By Father Terry Young

(Principal St. Pius High School)

For more than a century, the Catholic schools of this country were an essential part of the Church’s ministry. Literally millions of American Catholics learned the basics of their faith, were prepared for the sacraments, and developed a Catholic identity within the parochial schools. Then during the 1960’s the persistent expansion of that system of education came to a grinding halt. The re-evaluation of every aspect of the Church’s ministry called for by the council, the new sense of acceptance in a once alien society, and the decline of religious teaching communities all called the continued advisability of operating Catholic schools into question. The schools began to close all over the country. Many within the Church saw this as a blessing -- the beginning of a new, more ecumenically-minded era in the life of the Church.

In the last few years, this pattern of decline and closure has largely tapered off, and now one begins to hear of a call for a new evaluation of the schools and even for expansion. Prompted by the American bishops’ pastoral on education, “To Teach As Jesus Did,” their concerns about a generation of American Catholic youth who have not had the experience of a Catholic school, people are beginning to ask once again: Should we let them close? I raise a more serious question: DARE we let them close?

In trying to answer this question and in coming to some decision about our schools, I believe that we must consider these factors:

EDUCATION -- All students do not learn in the same way, through the same teaching style, or in the same kind of atmosphere. In teaching our faith, as in teaching anything, we must provide a variety of teaching styles and learning atmospheres. I do not believe that every child should be in a Catholic school. Because of their own feelings about the “school atmosphere,” some children should not try to learn about their religion there too.

However, there are children for whom the School of Religion program for an hour on Sunday morning is never going to be appropriate or adequate. Perhaps they need the academic tension of a school to master the material presented, a professionally trained teacher to help them delve into things a little more deeply, or the academic resources of a whole school program to help them integrate religious questions into a total program of preparing for life. Still others should not have a religious education program based on any kind of school model. We must provide a variety of learning opportunities if we are to reach every child. Experience tells us that we are going to provide a less than adequate learning situation for a number of them if we eliminate the Catholic school alternative from the list of possibilities.

PARENT SUPPORT

Trying to rear a child at this time is difficult at best. Trying to rear, a child according to the teachings of Christ and the Church is even more difficult. Parents need the support of a school community that affirms in its teaching the same values and principles that their children have received at home. Children need to see that those values and that faith, from which they flow is not just a quirk of their parents, but are held by the Catholic community of faith.

CATHOLIC IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY

Building a sense of community and oneness in faith is difficult all over the country. It is especially true here in Georgia where there are so few of us. It is difficult for our children to meet other Catholics and for Catholic families to get to know one another. The schools provide us with one of the best opportunities that we have in building this kind of community.

GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY

In the 2,000-year-old history of the Church, there has never been any system of government to whom we were prepared to hand over a complete monopoly in the education of our children. During the last 200 years our government has from time to time, either federally or locally, enacted laws which we have found unacceptable in light of our faith. The public schools have either directly, by what they taught, or indirectly, by what they did not teach, been used at times to support a government’s position. If we close our schools, we will have little choice, no matter what the circumstances, but to send our children to government-run schools. To be sure, we have seldom in recent years been in totally intolerable situations. But do we dare eliminate any Catholic alternative to government-run schools.

THE OTHER ALTERNATIVES

In recent years, there has been a growing disenchantment with public education in our country. Many independent schools have been opened. Some of them were undoubtedly founded to avoid racial integration, but we fool ourselves if we believe that alone is the sole reason for this disenchantment. Many parents have real concerns about secularism, violence, and declining educational standards and performance. If we close our schools, we abandon the field of independent education to others whose alternative to public education may be no more acceptable to us philosophically than the government-run schools. Can we afford to do this?

The question of the schools is seldom met dispassionately these days. I often talk with clergy and laity alike who are lined up on both sides of the controversy. One must come to grips with so many problems: budgetary priorities, the prospects of Catholic schools staffed largely by laymen, governmental moves which seem designed to close our schools, etc. Yet, we cannot afford to opt out of this discussion. The stakes are too high. We are talking about religious and moral formation of an entire generation of our youth. Before we allow our schools to go under through benign neglect, close them, or refuse to consider expanding them, we must weigh carefully the alternatives - the alternatives we have to offer and those which others have to offer.