A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

I’m an equal opportunity offender September 23, 2010

I sort of ripped on public schools (again) in a preceding post.  But far be it from me to discriminate.  Parochial, and, in particular, Catholic schools, also have their share of problems.  A Catholic school in Massachussetts published an article about the homosexual lives of some of the students at Sacred Heart High School in the student newspaper.  The  article wasn’t lewd or pornographic, but it was certainly dismissive of Catholic moral doctrine, and used discredited statistics to try to “normalize” homosexual behavior.  So, parents complained.  The classic pattern then ensued – denial, obfuscation, finger pointing, and the round robin denial of responsibility (it works the same way with issues of liturgical abuses or denial of the implementation of certain reforms, such as Summorum Pontificum).

Many Catholic parents spend a great deal of money to have their children receive educations at Catholic schools.  They do so in the  belief that such enrollment will insure their kids get very solid instruction in the Faith (this is often quite wrong), that they will be shielded from the decadence and decay so prevalent in our society today, and will probably receive superior secular instruction.  Many parents even feel they don’t need to do any formation in their children’s Faith, because the school is supposed to do that.  For a few Catholic schools, the above assumptions are valid.  But for many Catholic schools, significant problems can emerge.  Some of the most persistent problems center on the reliable and accurate transmission of the Faith to the students.  I have heard and read numerous reports of teachers at Catholic schools bashing the Pope, the priesthood, and doctrine on all the “groinal” issues – contraception, abortion, homosexuality, etc.  There can always also be incidental exposure to students who perhaps aren’t on the same moral plane that you are trying to instill in your child(ren).

An extreme example: when I first started this blog, I was contacted by a woman who was very concerned about a particular school in this diocese.  Her daughter had been exposed to some very dark things there.  Her daughter may have become possessed – she manifested extremely serious symptoms and eventually had to have some drastic spiritual intervention.  After that, she recovered.   That may be an extreme case, but the point is this – Catholic schools, at this time, are not a panacea.   They bear just as close scrutiny as any other school. 

I can think of a school that is excellent by every report I have seen – Atonement Academy in San Antonio.  There, students are instructed in the Faith to the highest standards.  Daily Mass attendance is required.  There are Poor Clare nuns on the campus.  And the teachers must sign an oath of fidelity to faithfully transmit the Faith, and only the true Doctrine of the Church and not their personal interpretation of it, to the students.  Atonement Academy is one of the most successful Catholic schools of recent times, and they are about to undergo their fourth expansion in the last 15 years.  I do not think something like this oath of fidelity is common.  Perhaps some might think it extreme, a violation of “rights.”  Such oaths used to be commonplace for anyone with a position of authority in the Church – priest, religious, teacher, principal – anyone.  Perhaps one of the reasons we have so many problems with fidelity today, is that few in positions of high authority (like, bishops) insist on this kind of strict adherence to the Doctrine of the Faith (re: the primacy of the individual conscience).

Some might think I exaggerate about some of the, uh……..doctrinal liberties……..taken by Catholic school teachers.  A further example, from a Catholic high school teacher in Cincinnatti, espousing a form of Mariology foreign to Catholics:

Mary is far too rich a resource of faith to let this happen. To do this, though, Mary must be taken off her pedestal. With her feet firmly on the ground, one discovers that her name, like Moses’ sister of old, is Miriam. The religious tradition she faithfully practices is Judaism. The classic Catholic Marian doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are foreign to her ears.

More to the point, as a woman living in first-century Palestine, Miriam is struggling to survive a life marked by oppression. Economically she belongs to a peasant class which works the land with little compensation. Furthermore, given the people’s tax burden to Rome, Herod the Great and temple, it is quite burdensome.

Politically, though, she retains the dangerous memory of the liberating story of Exodus; her homeland is occupied by a foreign power which cares little for the inhabitants and maintains control through violence. This will be illustrated most visibly in the death of her son by crucifixion.

Socially, as a woman, she is marginalized in a culture which privileged males. …

So, she is not Mary, Mother of God, she is Miriam, struggling proletariat victim of her debauched capitalist overlords, yearning to “serve” as a womynpriest and to free the masses repressed by the evil American Roman Empire.  And Chimpy McBusHitler, don’t forget that.

How pathetic.