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Posted on 03/17/2010 8:08:33 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Patrick Roche, an 80-year-old grocer who credits a parochial school in Roslindale with helping his family when his mother died, said yesterday he is giving $20 million to a Boston College center that is attempting to revitalize the nation’s struggling Catholic schools.
Roche, the cofounder of Roche Brothers supermarkets, joins a small but prominent group of wealthy Boston Catholics who are increasingly devoting their philanthropy to Catholic schools at a time when the Archdiocese of Boston has been closing several small parish schools each year.
“It hurts, really, to think of what’s going on with the financial trouble,’’ Roche, who is giving the gift along with his wife, Barbara, said in a telephone interview from Florida yesterday. “We never had those problems when I was a kid. We want to see if we can correct those problems now, and I’m fortunate enough to be able to try."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Ping
This is not a homeschooling issue, but it’s of interest to those who keep up on educational issues.
Boston College is a Jesuit school. I’d be very, very leery of them actually using the money toward Catholic ends. Sorry, I graduated from 2 Jesuit schools and anymore I don’t trust them at all.
Such a nice thing to do. Good for him!
“I graduated from 2 Jesuit schools and anymore I don’t trust them at all.”
I can top that- I am a product of the public schools.
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He was a wonderful man and priest.
Are they getting too arrogant?
I agree. I wonder how much money will really end up helping children, as opposed to funding academic salaries and conferences. BC is solidly in the “social justice” camp now. They invited Bill Ayers to speak, but had to cancel when a local talk show host made it public.
I graduated BC in ‘68.
I had good Jesuit men as teachers in high school and college, but they’ve gone both “liberation theology” and, I’m told, heavy with homosexuality in their seminaries.
I was Gonzaga High School ‘67 - Wheeling College (now Wheeling Jesuit U) ‘71. Very different kinds of priest back then, huh?
It’s not the schools, its the parents.
Catholic Schools would THRIVE if the parents faith and families were as strong as those 1-2 generations ago.
Yes. Mr. Roche has the best of intentions, but think of how many scholarships $20 million would have provided!
So sadly true. I just finished reading "The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture". It's a devastating look at what happened to what used to be a solid Catholic foundation in the Boston area. It wasn't the sex abuse scandal that did it; it began long before that.
I would guess that the liberalization of the culture and of the American Catholic church happened at about the same time, post 1960. Instead of fighting liberalism, many Catholic clergy and nuns decided to join the enemy.
Good for him!
I hope they will offer school vouchers to Catholic Schools across the country or are they just a think tank who will use the money for research.
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