather with a van emblazoned with the name of The Piarist School.
“The Piarist School, the local Catholic school, is there helping Santa with the delivery of those toys,” Father Callan said.
Learn more at piaristchallenge.com.
