Cardinal appoints nun as new head of Chicago diocesan schools

Cardinal Francis George says he has named Sister Mary Paul McCaughey, president of Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, as superintendent of schools for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.

George said Friday that McCaughey will take over the country's second-largest Catholic school system on July 1. She assumes control at a time when tuition is increasing and enrollment is falling at parochial schools nationwide. Since its peak in 1965, enrollment in the archdiocesan schools has fallen from 366,000 students to 98,225. But last year was the first in 45 years that no Catholic elementary schools closed.