"The kids at St. Peter's School have started asking questions, and like any good first-grade teacher, Colleen O'Dwyer is a master of deflection.

"I tell them nothing's been decided," she was saying, as she and Courtney Carthas, a second-grade teacher, sat with seven kids for the after-school book club.

Technically, that's true, as the final decision to close the Dorchester parochial school has not been made by Cardinal Sean O'Malley. But the stars and the numbers are aligned against St. Peter's, and it is only a matter of time.

To describe St. Peter's as a victim of consolidation in an archdiocese trying to stem a decline in enrollment in its urban schools is to completely miss the importance of the building and those who people it. Sitting on Bowdoin Street, at the foot of Meetinghouse Hill, St. Peter's is more than a school. It is a haven, a sanctuary, four stories of red-brick proof that all is not lost in one of the city's toughest neighborhoods. (...)" - By Kevin Cullen, The Boston Globe Columnist 11/29/07. Read More at Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/29/a_school_on_the_brink/)

In the last couple years Cardinal O’Malley laid down a plan to close several churches and parochial schools in different communities of Boston as a result of the financial hardship the Archdiocese had to deal with following the lost of millions of dollars from the lawsuits from several victims of clergy sexual abuse. He succeeded in few cases. In others, people rallied behind their schools and churches and point blank said “NO!” Some of them were successful in stopping the Archdiocese’s plan.

In this case, In this case, how will the Cape Verdean community react? Will its members, leaders, and parents let Saint Peter’s go down the drain? Or will they take “the bull by the horns” and stop O’Malley’s plan?

Please, write your reaction to this issue.

Cardinal O’Malley, What would Jesus do?
Please, follow his footsteps and be an example to your flock.