Offer buys extra year for parish school

By Suzanne Sataline and Michael Paulson, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff | June 8, 2004

Our Lady of the Presentation School in Brighton, one of three schools and dozens of parishes the Archdiocese of Boston ordered closed last month, yesterday received a reprieve of a year after Secretary of State William Galvin personally pledged a $100,000 line of credit should the school slide into debt in the coming year.

Galvin, an alumnus of the school who has called for greater governmental scrutiny of the closings, offered his financial support over the weekend if the archdiocese would let Presentation school remain open. Bishop Richard Lennon accepted his offer yesterday, according to parents of students and the school's principal, who were invited to his office yesterday.

"It's not a contribution. I'm taking a risk, but it's a risk well worth taking," said Galvin, who lives near Our Lady of the Presentation Church and said the school would not have to repay the money.

The spokesman for the archdiocese, the Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, was away yesterday and no other archdiocesan official would comment on the agreement.

Galvin said yesterday that he had not signed anything and that details of how and when the money would be used were still being worked out. But he said he will make the money available if the school does not have enough cash to pay its bills during the school year.

Left unanswered yesterday was whether similar arrangements could buy time for the two other schools the archdiocese is closing. The agreement also raised the possibility that parishioners at parishes that are to close might raise money and go to the archdiocese looking for reprieves.

Nevertheless, parents said the decision will give them time to find schools for their children and allow school leaders to find businesses or institutions that might support the school if it tries to remain open without financial assistance or supervision from the archdiocese.

The school's parish, Our Lady of the Presentation, is among those slated for closure. Galvin said that without a supervising parish, the school will report to the archdiocese, which will have purview over the school's budget and ensure it is solvent.

To help ensure that the school has enough money to survive, most of the 116 families with children at Presentation have pledged to pay tuition in full by this summer, instead of through the school year, said Thomas O'Brien, the parent of a student. The parents also are setting fund-raising goals to help bolster the budget.

Presentation's reprieve was the second piece of good news for Catholic families opposed to the church and parish and school closings. On Friday, the archdiocese agreed not to touch money raised specifically for St. Peter's School in South Boston, which is slated to be closed, until the attorney general's office weighs in on the legality of the archdiocese claiming the money. Parents of students at that school asked the court for an injunction to keep the archdiocese from using more than $100,000 raised by the St. Peter's Home and School Association.

Janice Carthas, the principal at St. Peter's school, said Galvin's offer for Presentation school does not affect the situation at St. Peter's. She said the South Boston parents are determined to create an independent school and are not interested in delaying the closing.

"What's a year going to get us? In a year, you're going to lose half the kids and kind of prolong the inevitable," she said.

During the weekend the archdiocese notified several parishes that they must close by Sept. 1, and asked pastors to pick a date over the summer for the closing. These parishes are among the 70 closing -- including 10 that are merging -- over the course of this year, and they are the first to be notified of a timeline for closure.

The archdiocese yesterday declined to identify the parishes, but a spokeswoman said the archdiocese would release the list tomorrow after archdiocesan officials are certain all affected churches had received notice. Pastors at four Boston parishes said yesterday they had received notification: Blessed Sacrament in Jamaica Plain, Sacred Heart in the North End, St. Mary Star of the Sea in East Boston, and St. Peter in South Boston.

The Rev. Stephen P. Zukas, pastor of St. Peter, the only Lithuanian Catholic church in Boston, said he is asking the archdiocese to extend the life of his parish until at least Sept. 12, when the congregation is planning to hold a celebration of its centennial.

The Rev. Robert R. Kennedy, pastor of St. Mary Star of the Sea in East Boston, said he expects that his parish's final Mass will be on Aug. 29.

"We'll raise our voices and praise God, and then a management company will come lock the doors, and we'll be gone," he said.