Religious Diversity at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish School

May 19, 2003

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/religion/5892394.htm

On May 19, 2003 The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that "Yvonne Matherson's sixth-grade class is a study of ethnic and religious diversity: My Thi Le is Vietnamese and Buddhist; Jannina Justice is African American and an Apostolic Christian; and Brian Warrington is white and Catholic... Which might seem surprising, given that they all attend St. Thomas Aquinas Parish school, a Roman Catholic institution in South Philadelphia... As other Catholic schools in the city have closed, this 118-year-old parish has thrived by embracing families of different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds... Since its founding in 1885, St. Thomas has morphed from mostly Irish to mostly Italian to what it is today - a melting pot of Vietnamese, African American, Italian, Filipino, Indonesian and Latino."