“...that was an indication of the kind of school Cathedral would become.”
From the Cathedral Class of 1921’s Stanley Boyle, these words were more prescient than he would ever believe. As our country and society suffered under the pandemic of the “Spanish Flu” in September 1918, our founders bravely opened our doors for the first time. Stanley describes in Cathedral-Seventy Five Years (authored by Bill Shover '46 and James Obergfell, Hon. '92) how we opened our doors with a few brothers and a small nest egg to pay them. “I rode a bike to school,” said Boyle, “and wore a mask over my face. Everybody wore masks. It looked like Halloween, but it was necessary.” The history book even tells that the three existing public schools at that time, Shortridge, Manuel, and Arsenal Tech, were closed for a month due to “the grippe,” but Cathedral stayed open.
Honestly, this page from our history book inspired us to safely navigate the directives from the Health Department to stay open in August 2020. I was recently interviewed for a book on the lessons learned from that whole COVID-19 experience, and although the details are now hazy, I look back with pride on how we were able to be open for face-to-face learning for the most part during the 2020-2021 school year. Other Catholic and private schools joined us, coast-to-coast, and a whole new population came to our doors and experienced the joy and wonder (and results!) of Catholic schools for the first time. And these newcomers, for the most part, stayed. In fact, for the 2024-25 school year, enrollment at Catholic schools nationwide grew for the first time in nearly 50 years!
As we grind or stride through the final weeks of Lent, the rewards of the joy of Easter and the warmth of spring weather await us. The lessons of Lent and the practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving are noble and healthy habits for us year-round. We know that part of the allure of Catholic schools is that we emphasize discipline, which our children (and adults!) need. We know it took great strength and courage for our founders to open their doors for the first time in the throes of the Spanish Flu pandemic, which had already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in 1918. Since then, the same focus has been needed to keep Cathedral open every year. I am pleased to share that even through all of our changes, we still lean on the disciplines of our faith and hope for the joy of Easter every day here on the hill.
