Backstage information that still asks for names
The record of the Nazareth school in Ashrafieh could far exceed the fate of a single school. Behind the temporary abandonment of its sale and the discussions on a possible resumption by the Antonine congregation appears a broader question: how many schools in religious congregations are now experiencing comparable difficulties without their situation being known to the public?
The sources of 23 September 2026 do not allow a list of establishments threatened. They also do not give sufficiently documented names to say that a second or third school would be about to be sold, rented or transferred. It would therefore be imprudent to appoint institutions solely on the basis of rumours.
On the other hand, the case of Nazareth reveals a mechanism likely to concern other establishments: a congregation has a significant educational heritage, but encounters difficulties in continuing to exploit it under the same conditions. The real estate value of the site can then become much higher than its ability to generate the income needed to operate the school. Sale appears to be a possible solution. The mobilization of families and religious authorities can then lead to the search for another formula, such as renting to a congregation with more resources.
This is precisely what makes the Nazareth file interesting beyond Ashrafieh. It could be less an exception than a first public case of silent restructuring of private religious education.
Nazareth reveals a contradiction that has become difficult to sustain
The Nazareth school welcomes about 1,500 students. Its size therefore does not correspond to that of a small establishment gradually emptied of its staff. Yet its sale has been sufficiently planned to provoke mobilization and to lead to intervention with the religious authorities.
This situation reveals a fundamental problem:an institution may have pupils and a significant heritage while becoming difficult to manage financially.
The number of registrations is no longer sufficient to ensure sustainability.
Since the financial collapse of 2019, private schools have had to deal with expenses that have been largely re-valued. Wages had to be reassessed. Transportation costs exploded. Energy is an important load. Maintenance work, equipment, insurance and part of supplies are now paid at market prices.
On the other hand, not all families have income in fresh dollars.
School directions are therefore locked in a difficult equation. To increase the costs significantly makes it possible to finance the establishment, but pushes some families towards the exit. Limiting increases protects students, but weakens finances. Reducing wages causes teachers to leave. Reporting maintenance degrades the heritage.
For a congregation, a fourth possibility appears: to stop operating the school itself.
It is this possibility that should now be examined.
The real active is sometimes no longer the school, but the field
The problem takes on a particular dimension in Beirut and in urban areas where certain congregations have had properties acquired for several decades.
A religious school can occupy several thousand square meters in a neighborhood where land is now worth considerable sums.
This situation creates a dissociation between two values.
The first is educational. It depends on the number of students, the reputation of the institution, its teaching staff and its ability to balance its accounts.
The second is real estate. It depends primarily on the location, area and potential for exploitation of the land.
When the second becomes much higher than the first, economic pressure naturally arises.
This does not mean that a congregation seeking to sell a good necessarily abandons its educational mission to achieve a profit. It may need to finance other institutions, cover debts, maintain an aging heritage or reorganize its activities.
But the result can be the same: a land used for decades for education definitely leaves the school system.
Nazareth shows that this decision can encounter strong resistance.
Antonin solution could become a model
The scenario now envisaged for Nazareth is particularly interesting because it offers a third path between two extremes.
The first would be to maintain the existing situation despite its difficulties.
The second would be to sell.
The third is to preserve the heritage while changing managers.
The owner congregation could rent the establishment to another congregation. It would resume school activity, while the site would retain its educational vocation.
The Antonine congregation appears as the principal candidate in the case of Nazareth. No final agreement shall be established in the information available. But if this formula succeeds, it could create a precedent.
A congregation no longer wishing to run a school directly could transfer its operation to another Catholic institution rather than yield the land.
This solution would theoretically preserve the school, students and heritage.
However, it raises an obvious economic question:why would the new congregation succeed where the old one can no longer balance the model?
Recovery does not remove deficit
Change of manager does not eliminate electricity bills, salaries or maintenance costs.
For a recovery to work, at least one variable must change.
The new congregation can have a common administration at several establishments and reduce certain costs. She can share purchases. It can integrate the school into an existing network. It may have more own funds or receive donations. It can also change tuition fees.
Finally, it can restructure staff.
That is precisely why the details of the Nazareth project are important to understand what might happen elsewhere.
If the Antonins take over the school with all the teachers, without a significant increase in costs and with investments in buildings, this will mean that a mutualisation can actually save some schools.
If, on the contrary, the recovery requires a substantial increase in costs or a reduction in staff, it will show the limitations of the model.
Nazareth could thus become a laboratory for the restructuring of denominational education.
Teachers are probably the most difficult point
The crisis in religious schools cannot be analysed only through buildings.
The main cost of an establishment remains its staff.
Teachers have since 2019 suffered a considerable collapse of their purchasing power. Schools have gradually reintroduced dollar payments or salary supplements to retain their teachers.
However, this has created significant disparities between institutions.
Schools able to charge high fees can better pay their teachers. Others risk losing their best elements to stronger settlements or emigration.
A congregation running several schools can also face a delicate question: should we continue to finance a deficit institution if it threatens the other schools in the network?
This issue may lead to clustering.
Two geographically close schools can be merged. Some cycles can be transferred. One building can be abandoned while another accommodates more students.
These decisions are economically sound. However, they can upset centuries-old institutions.
The aging of congregations adds silent crisis
The financial dimension is probably not the only one.
Several Lebanese Catholic congregations, like their European counterparts, face the aging of their members and the decline of vocations.
This profoundly alters their ability to directly manage institutions.
Historically, part of the operation of religious schools was based on religious and religious who themselves held positions of leadership, teaching or administration.
When their number decreases, these positions must be assigned to employees.
Professionalization is normal and can improve management. But it also increases costs.
A congregation with several institutions can thus reach a point where its educational heritage exceeds its human managerial capacity.
Transfer to another congregation then becomes a possible solution even when the school is not technically bankrupt.
In the case of Nazareth, the available sources do not support the view that this demographic issue is the cause of restructuring. It belongs to the broader context that deserves to be examined for other institutions.
Why the Vatican Can Become Arbitrator
The letter addressed to the Vatican in the Nazareth case is an important indication.
If the problem were only commercial, Rome’s intervention would make little sense. His involvement becomes relevant when it comes to preserving a religious heritage, transferring activity between congregations, or deciding on the sale of property belonging to an ecclesiastical institution.
Canon law provides special rules for the alienation of certain ecclesiastical property. Depending on their value and status, authorisations may be required.
This means that congregations do not always have the same freedom as a traditional private owner.
This architecture can be a brake on rush sales.
It can also promote solutions internal to the Church: transfer of management, rental or cooperation between congregations.
If several schools actually encounter difficulties, the Vatican could therefore find itself confronted not with a series of isolated cases, but with a strategic question about the Catholic educational heritage in Lebanon.
A closed school is almost impossible to recreate
The question of heritage goes beyond the Church alone.
When a school in a closed urban area and its land is sold for a real estate project, the phenomenon is almost irreversible.
The rise in the price of land makes it extremely difficult to establish an equivalent establishment in the same neighbourhood.
Lebanon can therefore lose in a few years an educational network built over several generations.
This risk is particularly important in Beirut. Large school properties represent rare spaces in a densely built city.
A sale can immediately bring several million dollars to an institution. But it permanently eliminates the capacity for school reception.
That is why the question is not only about the congregations that own it.
It also affects education policy and urban planning.
The state does not necessarily know which schools are fragile
The Ministry of Education has data on schools, their students and their administrative status. But it does not necessarily have a detailed and real-time view of the heritage and financial situation of each congregation.
A school may continue to operate normally until its owner announces a sale or transfer.
The families then discover the situation late.
The Nazareth case shows the consequences of this absence of anticipation.
A mapping of private institutions in difficulty would, however, make it possible to distinguish several categories: schools faced with a significant drop in numbers, establishments with expensive real estate assets to maintain, congregations wishing to leave school management, heavily indebted schools and institutions which could be taken over by another network.
Without this mapping, each crisis will be treated separately after its public appearance.
A speculative list of schools « for sale » should be avoided
The temptation would now be to search for names and publish a list of establishments allegedly threatened.
It would be a mistake without solid documents.
A sales rumor may cause an immediate leakage of the entries. Parents fear for school continuity and look for another school. The departure of students then reduces the recipes and can turn a temporary difficulty into a real crisis.
To wrongly name an establishment could therefore help to create the problem that is supposed to be revealed.
For each school, several elements must be gathered before publication: the owner’s decision, a document relating to a sale or rental, accounts showing difficulty, negotiation with a contractor or direct confirmation of the congregation.
The September 23 files do not provide these elements for establishments other than Nazareth.
It is an important limit of the source and must be maintained.
The signals to look for to identify future folders
There are, however, several indicators to investigate without speculating.
The first is the sustained decline in the number of pupils.
The second is the sale of secondary properties belonging to the congregation.
The third is the administrative merger of several schools.
The fourth is the sudden departure or replacement of a religious direction by an entirely secular management.
The fifth is the existence of important works which the institution no longer manages to finance.
The sixth is the negotiation of a lease or management transfer with another institution.
Finally, wage and contribution disputes can provide a signal on the cash flow situation.
Crossing these elements would help identify truly fragile establishments before a sale is announced.
The risk of a concentration of private education
If transfers between congregations increase, another transformation may occur.
The strongest networks would gradually take over the schools that the more fragile structures can no longer manage.
The number of establishments could remain relatively stable, but their control would be concentrated between fewer operators.
This development would have some advantages. Large networks have administrative services, investment capacity and greater management tools.
It also carries risks.
Excessive concentration can reduce educational diversity and increase the power of large networks in setting costs. It may also lead to the closure of establishments deemed insufficiently profitable.
The rental model envisaged in Nazareth must therefore be observed not only as the potential rescue of a school, but as a possible example of the next organisation of the sector.
The Nazareth case finally raises a national heritage question
The information that other religious institutions are experiencing difficulties remains too vague to designate new schools.
But it becomes credible as a survey when it is repositioned in the transformations of the sector: rising costs, weakening families, re-spending, aging religious structures and increasing land value.
Nazareth now offers a concrete case.
A sale was envisaged. It provoked a mobilization. It would have been suspended. A rental is now being studied. The Antonins appear as the main possible winner. The Vatican has been asked. The final decision is postponed.
This provides a grid for examining other schools.
So the real question is not whether a second « Nazares case » will come out soon. The sources do not make it clear.
It is to determinehow many congregations now have schools that they no longer wish, or can no longer, manage sustainably.
This data would allow an invisible phenomenon to be measured. For if Nazareth is not an isolated case, Lebanon could find itself at the beginning of a silent restructuring of its private religious education: not by a spectacular wave of closures, but by sales avoided at the last moment, rentals, mergers and management transfers that would gradually change the country’s school card.
