Patrick Roche, an 80-year-old grocer who credits a parochial school in Roslindale with helping his family when his mother died, said yesterday he is giving $20 million to a Boston College center that is attempting to revitalize the nation’s struggling Catholic schools.

Roche, the cofounder of Roche Brothers supermarkets, joins a small but prominent group of wealthy Boston Catholics who are increasingly devoting their philanthropy to Catholic schools at a time when the Archdiocese of Boston has been closing several small parish schools each year.

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