The Trial of Brother Bob
McGroarty, Daniel
"The Trial of Brother Bob" THE TRIAL OF BROTHER BOB high school. Dropoup rates fell, grades improved, more kids moved on to college— and the school bureaucracy went...
...In 1983 the Archdiocese advised Messmer to prepare a five-year plan for privatization...
...The inquisition was about to begin...
...most were Baptists, and u percent had no religious belief of any kind...
...Filling the gap became rural Wisconsin and Brother Bob's mission: Messmer would become Milwaukee's first "Choice" high school...
...The case is waiting to be heard in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, at which time Brother Bob will start his fight anew...
...Looming after eighth grade was the inner-city Chicago to unhappy prospect of turning back to the public school morass...
...Brother Bob was offered the position...
...At times, Smith simply lived out of his suitcase, waiting for the new orders he had vowed to obey...
...For Messmer's first half-century the chapel was a place for the religious among its teachers and staff to celebrate daily mass...
...He marveled at the importance the DPI team apparently attached to the school's dusty WCIAA Champion basketball trophy, and wondered whether the officials would realize the "C" in WCIAA stood for "Catholic...
...The trophy was from 1966...
...Smith first came to Milwaukee to minister to men at a halfway house near the county jail...
...he fortunes of Messmer High and Milwaukee's voucher program intersected in April 1992, when Brother Bob received a phone call from John Witte, requesting permission to tour the school...
...just one in five could pay the school's full $2,200 tuition...
...Under the plain reading rule, "pervasively religious" would have some meaning distinct from simply "religious"—in other words the religious material must not be incidental or intermittent, but also pervasive...
...Yet attorney Paul questioned whether and when the chapel was still used to celebrate the mass (several times a year, Brother Bob reported), and whether consecrated hosts were stored there (Brother Bob testified they weren't...
...Brother Bob arrived at the "new" Messmer in 1987...
...Paul: With that clarification, that ends my cross [examination...
...And no one at the importance the thought to ask Brother Bob to open his office closet, many times good for a Roman collar DPI team apparently or two, "depending," Smith says with a laugh, "on what clothes I've got clean...
...In 1992 Parental Choice was beginning its third year fresh from a State Supreme Court victory that had declared it constitutional...
...Brother Bob: That's correct...
...Two days later, at about nine in the morning, Smith fielded what he assumed was another call from excited parents...
...Brother Bob did not hesitate to certify Messmer as non-sectarian...
...For two weeks, Messmer's office fielded phone calls from parents seeking vouchers for their children...
...its four pews, however, could seat just a fraction of Messmer's student body...
...A similar fate befell the word "pervasive...
...It did not have a "pervasively religious" curriculum: theology— the one department that could have occasioned concern—accounted for just eight of the school's ninety courses taught...
...What we're more interested in is that students be given a solid education, and walk out of there with some values—values that any human being should have...
...was from 1966...
...This essay is adapted with permission from Break These Chains: The Battle for School Choice, to be published this spring by Forum, a joint imprint of Prima Publishing and ICS Press...
...But more, we want to help students choose to be good human beings...
...On June 2, Brother Bob awoke to a front page story in the Milwaukee Sentinel: "Catholic School OK'd for Choice: Decision to Get Review...
...Public school students walk through metal detectors—and nearly six in ten of those walk back out without diplomas —while Messmer High, in a North Side neighborhood awash with the same gangs, graffiti and guns, managed a graduation rate of 98 percent, and sent 79 percent of its kids on to college...
...Paul: Let me get a clarification regarding the consecrated hosts...not being resident on the premises in the chapel...
...The DPI "Catholic...
...it's true that at any of the masses that occur throughout the year, hosts are consecrated at those masses...
...Messmer was on its own, a fact of life that over time had become a point of pride...
...According to the DPI's administrative rules, a non-sectarian school was defined as "a school that does not include a pervasively religious curriculum and is not sponsored, administered, or funded by any religious group or organization...
...Then came the inquisition...
...Paul: Then they are no longer on the premises...
...Smith had run afoul of an ore powerful in the modern world—the ureaucracy...
...But while the school survived, its transformation had been dramatic...
...The new test, whether Messmer was "pervasively religious," became elastic enough to be a legal duffel bag for whatever "evidence" the DPI had collected...
...After all, they had sent him an unsolicited application form from DPI...
...Brother Bob: Yes...
...To be honest," he says he told everyone who asked, "the thought that we were eligible never crossed my mind—until DPI told us we were...
...Messmer had been seeking a new principal...
...If Messmer's mission was to create Catholics, Brother Bob told the hearing, then it was failing miserably...
