You are never going to overcome an upbringing permeated with consistent adoration by a large number of Catholic families of the Catholic Mecca, the Golden Dome. When you throw in the "Irish" factor, It doubles down on their attraction. I fear that many ND followers are unaware that South Bend is not a suburb of Dublin. Never mind that their HC had a hands on in the negligent death of a student or his continuous use of the lowest level of vulgarity on this players. Hype and indoctrination easily trump reality. How many movies have we seen about Pitt or DI football programs with the exception of ND?
Race and socio-economic status also play a major role in the highly segregated area of the WPA.
The original mission of catholic education, i.e., a quality education for all catholic children at little or no cost to the individual family has long since been abandoned.... by necessity. The number of practicing catholic families has dwindled to a small fraction of its size 40-50 years ago. And the number of vocations has slowed to a trickle.. It has become impossible to fulfill the original mission of Catholic education.
The catholic HS's have slowly morphed in bastions of privilege for the rich or talented. They have become a mirror image of Catholic education in Central and South America.
btw, I am a practicing Catholic, horrified by the cover-ups of molestation (for how many centuries?)
within the clergy, with 16 years of my education within Catholic Institutions, and 2 sons who are graduates of GCC.
