Letter To The Editor

Published: June 5, 2008

To the Editor:

On the relationship between Catholic education and herding

cats …

On his recent visit to the U.S. our Holy Father gave emphasis to the importance of Catholic education. This is a subject very dear to my heart as one who grew up in the bosom of the Catholic faith, whose parents struggled as all do to impart a Catholic foundation to me and my siblings, who grew closer to the church while at college, am now a priest and who never attended a Catholic school prior to seminary.

Almost all Catholic education occurs outside of Catholic schools because, worldwide, very, very few people attend Catholic schools. In our Archdiocese less than 5 percent of our children attend Catholic grade schools and fewer attend Catholic high schools. Only a tiny, tiny percentage of American Catholics have attended Catholic colleges or universities. But all Catholics receive Catholic education through myriad programs, the liturgy, movements, renewal efforts, parish catechesis and such. Catholic education is vibrant and vast.

When I was first ordained I taught eighth-grade religion at Christ the King School. It was so easy. Highly motivated parents, highly motivated children and a grade on which a G.P.A. and high school entrance might depend gave me both carrot and stick. I didn’t have to be a thrill a minute to ensure that those students put forth the effort to learn.

My second assignment was Holy Family Church where I continued my involvement in high school education, but this time I had that 95 percent of our children that are served by CCD, or the parish school of religion.

For the first time in my adult life I began to value the mysteries of Madison Avenue. It was not enough to have content or tradition or fidelity to the Magisterium. I had to be able to attract and hold the customer’s attention. We had no problem with the quality of the product. We had a marketing challenge!

The good news is that there is a lot, a whole lot, of Catholic education that happens outside the box. Retreats, seminars, youth group activities, prayer groups, service groups, social groups all offer a place in which Catholic education can effectively occur. While in Dalton, I realized I had more children playing soccer in our church youth soccer league than came to religious ed, so we moved part of the religious education program to the soccer field.

Msgr. Richard Lopez, when I was in seminary and he was vocation director, gave me a wonderful piece of advice about preaching. He said that I should never assume that I had anyone’s attention. The average Jane or Joe, sitting in the pew, has so many things on their mind between jobs, kids and their own personal struggles that my first challenge was to get their attention. Then I might be able to say something to them. This holds true for every means of Catholic education. This remains, for me, the primary challenge of religious education to the 95 percent and their families. How can I get their attention? I try to learn from television advertising, print advertising, movie trailers and the like. Humor helps, stories help, very accessible content helps. I am always acutely aware that the ball is in my court.

It is my calling and my duty to find a way to the hearts, minds, and souls of my congregation. It is less their job to find a way to understand what I am trying to teach than it is for me to find a way to be understood by people who have a great deal on their minds. It is not unlike herding cats.

Father Dan Stack, Cartersville