• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is seen on Capitol Hill Dec. 19, 2019. She is a graduate of the Institute of Notre Dame in Baltimore. (CNS photo/Erin Scott, Reuters) See CATHOLIC-PEOPLE-YEAR Dec. 31, 2019.

Will Nancy Pelosi take a page from her father’s playbook?

June 25, 2020
By George Weigel
Filed Under: Commentary, The Catholic Difference

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Students walk out of the Institute of Notre Dame building in Baltimore, in this 2014 photo. The Catholic school, which began educating girls in 1847 with alumni that include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, closed its doors for good at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. (CNS photo/courtesy Institute of Notre Dame)

In 1918, Mayor James Preston presented a 264-piece silver service to Cardinal James Gibbons on behalf of Baltimore and its citizens – a municipal tribute to the city’s beloved archbishop on the 50th anniversary of his episcopal consecration. Funded by public subscription, the cutlery, plates, tea pots and coffee pots, serving bowls, trays, and platters of the “Gibbons silver” featured a unique decorative pattern, the cardinal’s monogram, and his coat-of-arms. For decades, much of the jubilee silver service was displayed in the dining room of the residence of the archbishops of Baltimore, located just behind Benjamin Latrobe’s magnificent Cathedral of the Assumption.

Then disaster seemed to strike.

One morning in the 1950s, the cathedral rector came downstairs to find that the Gibbons silver was gone: stealthy burglars had entered the residence during the night and made off with it. The rector called the police. The police called City Hall. And Mayor Thomas J. D’Alesandro, Jr., suspecting who might have been responsible for this caper, put the word out: If that silver isn’t returned in 48 hours, somebody’s gonna be in a world of hurt.

The next day, the telephone rang in the rectory of Our Lady of Fatima parish, several miles east of Baltimore’s downtown. The caller, declining to identify himself, simply said, “Look in your trash cans.” The pastor did. And there, in plastic bags, was the Gibbons silver service.

Thus Mayor Tommy D’Alesandro: paragon of efficient local government.

Another theft of something far more consequential than silver is on the near-term horizon – the theft, by COVID-19, of the Catholic school education on which tens of thousands of poor children and their parents rely as preparation for a life beyond poverty. And another D’Alesandro – Tommy’s daughter, more familiarly known as Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives – can and should emulate her father’s example and do something about it.

Many Catholics schools in the United States are in serious trouble because of COVID-19. The trouble is not educational; across the country these past four months, Catholic schools showed themselves far more supple in responding to the pandemic than the state schools, as Catholic schools implemented online learning far more quickly and efficiently. The trouble is financial: too many parents, unemployed or under grave financial stress because of the shutdown of the economy, face the prospect of not being able to afford tuition at the Catholic schools they’ve freely chosen for their children’s education and formation.

If inner-city and other low- and middle-income Catholic schools are emptied because of unbearable financial pressures on parents, there will be multiple victims. The first victims of this education-theft will be those Catholic schools’ former students. The second victim will be state school systems, overwhelmed by an influx of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of new students they cannot handle – especially under the restrictions that will likely be necessary to avoid an autumnal spike in COVID-19 cases.

Speaker Pelosi has publicly lamented the recently-announced closing of her Baltimore alma mater, the financially strapped Institute of Notre Dame: a venerable secondary school for young women whose first graduating class had heard the rumble of Civil War cannon from their classrooms. Many of my elementary school classmates attended IND and I share the Speaker’s sense of loss. But what are we to say, and do, about the virtual certainty that many, many Catholic elementary schools across the country, especially those serving low- and middle-income children, will be decimated by COVID-19 economic distress?

The chief obstacle to emergency financial aid for the low- and middle-income parents who still wish to choose Catholic schools for their children is resistance to such aid in the Democratic caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives. Speaker Pelosi rules that caucus with a firm hand. Might she adapt a page from her father’s playbook? Might she put the word out that anyone acquiescing in education-theft, by blocking financial aid to the low- and middle-income parents who choose Catholic schools for their children, is going to be in trouble as they seek campaign dollars and plum committee assignments?

The long-term question of federal funds for independent schools can be debated and settled later. This is an emergency: a crisis for Catholic schools and state schools, for children and parents. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American political history, can help resolve that crisis by being her father’s daughter.

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

George Weigel

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Pope Leo smiles as he speaks into a microphone

The pope is speaking my language

Question Corner: Does a married person need their marriage blessed or ‘convalidated’ once they become Catholic?

Forcing clergy to break the seal of confession harms victims

My church, myself: Motherhood, mystery and mercy

Our unexpected pope

| Recent Local News |

Western Maryland parishes hit by devastating floodwaters

Sister of St. Francis Valerie Jarzembowski dies at 89

Schools Superintendent Hargens honored for emphasizing academics, faith

New interim Hispanic, Urban delegates ready to serve Archdiocese of Baltimore

Father Patrick Carrion offers blessing before Preakness

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Pilgrimage launch coincides with papal inauguration, marks young Catholic’s ‘radical yes’
  • Catholic death penalty abolition group eager for new pope to build on Francis’ legacy on issue
  • U.S. pilgrims to Havana recall Francis’ impact in Cuba 10 years after visit
  • The pope is speaking my language
  • Homeland Security vetting reality show idea where immigrants compete for citizenship
  • Senate protest over USAID closure snares Vatican ambassador pick
  • As Trump returns from Middle East with massive arm deals, patriarch says ‘no’ to weapons
  • Pope Leo XIV’s installation Mass: A new beginning rooted in tradition
  • A new documentary, ‘The Inner Sea,’ tells a story of adoption, music and love

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED