Catholic Schools

In an effort to improve elementary and high school Catholic education, new national benchmarks and standards are being unveiled Monday to bring more uniformity to the network of Catholic schools across the country. The new guidelines aim to increase accountability by providing schools a framework for measuring and tracking performance. They also provide a blueprint of the fundamental tenets of a Catholic education. Local Catholic school officials said the new document was likely to be crucial both internally and externally, allowing schools to evaluate how they are...

Boston.com Staff A reunion will be held for alumni from the Catholic Memorial graduation classes ending in '2' and '7' at the school's West Roxbury campus on June 8 and 9. The class of 1962 will celebrate its 50th reunion on the evening of June 8. The reunion will feature tours, the Catholic Memorial Memory Project, Mass, a class reception and dinner, administrators said. On June 9, all reunion alumni are invited to the tour the school at 3 p.m., hear a presentation from students and administrators at 4 p.m., celebrate Mass at 5 p.m., and take class pictures and...

Two hundred students at the largest elementary school in Boston will be on hand to celebrate a $1 million gift made to the Campaign for Catholic Schools by John Hancock Financial. The gift will be used to support literacy programs for English and non-language learners, and recruitment programs to improve faculty diversity at Pope John Paul II Catholic Academy in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. John Hancock plans to complement its financial gift with an in-school history program provided by the Freedom Trail Foundation.

A national religious group called on the Roman Catholic bishop of Worcester Wednesday to reverse course and allow Victoria Reggie Kennedy to deliver the commencement address at Anna Maria College, saying that Catholic schools should not be "a battleground for partisan witch hunts and censorship. " Last month, the small, Catholic college in Paxton withdrew its invitation to Kennedy, the widow of US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, under pressure from Bishop Robert J. McManus, who said her views ran contrary to the church's teachings.

By Kathy McCabe, Globe Staff St. John The Baptist School in Peabody will share in a $1.2 million gift from the Mosakowski Family Foundation awarded today to six Catholic schools in four local communities. The Mosakowski Foundation is a private nonprofit philanthropic fund run by Bill and Jane Mosakowski of Swampscott. Bill Mosakowski is the founder of the Public Consulting Group of Boston. The $1.2 million grant will be used to fund scholarships, technology upgrades, early childhood education and professional development for middle school...

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Weeks after Indiana began the nation's broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were recently on the brink of closing. It is a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools. Opponents say the practice violates the separation of church and state.

JOAN VENNOCHI'S Feb. 2 column regarding the decision by the Obama administration to force Catholic institutions to cover birth control and sterilization in their health insurance plans argues that, because Catholic schools and other Catholic institutions employ non-Catholics, they must provide this coverage ("Catholic Church's unfair attack against Obama," Op-ed). Catholic Churches, exempt under the rule, also employ non-Catholics in administrative and operational capacities. Yet the Obama administration is not forcing the rule on churches.

LANCASTER - At least five former students at a small Catholic day school in Lancaster have said they were abused by the same priest during the 1990s and early 2000s, but the couple who founded and ran the Trivium School stoutly defended the Rev. Donald J. McGuire until 2009, when he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for molesting a former eighth-grader. McGuire, once a prominent Jesuit with close ties to Mother Teresa, never worked at the Trivium but was a regular guest, saying Mass and speaking at graduations.

Students at Catholic high schools in Brockton and Braintree, and others in grades 7 through 12 in Kingston, will start the next school year with iPads instead of papers and books in their backpacks, part of a growing number of schools looking to trade traditional learning tools for the latest technology. Not far behind Cardinal Spellman in Brockton, Archbishop Williams in Braintree, and Sacred Heart in Kingston are public school counterparts in Brockton as well as Cohasset and Sharon that are test-driving Apple tablets and their Windows competitors, or are leaning...

FRANKLIN - Should public and private schools be in separate tournaments? Would it make more sense to align schools based on a formula that would promote a more level playing field? Or should the MIAA leave a good thing alone? That was the prime discussion and the only vote taken at yesterday's meeting of the MIAA board of directors. In March, the MIAA received two proposals for changing how schools were aligned in postseason tournaments. On Aug. 26, the Tournament Management Committee sent a survey to principals asking them if the TMC should study the concept of changing the current...

