It’s a phenomenon that most of us have seen: the growing number of students at Catholic schools who aren’t Catholic — and in some cases, not even Christian.

A paper in Pittsburgh has more:

When it came time for the Rev. Richard Helsel to send his children to school, he surprised his congregation by crossing the great sectarian divide.

Today, the Methodist minister’s daughters, Sarah, 6, and Christina, 5, attend Cardinal Maida Academy, a Catholic elementary school in Vandergrift.

“A lot of Protestant tradition has been anti-Catholic,” said Helsel, who was raised a Catholic. “There was shock in some quarters of my church to learn that I was sending my daughters to Catholic school.

The Helsel girls are among the many non-Catholics helping some local Catholic schools buck the national trend of steadily declining enrollment.

Low enrollment put Cardinal Maida Academy on the brink of closure in 2005, but this year the number of students is up by a third from last year, according to the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg. That success is due in part to non-Catholic students. Though 87 percent of students enrolled at area Catholic schools are Catholic, about 30 percent of Cardinal Maida’s students are not.

The diocese saw Catholic school enrollment go down about 6 percent this year, a number diocesan spokesman Jerry Zufelt said is consistent with a declining population of school-age children. Still, Zufelt said, a handful of the diocese’s 17 schools have recently increased enrollments.

Families turn to Catholic schools for a number of reasons, including faith-based education, smaller class sizes and discipline, but regardless of who they are, the Diocese of Greensburg welcomes them, Zufelt said.

Queen of Angels Catholic School in North Huntingdon was also in danger of closing. Instead, the number of students has increased by 20 percent over the past five years. In Greensburg, Aquinas Academy’s middle school grew almost 6 percent because some children transferred from public school. All Saints Regional School in Masontown, Fayette County, recorded a 5 percent gain over last year. More than a quarter of its students are not Catholic.

Non-Catholic students are helping Catholic schools survive dwindling numbers of students nationwide.

Nationwide, Catholic school enrollment has fallen 14 percent in the past decade, according to the National Catholic Educational Association in Washington, D.C. Hardest hit are the mid-Atlantic states and the Midwest, regions that have also experienced population decline. In these areas, enrollment is down 20 percent, and one in six schools has closed.

“The biggest challenge is shifting demographics,” said Karen Ristau, president of the association.

Catholic dioceses in eastern cities that used to have large Catholic populations are struggling the most, Ristau said, although some, including Pittsburgh, have been able to buoy their numbers by reaching out to non-Catholics.

“Anyone is welcome at a Catholic school,” Ristau said. “There are people who see them as values-oriented or safer.”

There’s more at the link.