On Thursday a letter went out to parents and guardians of Saint Saviour Elementary School from Fr. Murphy. Here is a text of the letter, which was emailed to me by one of the school's parents.
Dear Parents and Guardians:
It is with joy that I announce to you that Maura Lorenzen is the new principal of St.
Saviour Elementary School.
Maura is a life long parishioner of St. Saviour. She is a graduate of both our elementary
school and our high school. Currently, Maura is a member of our Parish Council, our
Welcome Team, and our Hospitality Committee as well as being a catechist in our School
of Religion. Maura is also one of the lay leaders representing St. Saviour at the cluster
meetings of our local parishes.
Maura has been an educator since 1982. After graduating from St. Joseph's College she
started her career as a classroom teacher at St. Francis Xavier Elementary School,
teaching 5th and 6th grade children. She then went on to teach at Congregation Elohim's
Early Childhood Center. Her experience in administration began in 1989 when she was
named Lower Day Camp Director at CBE. In 1995 she became a director of the entire
Early Childhood Center, including the nursery school, toddler program and the summer
day camp program.
Gail Harvey, our assistant principal, assures me she will work closely with our new
principal in order to provide a smooth transition.
In the 5 years that I have known her, Maura has consistently demonstrated to me all the
skills and qualities that are essential to lead our school into the future. Please join me in
praying for God's abundant blessings upon Maura Lorenzen as she assumes this
important position.
Enjoy the summer.
God Bless You.
Sincerely,
Fr. Murphy, Pastor
Catholic school girl….I appreciate all of your respect and admiration for Mr. Flanagan. He is a dedicated Principal who has positively influenced so many of our children. You also share your saddness in seeing him be cast aside like he has been. I would hope that if your children were still at Saint Saviour, as my children are right now, you would also be appalled at what Father Murphy has done given his admitted complete lack of interaction with the school. I didn’t send my children to the Saint Saviour accepting that the parents input would be virtually ignored nor do I expect Mr. Flanagan to be influenced by my “whims”. I do, however, believe that to simply accept a decision that is wrong and unjust, because it is what my pastor has decided, would be wrong. Many of the problems that have effected the Catholic clergy and our children over the last several decades continued because people weren’t willing to speak up. While I understand that not everyone would be willing to speak out, please don’t be offended because so many of the parents and parishioners of Saint Saviour have decided to stand and let themselves be heard in opposition to Father Murphy unfortunate and wrong decision.
Having sent all our kids to SSES, we have always had great respect for Mr. Flanagan. However, parents never held sway with Mr. Flanagan on his decisions as principal (remember how he derided the “sidewalk PTA?”), so I’m bewildered that parents expect to hold sway on the decision to let him go. Mr. Flanagan ran the school in an autocratic fashion because that’s the way the Church is run. For generations there’s been an academically successful system in place in the Catholic schools – a system chock-full of autocracy. By sending our kids to SSES we expected to be buying into a system where our input about how the school was run was going to be virtually ignored. Mr. Flanagan staying above the fray of parental opinions and emotions all those years wasn’t democratic, but maybe that’s why Catholic schools are historically so successful. If we had wanted our kids’ school to be run as a democracy, with a principal influenced by parents’ whims, we wouldn’t have sent them to a parish school. We wanted our kids to have the time-tested Catholic education, and that’s exactly what they got at SSES. It’s sad to see Mr. Flanagan go. He has served his community well. But it’s the pastor’s decision because that’s just how the Church operates.
To Peter and Linda – I respect very much your opinions on this. Your expressions of support for Fr. Murphy are sincere but I must strongly disagree because of the known facts in this matter. Jim Flanagan has committed himself to Catholic schooling for 40 years. We know that the Diocese found that Fr. Murphy violated his contract (I’ve seen the statement). We know that Fr. Murphy charged him with insubordination with not providing an accounting of the $90,000 fund raising when Fr. sent an email acknowledging the said accounting, and had access to the bank statements. Even today, the Catholic News Agency ran a story that has more bad news for all of us – Fr. grossly misinterpreted Bishop Caggiano’s public statement that St. Saviour was not ready to be an Academy as a put-down of the the principal and used that mistaken thought as a basis to remove Flanagan. In fact (as I’m sure you know) the Bishop’s statement very clearly meant that St. Saviour, as the only successful school in its cluster, did not need to be combined with another school – it was too successful to be an Academy. The Bishop made this clear to Mr. Flanagan after Fr. stated this in his reasons for removal. I feel sorry for all who have to have this spelled out – Fr. Murphy made a serious, serious error here, and goes directly to the heart of the issue – if Fr. Murphy can’t figure out what an Academy is, what else can’t he figure out? Also, Holy Child Jesus was not in better shape after Fr. left. In the 12 months after Fr. Murphy left, his successor sent out no less than 7 statements to parishioners asking for more money, and stating in one of them that the parish was facing “severe” financial distress.
My View
Maybe Fr. Murphy’s heart and mind is still at St. Andrew’s because I don’t see any such devotion to St. Saviour. Any event we have, he makes a cameo appearance, at best, and disappears to other more important events on his calendar. You can count on it!
Furthermore, no one has disputed the fact that the Pastor has the right to hire and fire. What we protest is the method employed and the way Fr. Murphy has shown arrogant distain for the parents. Not even to mention the pin the tail on the donkey process of selecting the replacement.
Many parishioners have joined the protest that have no children in the school because they see the injustice done to both parents and Mr. Flanagan.