IS IT A NO BRAINER THAT CATHOLIC EDUCATION SHOULD EXHIBIT A CATHOLIC IDENTITY? WELL, MAYBE SO AND MAYBE NOT

 

One of the challenges for a modern pastor who wants his parish and associated schools to have a Catholic identity is to actually maintain that identity. It is, of course, easier to do so in the parish institution, but its school can become more problematic.

The biggest challenge pertains to the fact that religious sisters no longer staff our schools either as administrators or teachers. In fact, most Catholic school children are clueless about what a nun is except for what is taught to them or a periodic visit from one or what they see in movies and television. 

Thus, in a lay run school, one has to hire personnel who have a strong Catholic identity. But you can only hire those who apply and you have to pay them a living wage or a competitive wage which secures a higher way of living. Poverty is not a virtue for most lay people trying to live a high quality of life and provide for their children. 

In addition to this, we hire teachers who are Catholic and non Catholic. We aren’t always sure that the Catholic is a practicing Catholic or if a practicing Catholic an orthodox Catholic. They may well endorse gender ideology, same sex marriage, exclusion of certain races and shutting down our borders to legal immigration. 

When you had upwards to 6 to 10 if not more nuns in Catholic schools, one might hire well qualified non Catholic teachers to fill gaps. My second grade teacher at St. Mary on the Hill Catholic School in Augusta in 1961 was a practicing Methodist. This is pre-Vatican II times, btw. But she never challenged Catholicism and often praised it and religion was taught to us by a nun in full habit, btw. 

And when kids go to school Masses and their teachers or peers are chosen as Communion Ministers and the kids know they don’t go to Sunday Mass and question many aspects of the Catholic faith, what does that do for the Catholic identity of the school? 

And when a school administrator hires openly gay teachers who promote gender ideology and same sex or  non binary marriage and make a point of teaching it in a Catholic school by example, what does that say about Catholic identity. And when a Catholic or non Catholic teacher enters a same sex marriage (or non binary marriage) and the teachers of the school send out invitations to other teachers and the priests of the parish to attend a wedding shower for that person, what does that say about Catholic identity? 

This is a pretty good evaluation of a recent Vatican document on Catholic identity in Catholic schools. He points out the good and the problems in that document:

False advertising in Vatican document on Catholic identity in schools

By Phil Lawler