A Dream Come True

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - June 10, 2005

It was similar to when the Red Sox won the World Series.

A huge crowd. Jubilation and standing ovations. Lots of kids in uniforms jubilantly giving each other high fives. Grown men with tears in their eyes. Octogenarians mistfully saying, "I never thought I'd live to see this." The ebullient throngs univocally declaring it was a "dream come true." And everyone - from school children to their great-great-grandparents - saying with joyful exasperation, "Finally!"

The victors were not a hungry bunch of self-described "idiots," but over-achieving bright young kids . The clutch performer was not a "Big Papi" but hundreds of pops and moms of all sizes. There was no bloody sock, but plenty of courage and sacrifice.

And the backdrop was not Busch Stadium in St. Louis, or a Boston beverage establishment or even the millions of living rooms in Red Sox Nation. It was the normally staid and stodgy chambers of Barnstable Town Hall in Hyannis.

After what seemed like 86 years of struggle to reverse a curse on young Cape Catholics, children and their families will finally have a Catholic high school on Cape Cod.

That's because last Thursday, the Barnstable Town Council voted unanimously to sell the historic former Barnstable High School to a group of lay Catholics seeking to bring Catholic secondary education to the Cape.

The property is located behind St. Francis Xavier Parish and Preparatory school in Hyannis, and for that reason the group intends to call the school St. Francis Xavier High School.

For decades Cape families that have wanted to provide their children with Catholic secondary education have either had to move off-Cape (as some have) or commute to Bishop Stang High School in Dartmouth, where about 200 Cape students attend, or Sacred Heart High School in Kingston, where about 75 attend.

Because of parents' work schedules, often it has meant entrusting that long daily commute to carpools driven by teenagers who have just gotten their licenses - which is one of the explanations why, I think, I have blessed so many St. Christopher medals during my years on the Cape!

Many students have needed to leave very early in the morning and - if they're involved in extracurricular activities - return quite late at night, which puts an added strain on their family life. These are among the reasons why, after so many have worked so hard for so long, Catholic families on the Cape feel that a curse has been reversed and are so happy about it.

Catholic education on Cape Cod has come a long way in recent times. When Bishop O'Malley was installed in 1992, there was not a single Catholic school on Cape Cod. Now there are Catholic primary schools in West Harwich, South Yarmouth, Hyannis, and Buzzards Bay. And, if everything goes well, graduates of those schools and others will have access to Catholic secondary education in the Fall of 2006.

But what makes the story of St. Francis Xavier High School particularly notable is that the real driving force behind it has been Catholic lay people acting out on the promises made at the baptism of their children to do all they can, as the "first teachers of their children in the way of faith," to train them in the practice of that faith.

In the history of Catholic education, most schools have been started either by clergy or religious. The first Catholic schools were begun by priests assigned to European cathedrals; those developed into the first universities. Primary education remained the stuff of tutors for the well-to-do until religious orders made it their mission to teach not just the catechism but the "three-Rs" to the poor and needy. In the United States of America, parish schools were founded, largely, to instruct the children of hardworking Catholic immigrants, who themselves had received little education but wanted their children to be better off than they.

Because of the success of Catholic education in our country, Catholic lay people now often receive as much education as clergy and religious and they're both desirous and capable of passing on that gift to their children. There's a growing movement of Catholic parents who home-school their kids. In other places, groups of parents have gotten together in areas where there is no access to Catholic schools to found educational institutions where their children can receive solid Catholic formation in addition to other instruction.

And the Code of Canon Law, promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983, not only supports but encourages this fulfillment of the rights and duties of parents: "Parents are obliged and enjoy the right to educate their offspring; Catholic parents have the duty and the right to select those means and institutions through which they can provide more suitably for the Catholic education of the children according to local circumstances" (Canon 793).

Catholic parents on Cape Cod have acted on those marching orders in an impressive way. Commenting on their organizational, lobbying and fundraising efforts, Barnstable Town Council President Gary Brown said, "I've been on the council for years, and I've never seen anything like it. Everyone is for the Catholic school."

It's a new day for Catholic teens and families on the Cape.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.