Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston is finally doing what he should have been doing all along: Going in person to meet with protesting Catholics. He was supposed to meet today with parents whose Catholic school was closed. As you know, the school was closed two days early last week because the archdiocese heard some parents were planning a sit-in.
Now I’ve made it clear that I think the parents are misguided, that they were given an extra year to come to terms with the closing of a school that isn’t attached to a parish and that people outside the school, who have experience with such things, doesn’t have what it takes to survive. Likewise, selling the building to the parents to set up an independent Catholic school sets a bad precedent. Catholic institutions cannot be
simply free agents, operating out on their own, separate from the structure of the Church. This is where most Catholic colleges are and look at the problems there.