This is my 5th grade class, 1963/64 school year, at Wheeless Road Elementary School in Augusta, Georgia, yes a public school. Almost 50 kids and one teacher with no assistant!
This was the year President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, a Friday. Mrs. Betty Casey my teacher is still living and from a strong Catholic family. She cried when it was announced that Kennedy had died.
As we listened to the news piped to us over the intercom, because it was history in the making, Mrs. Casey had her rosary in hand praying the rosary or at least fingering the beads. The majority in my class were not Catholic.
We still could pray in public schools at this time. In fact, at this very school, we prayed the Lord's Prayer each morning as a part of our morning routine which included the Pledge and God Save the Queen but with different words, "My Country tis..."
How can Catholics, today, witness to their faith in an enforced secular setting?
6 comments:
Which version of the Lords Prayer? AS you know, the Catholic and Protestant versions are not the same.
The school used the "Protestant" version which is also the version the Orthodox use and I believe the Eastern Rites in union with the pope. However, we few Catholics would make the Sign of Cross before the prayer, omit the last part and close with the Sign of the Cross." How's that!
I teach in a public school and every morning during our moment of silence I bow my head and make the sign of the cross. I also have a statue of Mary and a crucifix on a shelf by my desk that displays personal photos. That is my Catholic witness in public school.
I've taught in public schools for about twelve years and have found the enforced secularism to be kind of exaggerated. Granted, I went to school mostly in the 90s, so I wasn't used to teacher-led prayer in the classroom to begin with. However, every school winter concert I've experienced is overtly about Christmas (even including songs like Silent Night and The Holly and the Ivy). We recently had an MLK program that not only included a guest who performed a praise dance (it's a protestant thing) but also ended with everyone joining hands to pray. I have an image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help pinned up by my desk and no one has ever said anything about it. A Christian girls group meets in my room after school every other week. When I worked at the middle school level, I helped create scenery for GodSpell, and when I worked in the suburbs I was expected to help kindergarteners make paper shoes to set out for St Nicholas Day. As an art teacher, I have never been pressured to discourage kids from choosing religious subjects.
I'm not saying it's a particularly Christian environment, but it isn't a rabidly anti-Christian one either.
A young woman wrote a letter to me just last week that said, in part,
“We don’t have to preach on street corners or go knocking on doors to proclaim out Faith. We can live out our Faith everyday by doing simple things like praying before meals, saying “thanks be to God” when something good happens, or not letting our circumstances disturb our peace. Those around us will notice that we are different and that will open the floor for questions and discussions that, guided by the Holy Spirit, will hopefully bring people closer to Christ.”
She is studying mechanical engineering at a local state university and has associated herself with like minded people of faith. That is one way.
Witness your faith by your acts, not by government-enforced prayer.
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