Catholic Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester MA, a chronic huffer and puffer, has struck a blow for authoritarianism by forbidding the Nativity School of Worcester to call itself “catholic.” The Nativity School is a middle school that provides tuition-free education for impoverished boys. It raises its own funds and receives no support from the Bishop of Worcester. 

The school has, at its students’ request, been flying the Black Lives Matter and the LGBT flags since January 2021. But earlier in this year the Bishop ordered the school to remove these flags, but, as the Bishop tells it, the school “disregarded my legitimate authority as the guardian and overseer of Catholic education.” And the flags are still there.

The Nativity School plans an appeal against the Bishop’s decree. I wish them luck, but think it would be better for the School to continue on its way and leave the Bishop to go his. No school that would accept Bishop McManus as its “guardian and overseer” could equip students with the courage, ambition, and independence of thought that should characterize graduates of Nativity School.