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Laymen's school gets church's seal of approval

By The Associated Press

MONTAGUE, Mass. -- It's an independent school run by lay people, but the Roman Catholic Church is about to give it the official church nod.

Most Catholic schools are run by the church or a religious order such as the Jesuits. But officials at Mariamante Academy, in Montague, say theirs may be the first lay school in New England to be recognized officially as Catholic.

Stephen Mawn, a Mariamante trustee, said he views the school as a natural outgrowth of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council. "This ties into one of the themes ... for the lay people to get involved," he said.

Bishop Thomas Dupre approved Mariamante as a Catholic school on March 24, according to Michael Graziano, a spokesman for the Springfield-based Catholic diocese of western Massachusetts. He was to celebrate Mass at St. Mary's Church, in Montague, late this morning to make that declaration publicly. St. Mary's pastor, Stanley Aksamit, is the church's liaison with the school.

The school will remain independent, without church funding or supervision. But school officials hope that its new status as a church-recognized Catholic school will help attract more parents seeking a Catholic education for their children and help draw money from religious foundations.

The coeducational day school, with 23 students in grades 7-9, rents space in a congregational church. Pupils study religion for about 40 minutes a day. Much of the other curriculum is traditional, with a heavy emphasis on grammar and the classics.

The school was formed three years ago with support by several parents of children then attending a church-run Catholic elementary school in nearby Greenfield. Founder Louise Desilets, who is now school director, said the parents tried without success to persuade the church to add later grades to that school for their graduating children. She said the Catholic laymen then formed their own school instead of sending their children to the nearest church-run school, which is 45 miles away in Holyoke.

None of the school's teachers is a cleric. Desilets said the school is part of a small national education movement that started in the 1980s.

Such schools offer an answer to the dwindling number of clerics available for teaching. "In the last generation of people, the imparting of religious faith has dropped off dramatically," she said.

Ashley Filiault, a 14-year-old ninth grader at Mariamante, said she's glad she's not in public school. "In this school, they challenge you, and I want to be challenged. I don't want to just be able to slide by, and I think in public school, that's what I'd end up doing," she said.