Church bulletin
THE ARCHDIOCESE of Boston broke every rule in real estate sales this week when it voluntarily halved a $2 million offer from a community group for the former Our Lady of the Presentation elementary school in Brighton's Oak Square. It was a brilliant lesson from Cardinal Sean O'Malley on how best to strengthen a community.
The Presentation School saga began in 2004 when the financially troubled archdiocese announced its intention to close the school as part of its wider reconfiguration of parishes. The announcement rocked the parish and surrounding middle-class urban neighborhood where young families were looking for reasons to stay in the city. Residents formed the nonprofit Presentation School Foundation and put together a business plan to establish a full-service community center and school.
The archdiocese rejected it. And in June 2005, fearing that parents would protest at the graduation of the final Presentation class, church officials locked out Presentation students from the last few days of classes and canceled graduation ceremonies.
It would turn out to be a public relations debacle. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who is nothing if not politically wily, sealed his reputation as a ``neighborhood mayor" by organizing a graduation ceremony for Presentation students at Faneuil Hall. And the school's backers camped out in the common on Oak Square to dramatize their expulsion.
But last Thursday, as children in parochial school uniforms handed out pretzels and juice boxes in Oak Square to celebrate the terms of a new deal, it was impossible not to think about the callousness displayed by the chancellor's office during the Presentation crisis. What would lead anyone to lock elementary school children out of their classrooms? And why did the chancellor's office, chief financial agent for the archdiocese, keep putting roadblocks in the way of the Presentation School Foundation? In February, the parties finally appeared to be on the verge of closing a $2 million offer for the property. Again, the archdiocese pulled the deal off the table.
Cardinal O'Malley made things more than right this week. He instructed James McDonough, his newly appointed chancellor, to close the deal, but in a way that gave the nonprofit Foundation the best chance to succeed. By reducing the Foundation's standing offer by $1 million, the archdiocese made the kind of gift that should inspire foundations and corporations to follow suit.
Church teachings can take place in many forms. This lesson in charity and reconciliation was especially enlightening.
