Mass and sacraments are no longer permitted on school premises. The diocese said it was waiting until after the end of the school year to prohibit the school from identifying itself as a Catholic school, an order that's effective immediately. Students had requested that the flags be flown. The school is a tuition-free private middle school for boys in central Massachusetts, with about 60 students.
The school displayed the flags for more than a year before the bishop objected. The Boston Globe reports that Worcester Bishop Robert McManus told the Nativity School of Worcester in a letter this week that flying these flags in front of a Catholic school “sends a mixed, confusing and scandalous message to the public” about the church’s stance on important moral and social issues. The Diocese of Worcester has told a local middle school that it can no longer identify itself as a Catholic school because it disobeyed the bishop's order to take down its Black Lives Matter and Pride flags.
A progress pride flag and a Black Lives Matter flag are displayed outside a church on Jin the Brooklyn Borough of New York City.