...Five days later, however, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit to keep Messmer —and more than a hundred other religious schools—out of the voucher program...
...Scholarships—in effect, tuition discounts —were awarded in proportions roughly equal to the school population at large...
...Not dissuaded, the attorney went to "get his man": Mr...
...The American Spectator March 1996 35 stablished in 1926 as the first Catholic school in Milwaukee, Messmer was the only Catholic high school still operating in the central city by the mid-198o's...
...would fight tooth and nail to keep Messmer out of Parental Choice...
...Paul: No...
...Surely, Brother Bob reasoned, state education authorities recognized Messmer's peculiar case as proof of its eligibility for Parental Choice...
...The checklist also advised the reviewers to scan the school's athletic trophy cases for "references to conferences like Catholic Conference...
...You could stretch it out [that] there was a connection, but the reality Mr...
...Time and again, Paul returned to discussing the small school chapel across the hall from Brother Bob's office...
...But friends and years in Detroit as a foes alike had warned Smith that Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction (DPI) parole officer...
...if they're a non-Christian, being a good non-Christian...
...Instead he found himself on the line with a DPI official, who asked whether an "evaluation team" could visit Messmer—at noon that day...
...Messmer had long since survived its ejection from the Archdiocese system, and made its way as a kind of educational "asterisk" — a neither/nor school at once independent and yet, almost in spite of the Archdiocese's abandonment, tenaciously Catholic in its sense of mission...
...Paul: And it's significant, yes...
...And that was too much for the bureaucrats...
...if they're an atheist, being a good atheist...
...The brainchild of Democratic state legislator Polly Williams, Parental Choice extended vouchers equal to the state's per-pupil share of education funds for students whose families qualified for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program...
...Joseph...
...if they're an atheist, being a good atheist...
...Students who objected to theology were exempted, and given an independent study instead...
...John Witte was coming to tour the school...
...Ifinancial and real estate documents, copies of Messmer's course catalogue, required reading lists and tests in religion classes, and a list of faculty "identifying any presently serving as a nun, priest, brother or holds [sic] any office, positions or status within any nationally recognized religious sect, church or religious society in a capacity other than as a member of the faithful or member of the congregation"—that's what the DPI said it wanted on its first visit...
...Brother Bob: That is correct...
...Then DPI counsel Paul started focusing on the "dangers" of that presence of religion: Mr...
...1992, and Smith —the principal of hool on Milwaukee's Near North mmoned to a rented motel confer-ate capital for a hearing on whether le to participate in Parental Choice, ilwaukee's innovative school-choice voucher program...
...For the first time since the program's inception, parents could stop worrying whether it would be pulled out from under them...
...Yet Smith also made it clear that the school's mission was not to proselytize: "We hope that any student we touch leaves our building being a good Christian, if they're Christian...
...But financial pressures mounted, and in the spring of 1984 the Archdiocese notified the school that its financial support would end a bit earlier than planned—with the last day of school that May...
...The impact of the DPI's reading is to turn religion into a virus, the presence of which in the smallest form infects the whole...
...Although a private school, Messmer followed the DPI-recommended course of study in math, science, English, and history...
...Paul: Who is in turn answerable to the Pope...
...For several years, his Capuchin superiors had shuttled him from assignment to assignment, taking him from inner-city Chicago to rural Wisconsin and Indiana...
...He marveled dents, thereby preventing any excessive exposure to its portrait of the Virgin Mary...
...Months later, in a passage near the end of its brief on the case, the DPI refused to identify Messmer as a school at all—they called it a church...
...Two weeks later, an application inviting Messmer to register as a Choice school arrived in the mail...
...attached to the school's Not once on either visit, he says, did anybody on the DPI squad talk to Messmer's teach dusty WCIAA Champion ers, or the small but steady trickle of students who came and went freely...
...Heroic efforts by a group of parents and a few school patrons that summer saved the school, and Messmer reopened on time in the fall of 1984 with a new motto: "An independent high school in the Catholic tradition...
...Indeed, the entire line of Supreme Court establishment clause case law—decisions sanctioning everything from textbook loans to transportation reimbursements and the like to private religious schools—is opaque apart from an understanding of the difference between "religious" and "pervasively religious...
...the signing ceremony was held in Messmer's gymnasium...
...Brother Bob told them, "We hope that any student we touch leaves our building being a good Christian, if they're Christian...
...Indiana...
...Messmer went from majority white to 'majority minority' almost instantly...
...Paul: Then—in the time between consecration and consumption —then the consecrated host of the blessed sacrament is present...
