- A Christian education nonprofit is celebrating “Catholic Schools Week” to stress the importance of putting “the Catholic back in Catholic schools,” according to the group.
- Thomas Carroll, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Boston outlined a six step process to put the “Catholic ” back in Catholic schools in an EDIFY video, as part of its bi-weekly five-minute animated video series. This year’s Catholic Schools Week theme is “Catholic Schools: Faith. Excellence. Service.”
- “Political correctness” has infiltrated secondary schools, especially public schools, he said. Instead, Catholic schools should seek truth and human dignity “regardless of the values of popular culture.”
A Christian education nonprofit is celebrating “Catholic Schools Week” to stress the importance of putting “the Catholic back in Catholic schools,” according to the group.
Thomas Carroll, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Boston outlined a six step process to put the “Catholic ” back in Catholic schools in an EDIFY video, as part of its bi-weekly five-minute animated video series. This year’s Catholic Schools Week theme is “Catholic Schools: Faith. Excellence. Service.”
“Catholic schools enrolled more than 5 million students in the mid-1960s, but just 1.6 million now,” Carroll said in the video. “There are a lot of factors along the way. Family economic stress. Rising college costs. The passing of private school tradition. And, of course, massive secularization.”
Carroll said Catholic schools should not follow in the footsteps of public schools, because their core purpose is to teach faith. “And, after all, why should parents pay tuition to a Catholic school if it is indistinguishable from a free public school?,” he added.
If a student has a tough question, who will be there to answer it “correctly?” Carroll asked. What would a student learn “if we didn’t make sure there was a properly catechized believing Catholic at the front of the room?” or “a faculty member is more interested in politics than Church teaching?”
He outlined six ways schools can “to put the Catholic back” into its educational institutions.
For example, the leader of the school “must not only be Catholic but also be a true witness to the faith,” the school’s academic program should “reflect the full contribution of the Catholic intellectual tradition” and school faculty must “represent the faith in their words” and lives.
Schools where the only Catholic aspect is the daily religion class turn “over the rest of the day to secularism,” he said.
“Political correctness” has infiltrated secondary schools, especially public schools, he said. Instead, Catholic schools should seek truth and human dignity “regardless of the values of popular culture.”
“Our culture is under attack,” he said. “Our values eroded. And our faith 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,” he added. “Hopefully, our Catholic schools will plant the seeds for a brighter, more faithful future for the Church and for America.”
Catholic Schools across the country have come under fire in recent years for their adoption of so-called “woke” ideology.
In Florida, one couple raised millions of dollars for their local Catholic school, but eventually sued it for violating its own mission to provide their children with a Catholic education, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
Anthony and Barbara Scarpo charged the Academy of the Holy Names in Tampa, Florida, with “distancing itself from mainstream Catholicism, and embracing the new, politically correct, divisive and ‘woke’ culture.” Gender identity and openness to LGBTQ lifestyles, pro-abortion stances, white guilt and other “hot-button issues” replaced Catholic teaching, and students were allegedly taught to feel “guilt for not having been ‘woke’ sooner,” according to the lawsuit. (RELATED: Whoopi Goldberg Apologizes For Saying ‘Holocaust Isn’t About Race’ On ‘The View’)
“When you begin to teach social justice without the umbrella of Catholicism and you leave God out of the discussion and leave anything that is Catholic out of the discussion, now all you have become is a social justice warrior,” Scarpo said. “You create terrible confusion … you create animosity between the students.”
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