CHARLOTTE — Six Catholic schools in the Diocese of Charlotte are receiving a total of more than $2.5 million from the “Forward in Faith, Hope, and Love” campaign for diocesan schools’ capital improvement projects.
FFHL grants for the schools are earmarked for non-routine facility improvements, with awards ranging from $12,709 to $500,000. To qualify, projects must improve security, accessibility or aesthetics or directly enhance the learning environment, noted Bill Weldon, the diocese’s chief financial officer.
“We are very pleased to be able to provide much needed funding to the recipient schools for these critical campus improvements,” Weldon said.
Schools receiving awards are:
- Asheville Catholic School – $500,000 to renovate the existing school and construct additional classroom space
- Immaculata School in Hendersonville – $500,000 to replace the fire alarm system, improve building egress, upgrade lighting and replace the HVAC systems
- Charlotte Catholic High School – $500,000 to help build the MACS Fine Arts Center and re-purpose existing classroom spaces, including physical education and art rooms
- Our Lady of Mercy School in Winston-Salem – $12,709 to replace lighting in the gym and cafeteria
- St. Ann School in Charlotte – $500,000 to relocate administrative offices and the school’s main entry
- St. Michael School in Gastonia – $500,000 to install new playground fence and make security improvements; to relocate the administrative offices and the school’s main entry; and to renovate existing restrooms
“The entire Asheville Catholic community is grateful to the Diocese of Charlotte for awarding us this opportunity through the grant we received,” said Principal Michael Miller. “We are especially grateful to all of those who donated so generously to the FFHL campaign. The gifts of all of these people made this possible.”
Miller noted that by combining the funds from the FFHL grant with challenge goal funds collected by St. Eugene Church in Asheville and savings from the school, Asheville Catholic has a total of $900,000 to put towards building additions and renovations.
“Thank you to all in the diocese who generously gave to the ‘Forward in Faith, Hope, and Love’ campaign,” Miller said.
“I can tell you that I was speechless when I received the letter announcing the grant award,” remarked St. Michael School’s Principal Sheila Levesque.
“I am so excited to share this award with our students, staff, parents and community. It is a tremendous blessing to have the ability to make the security upgrades and renovations that benefit all. This, along with other projects and fundraising efforts, will allow St. Michael School to enhance the school property, the facilities and instruction,” Levesque said.
Sister Geri Rogers, SSJ, is principal of Our Lady of Mercy School in Winston-Salem, which received a $12,709 FFHL grant.
“In 2002 the school moved from the south side of Winston-Salem into the former Bishop McGuinness High School. The building is now 60 years old,” she explained. “The current lights in the gym have often been hit during volleyball games and have been proven to be a safety hazard, as well as costly. The grant was applied for to provide a safer environment for our students and to be energy efficient. Replacing the current lights in the gym and cafeteria will provide LED lighting and help to lower expenses.”
All capital projects that receive FFHL grants must begin within two years of the grant being awarded. For projects with costs that exceed the amount of the awarded grant, the school must have the ability to raise the balance of the funds needed within two years of receiving their grant award.
“FFHL is having a significant impact on the work being done in parishes, schools and ministries across the dio-cese and will impact work done in our diocese for years to come,” said Jim Kelley, the diocese’s development di-rector.
“Funding for capital projects, like the funds being provided to these six schools, will have an impact on the educa-tion our students receive now but FFHL also provides for parishes, schools and ministries long in to the future through endowments.”
— SueAnn Howell, Senior Reporter
BOONE — New allegations of child sexual abuse have been reported against two former pastors of St. Elizabeth Church.
The alleged victim, now 40 years old, said he was abused when he was a teenager in the early 1990s, according to a police report filed March 5 with the Boone Police Department. According to a report by WSOC-TV Channel 9, the man said then Jesuit Father H. Cornell Bradley molested him once when he was an altar boy, and that the subsequent pastor, then Father Damion Lynch, assaulted him twice – once on a trip to Carowinds and once near Appalachian State University’s Catholic Campus Ministry.
David Hains, spokesman for the Diocese of Charlotte, said the diocese was unaware until now of these allegations involving Bradley and Lynch.
BRADLEY
H. Cornell Bradley, a former Jesuit priest, served at St. Elizabeth Church from 1989 to 1993. He also served at St. Therese Church in Mooresville from 1988 to 1989 and again in 1998.
According to a report released by the Jesuit order last December, Bradley had “multiple allegations of sexual abuse” against him while serving in Ocean City, Md., and Washington, D.C., in the 1970s and 1980s.
He was removed from ministry in 2006 and left the Jesuits a year later.
His current whereabouts are unknown.
LYNCH
Damion Jacques Lynch served as parochial vicar at St. Elizabeth Parish starting in 1991 when he was ordained and became pastor after Bradley left in 1993. He also served as campus minister at nearby Appalachian State University.
Credible reports against Lynch of repeated sexual abuse of twin brothers from 1991 to 1995, when they were in their early teens, were revealed in a 1998 civil lawsuit against the Charlotte diocese.
According to a March 13, 1998, Catholic News & Herald article, then Bishop William Curlin learned about the abuse allegations in 1995 when "Fr. Lynch himself reported to Bishop Curlin regarding an indiscretion.”
Lynch was placed on administrative leave and ordered to undergo psychological testing.
Court records show that in 1996, the diocese settled the lawsuit with the boy’s family, paying $77,489 for counseling services, using diocesan funds and insurance money. The settlement was not publicly disclosed until 1998.
According to the 1998 Catholic News & Herald article, Lynch was “cleared by his therapist” to return to ministry and was assigned in 1997 as parochial vicar of Our Lady of Consolation Church in Charlotte.
In 1998 the family whose son had been abused filed a second civil lawsuit in Watauga County Superior Court against the diocese, Bishop Curlin and Lynch when they learned of similar alleged abuse of the victim’s twin brother.
Lynch requested a leave of absence and Curlin removed his priestly faculties in 1998.
The diocese settled the second lawsuit for an undisclosed amount in 1999.
Lynch was never charged with a crime in either case.
At some point Lynch left the diocese, and according to the independent website bishopaccountability.org, he was last known living in Virginia and working as a registered nurse in Washington, D.C., in 2017.
The new allegations of abuse made March 5 will likely be investigated by civil authorities, and separately by the diocese, to determine if they are credible, Hains said.
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, editor
Pictured: Former priests H. Cornell Bradley (far left) and Damion Lynch (far right) are pictured in this April 9, 1993, file photo. (Catholic News Herald archives)