...Dropou rates fell, grades improved, more kids moved on to college— and the school bureaucracy went bananas...
...The team set up shop in Brother Bob's office and spent four hours scouring the school's books and wandering the halls unattended...
...Only one in four of the school's students was Catholic...
...The team did notice the inexpensive members of the group print of the Last Supper in Messmer's basement cafeteria, a painting some at the school thought clustered around the tropossessed an unintended comic effect, a kind of commentary on the quality of the cafeteria food...
...Brother Bob: No...
...They went through basketball trophy, and our books and curriculum looking for what we did in theology," he recalls, "but they never wondered whether the once tried to talk to the theology teacher —or talk to a student about what he or she did in the officials would realize ology class...
...yet, however fleetingly, Jesus had been placed at the scene...
...That trial is not yet over...
...Being a Catholic school is something that we don't—and won't—apologize for...
...And in fact if we were to diagram the structure of the Franciscan order, and you in it as a Capuchin, I can make that line...
...if they're a non-Christian, being a good non-Christian...
...We simply want to support whatever choice they make in regard to religion...
...Paul: And in the Catholic faith, that's the conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ Jesus...
...Paul: And that takes place at the mass, and then those articles of bread and wine are consumed...
...Apparently, somewhere in the bowels of the DPI bureaucracy was a list of all private schools eligible for Parental Choice—and Messmer was on it...
...we haven't had a baptism...
...Paul: We left off with the Minister General in Rome—is he the top person in the province of St...
...Brother Bob affirmed at the hearing that an avowed atheist could be admitted to Messmer, though the student would have to volunteer the information: religious affiliation was not inquired about in the application process...
...Room F319, 96 Broad Street, Guilford, CT 06437 Fax (203) 453-9774 e-mail: 74537.550@compuserve.com CALL OR WRITE FOR FREE CATALOG 1-800-243-1234 39...
...In the weeks leading up to the October hearing, Smith was asked over and over how he'd gotten into his head that Messmer — a former Catholic school that had been abandoned by its Archdiocese—could be eligible for the program...
...State Superintendent Grover had assigned an avuncular university official, Thomas J. Grogan, to hear Messmer's appeal on whether or not the school could be accepted into the program...
...Paul's persistence paid off...
...DPI's counsel opened his assault by reading the word "curriculum" out of DPI's own regulatory rule...
...The school mailed DPI its "Intent to Participate," and in mid-May the agency published the Parental Choice schools it had selected for the 1992-93 year...
...37 o it was that Brother Bob found himself in a Madison, Wisconsin, motel conference room in October 1992...
...Paul: There is a general for that congregation...
...Witte, designated by superintendent Grover to conduct the annual evaluation of the Parental Choice program, told Smith that Messmer was "on the list...
...Schools superintendent Herbert Grover was an inveterate opponent of the voucher program, and the statute that established Parental Choice bars sectarian schools from participation...
...Then on June io, just two days after the second visit, a fax the "C" stood for from Superintendent Grover came over the machine in Brother Bob's office...
...In fact, the traits and teachings he freely described can be just as easily described as "values-based," not religious...
...Messmer was on the list...
...Paul: In the Department's view, it is significant that there is a line between the Pope and Brother Bob...
...Paul: So it is true in a disciplinary chain—for doctrinal purposes, if you will— . . . for religious purposes, it's fair to say that there is a direct line, authoritatively [sic], from you to the Pope...
...One of the two Sisters was a math teacher...
...In late August, the same week classes began at dozens of private schools across the city, the court enjoined the program, forcing thousands of low-income families to scramble for tuition—or return their children to public schools...
...They came again the following Tuesday, this time armed with a detailed eight-page checklist that had even more questions: "Are religious symbols such as The American Spectator • March 1996 crucifixes displayed in the school building...
...phy case in the school's Had the DPI team asked, Smith stood ready to point out that the TV room was off limits to stu entryway...
...I just went through the chain step by step —for who answers to whom...
...Examiner: It's the department's view that there is a direct line of authority...
...Brother Bob asked why...
...36 March 1996 • The American Spectator those departments...
...And yet it was Messmer High School that was on trial...
...The trophy had made its decision...
...Brother Bob: The top Capuchin...
...TEACH YOURSELF ONE OF 52 LANGUAGES IN ONLY 60-80 HOURS BASIC INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED-LEVEL COURSES Afrikaans Amharic Arabic Bulgarian Cantonese Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French German Greek Haitian Creole Hausa Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Khmer Korean Latin Latvian Lithuanian Mandarin Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Scots Gaelic Slovak Spanish Swahili Swedish Tagalog Thai Tswana Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Xhosa Yoruba Zulu BUOICPCCIRUM...
