Feeling he was unjustly replaced, Flanagan appealed to the superintendent’s office where he won the appeal. However, they informed him that they couldn’t force the pastor to re-hire him.
When Flanagan turned to the diocese, he heard the same story. Fr. Kieran Harrington, spokesman for the Diocese of Brooklyn explained, "We do not in Brooklyn have a Catholic school system. He did not work for the diocese, he worked for St. Saviour. He was a contract employee and Fr. Murphy did not renew his contract."
"We don't make the decision. At the end of the day we have to stand by the pastor."
However, some of the parents at St. Saviour are not content to leave the decision where it stands.
McClintock, who is also president of the home school board, explained that "no one deserved the kind of mistreatment that Mr. Flanagan has received." As principal, "he has done a phenomenal job," which is something "I say as a friend and as a parent." Not only does Mr. Flanagan know the name of every child in the school," he also lives out his Catholic beliefs.
"If you want someone who is a phenomenal example of someone living the faith, it’s Mr. Flanagan," she added.
Jim Gange, who has three children at the school, also praised Flanagan. "He is a very, very religious man. He is everything you would want in a principal."
McClintock and other parents and parishioners upset by the principal’s dismissal began picketing in front of the church two months ago and have started a petition that has been signed by over 680 people. It "basically informed people about the injustice that has occurred and we want action taken. We want to be heard and want a response. We want him reinstated and we want all of this to stop," said McClintock.
Flanagan commented on the support, saying that it has "been overwhelming from the parents and the school and a lot of the parishioners too."
Along with voicing their support for Flanagan, parents are also criticizing the intentions of Fr. Murphy. They believe that with Flanagan out of the way, Fr. Murphy and Maura Lorenzen, the new principal, want to convert St. Saviour’s into a charter school.
Their suspicions stem from minutes of a May 12 Parish Pastoral Council meeting where it was recorded that one member of the council "distributed two documents about ‘Charter Schools’, which is a route some (e.g. Mayor Bloomberg) felt local Catholic schools might pursue, and said that she thought Maura Lorenzen was preparing some material on the subject for a future meeting…"
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In addition, they are accusing the pastor of being anti-family and instead being more "inclusive."
St. Saviour’s website describes its current mission: "We at St. Saviour commit ourselves to do all that we can to make our parish a place where everyone can truly feel at home and welcomed: the young, the old, and those in between; women and men; the sinner and the saint; gay and straight; the single and the married; the divorced and the widowed; the disappointed and the hurt; everyone. We do what we can to heal hurts, we want to listen, we want to be lovingly present, we want to be inclusive, we want to be, as fully as we can be, the Church that Jesus founded."
Every attempt by CNA to contact Fr. Murphy for over a week was left unanswered.
However, Flangan told CNA that overall, his time at St. Saviour has "been a wonderful experience. The school has really plowed a really good trail into becoming a superb Catholic school. We’ve managed to move it forward through excellent faculty and support from the rectory."
Mr. Flanagan added, "I would like to see a peaceful resolution of this, and I’ve been trying to get that for several months now."