The Good and Bad of Catholic Schools

Photo credit: James Bartlett / Lynn Daily Item

 

 

Chronicle is a local public interest television show that's been on the air at Boston's WCVB since 1982.  They recently devoted an entire broadcast to the subject of Catholic schools and it was surprisingly positive.

One interview featured Tom Nunan (pictured), the current president of Bishop Fenwick High School and he made the case that a parochial education is more relevant than ever.  He stated that in a world where many students face alienation and isolation Catholic schools can provide “an authentic community, a real sense of belonging and a place where you can feel at home.”

Also discussed during the half hour show was the pandemic's impact.  Eleven schools within the Boston Archdiocese closed for good as a result of the virus, but the program made the case that Catholic schools responded better to safety protocols that were put in place and resumed in-person learning much earlier than many pubic schools.  This created huge interest in enrollment from parents and students who were eager to get back into the classroom.  Unfortunately, with pre-pandemic numbers already dwindling, this surge did not do much to increase overall enrollment.

One interviewee stated that many parents don't just want their children to receive a good education, they want them to become better people and a Catholic school's faith-based learning can provide that.  A few now-thriving disadvantaged students were also profiled along with the Catholic Schools Foundation, an organization that helps provide financial assistance to those who can't cover tuition.  When a Catholic school education is at its best, it's a beautiful thing.  Unfortunately, there's another side to all of this that undermines the lofty goals so many spoke about on Chronicle.

From my own experiences at Bishop Fenwick, I found none of what Tom Nunan was talking about.  I sincerely hope things have changed for the better at that institution from where they were a few decades ago because all I found at the school was alienation and isolation.  Catholic schools can be very cliquey, hypocritical and elitist.  One student interviewed on Chronicle said the first time she was ever called the “n-word” was by a fellow student at Bishop Fenwick.  

Often, Catholic schools will place a huge emphasis on educational greatness or athletic greatness at the expense of moral greatness.  Sometimes this strategy works.  A good number of my fellow classmates in high school were only there to get an educational advantage over their public school counterparts.  Their parents really didn't care about the Church's morals and the students themselves absolutely loathed what the Church stood for but that diploma was an important key to unlock greater secular success.

It's odd that some Catholic schools seem to be more about prestige and sports than morality.  I'm reminded of how many locals simply refer to the all-boys St. John's Preparatory School in Danvers, MA as “the prep” even though there are other schools in the greater Boston area with the word “preparatory” in their names.  When someone close to me attended that institution many years ago, I could see how snobby he and his fellow classmates became and how engaging in reckless and / or self-destructive behavior was par for the course.   

Maybe this approach is the future for the Catholic schools that will survive into the next century or maybe forsaking the Church's values will only quicken the pace of their demise.

Sadly, Bishop Fenwick made the news recently...for all the wrong reasons.  The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association harshly punished the high school for alleged inconsistencies regarding one student's application to play baseball.  As a result, all sports have been suspended from state playoffs for 2023-2024.  In a case that many find confusing, the MIAA alleges Fenwick engaged in a pattern of deception while the school maintains these inconsistencies were a result of confusion and ignorance regarding the complicated application process.  School leaders were in the hot seat as they fielded questions from angry and bewildered parents during a discussion about the controversy in the auditorium. (See this blog entry's photo.)

Fenwick has vowed to appeal the decision with no guarantee the MIAA will even consider what the school has to say.  In the meantime, all student athletes are paying the price for something they had no part in.  I think we need to expect better from the Catholic educational system.

When Chickens Come Home To Roost

June of 2023 was a not a good month for Catholic schools in the greater Boston area.

In February, St. Joseph Preparatory High School announced their doors would close for good at the end of the school year.  The Brighton, MA institution had occupied the former Mount Saint Joseph Academy and was the result of a 2012 merger between that school and Trinity Catholic High School of Newton, MA which was founded in 1894.

In March, the all-girls Mount Alvernia High School (also in Newton) announced plans to close and merge with Fontbonne Academy, another all-girls Catholic school in Milton, MA.  The Missionary Franciscan Sisters who ran Mount Alvernia said operations had become unsustainable because they were no longer able to continue living on the property.  According to a National Catholic Register article, one board member who later became its chair said the possibility of closing the school "was never once discussed" during her tenure and she accused the sisters of making their decision in secret.

Students of the Cambridge Matignon School were also blindsided when the 76 year old Cambridge, MA institution announced their closure just one month before graduation.  In all of these cases, the story seems to be the same.  Insurmountable financial difficulties coupled with declining enrollment led to each school's demise.

Many years ago, my niece's Catholic school enjoyed huge crowds during their annual Christmas pageant.  After just a few years, the place announced its closure as well.  Apparently enrollment hadn't dipped...it collapsed and she graduated with only six other students in her class.  The principal tried to put a positive spin on things by saying for over a hundred years the institution's mission was to educate young minds and now that mission was complete.  We were told to be proud of what the school had accomplished over the past century but such words did little to abate the feeling that something great was being lost.

Sometimes when Catholic schools close, failure is painted as an exciting opportunity.  That's how Father Mark Mahoney portrayed the 2016 closure of Saint Mary's School in Beverly, MA.  Under his leadership, that institution merged with the nearby Saint John the Evangelist School and was renamed The Saints Academy.  There was talk of closing St. Mary's School as early as 1975 but when Father Richard Johnson became pastor a year later, he set up Beano games and took other steps that helped stabilize the school's finances and enrollment.  A lot of good people worked so hard over the years to keep that place going.  Today, the building continues to sit empty.

Even though this blog has been critical of my experiences at Bishop Fenwick High School, I still feel these institutions are far too important to lose.  The parochial educational system offers the Church one of the greatest opportunities to renew itself.  Not only are young minds exposed to important character-shaping values, they can also find an oasis from the moral relativism that plagues modern society.

While there are many reasons for these school closures, it certainly doesn't help when young people seeking to increase their faith discover their parishes offer them no place at the table.  It also doesn't help when singles who willingly embrace the Church's teachings are left to fend for themselves and never get the chance to marry and have the children who would attend Catholic schools in the first place.