The U.S. bishops’ new chairman-elect for Catholic education says he hopes to bring his experience as a Catholic school teacher and president, as well as pastor of two parishes, into his new position.
In an increasingly secular society, when people’s lives seem more and more to lack meaning, “our schools remind us of Christ’s love…a dignity of the human person that is beyond the mindset of the present moment, or the latest educational trend,” Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane, Washington told CNA Nov. 17.
Daly’s fellow bishops on Nov. 16 elected him to serve as chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education for the U.S. bishops’ conference, which provides guidance for the educational mission of the Church to Catholic elementary and secondary schools, Catholic colleges and universities, and college campus ministry.
The “first mission” of any Catholic school should be the salvation of souls, he noted, but too often Catholic schools focus almost exclusively on academics, to the detriment of their Catholic mission.
A Catholic school ought to be academically excellent, while always keeping in mind why Catholic schools exist— to strengthen the faith foundation, he said.
Instead of operating as merely a private prep school with “a little bit of religious flavoring,” a Catholic school should encourage and guide its students to “seek the Lord with a sincere heart,” Daly said.
“We don’t need more ‘private schools.’ We need schools that are Catholic, that teach and proclaim the Gospel with the realization of academic rigor,” he said.
“I think we have to re-examine why we have our schools, and why they’re so important to families,” he said.
Full story at Angelus News.
His vision can’t be realized until Catholic schools fire everyone who doesn’t support the mission of educating in Catholic faith and replace them with real Catholics. In most Catholic schools, that means firing the principals and about 80% of faculty. Anyone with any experience in Catholic schools knows that what I say is true. Personnel is policy, and judging by the personnel at 90% of Catholic schools, the mission seems to be to form students to become compliantly loyal leftists.
Bishop Daly is one of the good ones. He fights evil and courageously leads his flock. Fake Catholics, know that he prays for you even though you oppose him.
He has to start in all his schools in the Diocese of Spokane first and then deal with proclaiming the salvation of souls at Gonzaga University in his own diocese. He seems very good by the statement “Salvation of Souls” which is the only reason Jesus died on the cross to set up his sacraments to save souls from going to hell. First he may find his teachers and students don’t believe in a Hell.
When Bishop Daly was a new auxiliary here in San Jose, he led a weekend retreat for teachers at the diocesan high school, Mitty. Even then he said the faith component of Catholic schools was the most important consideration. Believe me, I was on that retreat and his message did not go over well at all with the faculty. There was outright rebellion against his suggestions, not on the retreat but the next week at school in the faculty area. Many Catholic schools are Catholic in name only. That won’t change until the faculty are fully on board with Catholic faith.
The faculty should be made to sign declarations of faith to the Holy Catholic Church, if they refuse, goodbye. It’s a privilege to teach at a Catholic institution and parents are entitled to get what they pay for. Bishop Daly is well loved by his former students and is an excellent vocations resource and example.
Below is the oath of fidelity that all teachers of theology and philosophy at Franciscan University (Steubenville, Ohio) take. Some, but too few, other schools do something similar. Frankly, it is lying and false advertising to call an institution Catholic if it isn’t.
Candidates recite:
I, N., with firm faith believe and profess each and everything that is contained in the Symbol of faith, namely:
I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, … (and the rest of the Nicene Creed)…
With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.
I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.
Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.
I, N., in assuming the office of ………, promise that in my words and in my actions I shall always preserve communion with the Catholic Church.
With great care and fidelity I shall carry out the duties incumbent on me toward the Church, both universal and particular, in which, according to the provisions of the law, I have been called to exercise my service.
In fulfilling the charge entrusted to me in the name of the Church, I shall hold fast to the deposit of faith in its entirety; I shall faithfully hand it on and explain it, and I shall avoid any teachings contrary to it.
I shall follow and foster the common discipline of the entire Church and I shall maintain the observance of all ecclesiastical laws, especially those contained in the Code of Canon Law.
With Christian obedience I shall follow what the Bishops, as authentic doctors and teachers of the faith, declare, or what they, as those who govern the Church, establish. I shall also faithfully assist the diocesan Bishops, so that the apostolic activity, exercised in the name and by mandate of the Church, may be carried out in communion with the Church.
So help me God, and God’s Holy Gospels on which I place my hand.
You are aware, of course, that all of this misery has been created since the installation of Vatican II.
Bishop Daly is a leading voice here in WA state on multiple fronts. I pray for his success to truly transform Catholic Education.
Bishop Daly, originally of the SF Archdiocese– is excellent! But he needs a good Church to work with, to back him up! And no Church propagating false “hippie freedoms” of the era of Vatican II.
Bishop Tom phone home! Your former Diocese of San Jose and Mitty High School are on fire– apparently hellfire. That diocese needs you badly!
I hope that Bishop Daly passes the word to his fellow bishops and lets them know likewise, that dioceses must embrace the faith and never compromise.