Advisory Board

 

Joan Rooney is Vice President for Instruction at Tutor.com, a national, online, on-demand tutoring service. Joan manages about 3400 online tutors who provide academic help in all subjects for students of all ages, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  Joan is a former high school foreign language teacher who spent many years managing various operations within city government.  She is looking forward to sharing the passion about high-quality education and the skills and experience in operations management that she was able to develop after sixteen years of Catholic education with the scholars, their families and the faculty and staff at Sacred Heart.

 

Bernadette Quessa Cantave is a Business Manager for Catholic Charities of Greater Boston. She is responsible for overseeing the operations of several sites in the greater Boston area. Prior to joining Catholic Charities, Bernadette was Senior Accountant at Urban Edge Housing Corporation. She also served as an accountant at the Children Trust in Miami, FL.  Bernadette is the mother of two boys, who both attended Sacred Heart School from 1998-2002. She has been a long time member of Sacred Heart Parish and also served on the Parish Council from 2010 to 2012. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree with a concentration in accounting from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and a Certificate in Non-Profit Management from Northeastern University, Boston.  She is very passionate about social justice work in the United States and in Haiti.

 

 

Dr. Patrick Byrne is a Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, where he also served as Department Chairperson. He is the founder of Boston College PULSE Program for Service Learning, and continues to teach and write about service learning, as well as Christian faith in higher education, the relationships between science and religion, and ethics. He has been involved with RCIA preparation at Sacred Heart Parish and adolescent confirmation preparation at the Paulist Fathers Center for many years.

My family raised me in Roslindale and in Canton MA. I went to Boston College High School (1959), the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester for an AB in History, (1963).  I then studied for the priesthood at St John’s Seminary, Brighton, MA and was ordained in 1968 by Cardinal Cushing.  I received a Masters in Pastoral Theology at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, (1976).

 

I have been the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Roslindale since 1991.  Prior to that I had ministered in parishes in Roxbury, Dorchester, Peabody, and Quincy since 1968.  During these times I have ministered at Catholic schools here in Roslindale and in St John’s in Peabody and Saint Ambrose in Dorchester.

 

I serve on the Catholic School Council (2011to present) for the Archdiocese.  As well, I am a member of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Schools Foundation (2006-present). And I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Pine Street Inn (1969 to present), a shelter for homeless men and women in Boston.

 

I believe that Catholic education is a necessary and integral part of education in America. Just as public education is essential to a republic, so also is Catholic education essential to a faithful citizenry.