...He got on well with the students, and after the term ended, he was asked to return in the fall —with one difference...
...In the eyes of the secular state, Brother Bob could not serve two masters, the Pope and DPI...
...Isn't that true...
...Not long after arriving, he was asked to take an additional assignment: substituting for a theology teacher at Messmer High School...
...In his longest tour, Smith spent three years in Detroit as a parole officer, ministering to men who often had no idea their P.O...
...On July z6, 1995, Governor Tommy Thompson signed legislation expanding Milwaukee's Parental Choice program to include religious schools...
...Enrollment plunged from 35o students to 115, and 90 percent of the teaching staff left...
...Brother Bob: That's correct...
...Brother Bob: That's correct...
...Brother Bob assured them they could...
...Seemingly aware of the difficulty in proving Messmer's course of study constituted a "pervasively religious curriculum," DPI's counsel insisted that the Examiner, in effect, chop the word curriculum from the phrase...
...0 34 March 1 9 9 6 • The American Spectator THE TRIAL OF BROTHER BOB high school...
...Smith made it plain he was in no way denying Messmer's Catholic patrimony...
...If the school's mission was to educate students, however, it was by all accounts performing miracles...
...In his longest Smith's immediate practical aim was to secure access to vouchers worth S2,700 each for tour, Smith spent three twenty-five Milwaukee children too poor to pay their way into the school...
...And since the Archdiocese had cut off funding for the school eight years earlier, Messmer had been removed from the list of parochial schools in the Catholic Directory and disallowed from recruiting prospective students in the Archdiocese's grade schools...
...White parents pulled their kids the minute they heard the Archdiocese was closing the school," says Brother Bob...
...We haven't talked about conversion...
...Backed into a corner by the DPI attorney, Brother Bob could have renounced the authority of his highest superior—or stood revealed as an agent of the Pope of Rome...
...Smith directed his development staff to fill out the form...
...The flight of white parishioners to the suburbs, a migration repeated in nearly every northern city in the United States, had left the school in a precarious situation, strapped for cash and short of students...
...Brother Bob: Yes...
...we haven't even mentioned it...
...Accompanied only by his attorney, Smith spent seven-and-a-half hours on the witness stand, responding to DPI counsel Robert Paul's combative questions, and the occasional intervention by Examiner Grogan...
...Smith also did not think of his school as "sponsored, administered, or funded" by a religious group...
...Brother Bob: Correct...
...was a Capuchin monk...
...about 75 percent of scholarship aid went to non-Catholic students...
...All told, the DPI team scoured Messmer for seven hours...
...By the early 1990's, more than half of the students came from families earning less than $14,000 a year...
...Brother Bob may have tesThe American Spectator • March 19 9 6 tified that Messmer's chapel was not a church...
...Messmer," he told Grogan, "has never denied being a Catholic school...
...eated in his modest office at Messmer and looking back on the hearing ordeal, Brother Bob sees his inquisition as a comment on the culture...
...Classroom sweeps revealed crucifixes, but—as their Brother Bob looked on as report would ultimately note — "not in every classroom...
...There were the Catholic Conference trophies, the Capuchin monk-principal, the specter of the Pope, the nondenominational prayers over the school PA, the funds from a philanthropic organization that was not itself tied to the church but targeted much of its giving to religious organizations—and now the body of Jesus Christ...
...In Brother Bob's view, six of those eight theology courses might as easily have been classified as sociology, psychology, or philosophy, had Messmer been large enough to sustain For several years, his But students in Parental Choice were for the most part clustered in the early elemenCapuchin superiors had tary grades, and few parents had looked far enough ahead to notice the dead end up the road: shuttled him from there were no traditional high schools in the program...
...DANIEL MCGROARTY is a senior director with the White House Writers Group in Washington and a fellow with the Institute for Contemporary Studies...
...Brother Bob looked on as members of the group clustered around the trophy case in the school's entryway...
...Messmer had been denied entry into Parental Choice...
...by Daniel McGroarty b Smith, a Capuchin monk and former parole agined he'd be the subject of a modern-is purported crime was heresy, but t the church...
...of the forty-four teachers and administrators on his staff, only three —counting himself—belonged to religious orders...
...We are in no way out trying to get more members for the Catholic faith —and the evidence simply is that since the school's reopened in 1984, we haven't had a single Catholic converted...
...Yet the DPI and its Examiner consistently conflated the two: the mere presence of religion was treated as pervasive...
...38 March 1996 The American Spectator Then moments later: Mr...
Vol. 29 • March 1996 • No. 3
