Regarding: "The three schools "came within touch of bankruptcy," he writes. "
- Beginning in the 1960's, catholic universities and colleges were faced with the realization that they could not operate to a good standard if they consistently underpaid faculty and staff whether lay or consecrated.
- Certainly the decreasing student enrollments that many catholic universities began to experience in those days underscored that families knew that their children would be better served at universities (usually secular) where salaries were not depressed (imputing the best faculty), fund raising supported research, and the expenditures for accreditation requirements were not short changed.
- Thus the dance with bankruptcy was about catholic colleges putting themselves on good economic basis and not whether the 'good sisters' lost their way, or that the lay board could never be catholic enough as clerics would be.
- Linking bankruptcy to a failure of catholic intent is a strawman by Burtchaell.