….In Boston, I presided over what the Register called a “renaissance of Catholic education.” At the core of this effort was the largest intentional turnover of Catholic school leadership in the nation (I replaced 75% of parochial-school principals over five years) and the creation of the St. Thomas More Teaching Fellowship. Through this fellowship, we recruit faithful Catholics as they graduate college, train them over the summer and get them placed in Catholic schools to teach and serve as daily witnesses to our faith.
The need for dramatic action is evident. By age 13, 50% of children raised in Catholic families walk away from their faith — a staggering 86% by age 18. This high failure rate can only be turned around if we make Catholic schools engines for evangelization.
Here are a few practical ideas.
First, the leader of every Catholic school must not only be Catholic but also be a true witness to the faith, someone who is a role model for children and an evangelist for our faith.
Second, the school’s academic program needs to reflect the full contribution of the Catholic intellectual tradition. One cannot conceive of Western civilization without the existence of the Catholic Church. The Church has made significant contributions as diverse as art, architecture, music, literature, philosophy and science. A Catholic school in which the only Catholic aspect of the curriculum is the daily religion class is treating Catholicism as a mere footnote to the day. This approach doesn’t do justice to the Catholic contribution to culture and to the history of the world. Effectively, these schools are turning over the rest of the day to secularism.
Third, the faculty of the school needs to be composed of accomplished individuals who represent the faith in their words — but also in the lives they lead.
Fourth, political correctness — which first took hold in our colleges and universities — is now infiltrating elementary and secondary schools. This trend has been openly embraced in public schools across America. In contrast, a truly Catholic school: must embrace truth not relativism; must see individuals as the creation of God and not merely members of identity groups; and must uphold the human dignity of all lives from conception to natural death, regardless of the values of popular culture.
Fifth, ideally a Catholic school needs to take steps to ensure that children are given the opportunity to build positive relationships with seminarians, priests and religious brothers and sisters. These relationships are a central part of instilling our faith in children — and preparing them for the salvation of their souls.
Lastly, the children in our schools need to see vividly that Catholicism is at its core a joyful and optimistic faith. Through the sacrament of reconciliation, for example, no matter what mistakes we make or how many times we stumble on our path, we each have a second chance to redeem ourselves on our path to eternal salvation. How great is that!
Our culture is under attack. Our values have eroded. And our faith is mocked. We have a clear choice. We can stand by and do nothing. Or we can restore our Catholic schools to be a force for good amid a broader cultural decline.
Instead of watering down our schools to appease nonbelieving parents, our Catholic schools must plant the seeds for a brighter, more faithful future for the Church and for America.
From the National Catholic Register
One final important point: Good Catholic Schools turn out good Catholic Priests.
To change an organization, any organization, often requires staff changes. Many bishops and pastors leave ineffective, incompetent, even heterodox, persons in their jobs at chanceries, as DRE’s, as youth ministers, as Catholic school principals and in other positions because, it seems, they’re afraid to hurt someone’s feelings. Those in leadership must look out for the good of the people of God. If someone’s gifts do not match their position, they need to be gently let go and replaced by someone who has the gifts for the tasks. Shouldn’t Catholic school teachers be both Catholic and teachers? Shouldn’t those who staff Catholic parishes be both competent and Catholic? May our bishops and pastors have wisdom and courage to replace staff when needed, for the good of all. Way too often I’ve seen incompetent, even heterodox, parish and Catholic school staff left in place for years. That harms individuals and the larger Church.
So many ostensibly Catholic schools in the dioceses of San Jose and San Francisco do the exact opposite of what this article recommends: they are barely Catholic except in name only, and they bend over backwards to deny elements of Catholic faith in order to placate and please their secular and nominally Catholic families and students. The biggest giveaway is if the school accepts and promotes gayness and gay marriage. In that case, it’s only pretending to be Catholic.
There is a wealthy “Catholic” school in Atherton — Sacred Heart Schools — where the Jesuit chaplain is a modernist heretic and the principal responds to claims that the school isn’t Catholic enough by saying, “We celebrate school Masses and have religion classes. That makes us Catholic.” Clueless.
The retired teacher (41 years) would add: doing this right requires a lot of time for proper mentoring of the new principals. Finding good hires is not enough. Even good people with good intentions are going to need guidance and support. I’d like to know how he got support and buy-in from all their pastors, too. You won’t keep good folks, if Father is adverse or indifferent.
If a Catholic school has a Diversity Equity and Inclusion director, stay away from it. Guess what? Archbishop Mitty High School has one of those. You can always tell.
Mitty High School in San Jose is a dumpster fire. Clergy and lay faithful have brought its abortion-promoting, gender-confused staff to the attention of Bishop Cantu and he has done nothing to change course.
Does anyone know why?
I don’t believe he is really pro-abortion or gender-confused, given his past service to the Church as a priest and bishop.
DEI: Sounds like a horrible school.
The reason Bishop Cantu does nothing about Mitty is the school is a cash cow and a sports mecca.
Why is this so hard to figure out? Catholic schools need to hire authentically Catholic faculty and administrators who are fully competent in their fields. They need to PAY them well and not work them beyond reason and not assign them to tasks that are outside of their qualifications. They need to keep sports in proper perspective. If they can’t do this right, they ought to close the schools. Public schools do a perfectly good job of corrupting young minds–at the very least Catholic schools shouldn’t be doing that.
I don’t presume to know all the answers. However, a simple way to find the answer is to follow the money. What drives the organization? It costs a lot of money to run a good high school. Qualified teachers must be well paid or they will teach somewhere else, no matter their wish to serve the church. They need to put food on the table. Sports can be a very good source of money. So, you need students whose parents are willing to fork over a lot of tuition money. Without them, you have no school.
If those paying the tuition don’t agree with the church’s teachings they will pull their students. If too many pull their students, you don’t have a school. So schools water down the teaching and living of the faith to keep the enrollment up. Then you have a very good academic program without the teaching and living of the faith. Tuition-paying parents are willing to fork over the cash for a good education in a private school. If you get too catholic you might lose tuition money.
Then stop calling such schools “Catholic schools”. Give up the pretense. Why is that so hard? Why is it so hard to be honest?
For example, Archbishop Mitty High School could and should be rebranded to The Mitty Academy High School. Problem solved.
I think 95% or more of parents and students would be in favor of removing religion and religion classes from Mitty. Just rebrand it as a secular private high school.
Archbishop John J. Mitty served as the fourth Archbishop of San Francisco–1935-1961. He was particularly noted for an outstanding achievement of creating a highly-motivated, well-trained diocesan clergy, said to be equal to any religious order of men, at that time. During Abp. Mitty’s era, the Archdiocese of San Francisco included what later became the Dioceses of Oakland, San Jose, Santa Rosa and Stockton. What an awful thing, the corrupt, heretical high school named after him! His name should be completely removed, as well as the name and designation of “Catholic.” What a spineless bishop they have, in the Diocese of San Jose– he, too, should be removed, and replaced by a good, faithful Catholic bishop.