Mission Statement

At First Things, Mary Rose Rybak asks Who Will Save Catholic Schools?. She also wonders if the real mission of Catholic schools has been lost:

But it's worth noting that the men and women, religious and lay, who built America's Catholic schools did so not to educate the poor but to educate Catholics. Catholic schools were formed as a means of passing down the faith to Catholic children and were a self-conscious attempt in the early to mid-1900s to wall off children from a mainstream culture that was considered hostile to Catholics. Given this fact--and given that, contrary to Fordham's hopes, religious charter schools are not likely to become a reality anytime soon--perhaps it's not too ungenerous to ask whether it is entirely fair to ask Catholics to shoulder the burden of educating the urban poor?

True, educating the poor has long been a part of the Church mission; but so too, and arguably stronger, does the Church have a mission to spread the truth to its own members. As evidenced by a New York Times poll from 1994 showing 70 percent of polled Catholics between the ages of 18 and 44 considered the consecrated host a mere "symbolic reminder" of Jesus, there's reason to believe Catholic schools could benefit from a return to the starting focus of educating Catholic children in the faith.

The reformers at the Fordham Foundation see Catholic schools as one answer to the problem of urban education because they are good schools. But it is worth asking a few questions: To what extent are these schools excellent because they are Catholic, in the sense that they express a commonly held worldview, center a religious community, and participate in a shared faith life? And what effect will it have on their excellence if they cease to be Catholic, in the sense of primarily educating Catholics as Catholics? Will these schools still retain their excellence? Perhaps because they think of these schools first as good and only secondarily as Catholic, the Fordham Foundation hopefully assumes so and welcomes generous Catholics to do the same. But, especially on the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI's visit this week, it's worth considering his words from an address to the Congregation for Catholic Education this past January on the importance of keeping the Catholic identity in Catholic schools: "Schools should...question themselves on the role they must fulfill in the contemporary social context, marked by an evident educational crisis. The Catholic school...cannot fail to propose its own educational, human and Christian perspective."

The focus of the Catholic schools that I attended in the Seventies and Eighties was not educating children in the faith. It was mostly about getting an education with some wishy-washy, feel-good, watered-down post-Vatican II Catholicism thrown in (especially in high school). It wasn't the fault of any individual teachers, administrators, or priests. It was more a result of the state of the Church in America at the time, when people seemed eager to move away from the two-thousand-year traditions and teachings of the Church, removing many of the distinctions and values that made one Catholic.

Is it any wonder that so many Americans have left the Church, either because their faith has lapsed or they've found a more meaningful religious experience elsewhere? Some have found their way back later in life, but many--too many--have been lost along the way. The future of the Church in America depends a large part on the strength of Catholic schools. Catholic schools that understand their real mission.