LANCASTER - At least five former students at a small Catholic day school in Lancaster have said they were abused by the same priest during the 1990s and early 2000s, but the couple who founded and ran the Trivium School stoutly defended the Rev. Donald J. McGuire until 2009, when he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for molesting a former eighth-grader. McGuire, once a prominent Jesuit with close ties to Mother Teresa, never worked at the Trivium but was a regular guest, saying Mass and speaking at graduations.

Two hundred students at the largest elementary school in Boston will be on hand to celebrate a $1 million gift made to the Campaign for Catholic Schools by John Hancock Financial. The gift will be used to support literacy programs for English and non-language learners, and recruitment programs to improve faculty diversity at Pope John Paul II Catholic Academy in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. John Hancock plans to complement its financial gift with an in-school history program provided by the Freedom Trail Foundation.

In an effort to improve elementary and high school Catholic education, new national benchmarks and standards are being unveiled Monday to bring more uniformity to the network of Catholic schools across the country. The new guidelines aim to increase accountability by providing schools a framework for measuring and tracking performance. They also provide a blueprint of the fundamental tenets of a Catholic education. Local Catholic school officials said the new document was likely to be crucial both internally and externally, allowing schools to evaluate how they are...

Students at Catholic high schools in Brockton and Braintree, and others in grades 7 through 12 in Kingston, will start the next school year with iPads instead of papers and books in their backpacks, part of a growing number of schools looking to trade traditional learning tools for the latest technology. Not far behind Cardinal Spellman in Brockton, Archbishop Williams in Braintree, and Sacred Heart in Kingston are public school counterparts in Brockton as well as Cohasset and Sharon that are test-driving Apple tablets and their Windows competitors, or are leaning...

JOAN VENNOCHI'S Feb. 2 column regarding the decision by the Obama administration to force Catholic institutions to cover birth control and sterilization in their health insurance plans argues that, because Catholic schools and other Catholic institutions employ non-Catholics, they must provide this coverage ("Catholic Church's unfair attack against Obama," Op-ed). Catholic Churches, exempt under the rule, also employ non-Catholics in administrative and operational capacities. Yet the Obama administration is not forcing the rule on churches.

Citing declining enrollments, budget problems, and the possibility of closing, two Catholic high schools that date to the 19th century will merge next fall, leaving just one Catholic girls' high school in Boston. Mount Saint Joseph Academy in Brighton, which opened in 1885 for girls only, and the coed Trinity Catholic High School in Newton, which opened in 1893, will form Saint Joseph Preparatory High School, a coed campus focused largely on math, science, and technology. That leaves Elizabeth Seton Academy in Dorchester, which has just 96 students, as the sole Catholic girls'...

HAVANA - Raul Castro met behind closed doors yesterday with the Vatican's number two official, in his first encounter with a foreign dignitary as Cuba's president. The talks with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict XVI's secretary of state, came two days after the 76-year-old Castro succeeded his older brother, Fidel, to become the first new Cuban head of state in 49 years. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Vice Presidents Esteban Lazo and Carlos Lage also attended the meeting.

The Archdiocese of Boston issued its annual financial report for fiscal 2011 today, saying its finances are on solid ground, compared with their precarious footing just a few years ago. "We have made great progress in moving the Archdiocese from a position of financial freefall just a few short years ago to one of stability, fully committed to supporting our parishes, schools, and ministries," Chancellor Jim McDonough said in a statement accompanying...

The Archdiocese of Boston issued its annual financial report for fiscal 2011 today, saying its finances are on solid ground, compared with their precarious footing just a few years ago. "We have made great progress in moving the Archdiocese from a position of financial freefall just a few short years ago to one of stability, fully committed to supporting our parishes, schools, and ministries," Chancellor Jim McDonough said in a statement accompanying...

St. Ann's Home & School of Methuen has fired its chief financial officer after finding financial irregularities at the institution, according to a statement the facility released yesterday. The board of directors fired Sharon Cutter, who had been on administrative leave since Dec. 2, but the statement did not explain why she was dismissed. St. Ann's, a residence on Haverhill Street for children with learning disabilities and with behavioral and emotional disorders, is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.