September 23, 2012

BACE

For about 20 years, the University of Notre Dame has been on the forefront of trying to help revitalize Catholic schools in the United States.  In the early 1990's, they founded the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), a program where college grads teach in underfunded Catholic schools for two years and study for their Masters degree over a few summers back at Notre Dame.  Our former Campus Minster Deacon Andrew Nelson graduated from ACE in 2002 and taught in Mississippi and Ireland before coming to Trinity.

ACE funds local groups around the country encouraging them to get together and try to help local Catholic schools.  Boston has its own group called the Boston Advocates for Catholic Education (BACE) and they gather each month for Mass and a social and do various work with Catholic schools in the Boston area.  I have been wanting to go to one of their Masses for a long time and yesterday I was finally able to do so.  This month's Mass and social was at Boston College and the Mass was celebrated by the former dean of the Boston College School of Education, Father Joseph O'Keefe, SJ.  Following Mass I was able to chat with Father Joe for about 10 minutes about Trinity and some folks we both knew at BC High, it was a great opportunity.

During the social I chatted with some folks to catch up on the work being done by BACE and ways to help Catholic schools.  I think this group could be a valuable resource for Trinity and our feeder schools in Manchester.  One of the active members teaches at Bishop Guertin High School so they do have a "presence" up our way.  Stay tuned.

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