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They Aren't All Like This

Written by: Patrick D on Mar 12, 2010 1:45 AM EST

This post is a condensed version of one I wrote for a personal blog, which can be found in full over here

Reading this made me sick to my stomach. Two young children in Boulder, CO have been unceremoniously expelled from Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Catholic primary school,upon the discovery that their parents were both women.

I know. It's the Catholic Church.

The same Catholic Church that had the audacity to judge Massachusetts for legalizing gay marriage at the same time it was making headlines for having aided and abetted child molestors in escaping responsibility for their actions. It's the same Catholic Church that in America has raised a shitstorm over a President's support of abortion rights when even the Pope, who thinks rock music is the devil, is willing to have a constructive dialogue on issues of social justice. The same church that threatened to withdraw its charitable organization if Washington DC allowed gay marriage. So why am I expecting anything from these fucking swine?

Because I am the product of a Catholic education. For four years I was both a beneficiary and a student of an educational philosophy that for hundreds of years has honed minds that have changed the world. Scott Janssen at HuffPost sees this through more or less the same lens. Boston College High School is a remarkable institution. I was taught government and politics (out of a textbook intended for second year college students) by a man who ran for Congress after a stint as a state legislator. The director of the Dramatics Society worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His assistant, who designed set pieces and costumes and taught us how to craft them, worked in professional theater as well as architecture (which he also teaches) and so many other disciplines that an attempt to list them here would only do him a disservice by omission. Many in the faculty are published authors. One writes a weekly column on education in the Boston Globe. Numerous others would have had resumes every bit as impressive had they not gone straight from college back to teach at their alma mater. These are people who are passionate about education.

 

And the institutional history of that passion and dedication dates back centuries.

 

Ignacio de Loyola was a soldier and a statesman, and in both realms he was both adept and full of hubris.  He was a leader of men, and a devious one, who was often drunk with the trappings of power.  His career was ended by a French cannonball during a failed attempt to defend Pamplona.  As he recuperated, without the benefit of amnesia during multiple botched surgeries, the only literature available to him were religious works on the lives of Christ and the Saints.  As he suffered and read, he was inspired. After his recovery, he hung up the sword, sold his possessions, and took the name Ignatius.  He vowed that he would dedicate his life to education-- his own and others  He believed that by making great strides to give the world teachers, he and his order, the Society of Jesus--also known as the Jesuits-- could make the world a better place.  Surely those who have had education would be enlightened towards the service of a greater good.  Surely, this was the path to bringing about the Kingdom of God on Earth.  

 

For his dedication he was canonized.  Saint Ignatius of Loyola.  Patron Saint of Education.  The Platonic ideal of the Catholic educator. He's now known as St Ignatius of Loyola, patron saint of education. The prototypical Catholic educator. And although in his lifetime he did seek to convert the Protestants and the Jews and the Pagans, it was the schools founded in his name, mine in particular, that led the way in dismantling the notion that Catholic schools were for Catholics alone. Which can only be seen as the logical extension of Ignatius' belief in the supreme importance of education. If the mission of the Church is to make the world a better place, and the way to make the world a better place is to educate the people and instill in them the desire to improve the lives of others, then it would be a sin to deny schooling to anyone for such petty reasons.

 

And yet here we are.

Archbishop Charles J Chaput wrote a rather pathetic and predictable defense of the policy.which as someone who is proud to have left the Church--but also to have learned quite a bit from it-- I feel obliged to refute.  He claimed that the main purpose of Catholic Schools is religious.  To form students in Catholic faith.  He's dead wrong.  The main purpose of any school is to educate.  
If he can't see that as a moral imperative in and of itself as a Catholic, then his flock need a more enlightened shepherd. And as someone whose critical thinking skills were honed by their art, I can tell you that he could stand to spend some time with the Jesuits.
 
Delving into the even more patently absurd, he pivoted from there to mention that Catholic schools do also accept students of other or no religious affiliation.  Which could be seen as contradicting the point about the schools being primarily religious, but I can afford to be charitable, because in the next paragraph he says "The idea that Catholic Schools should require... a serious effort from school families to live their Catholic identity faithfully is reasonable and just."  It takes some amazing doublethink to jump straight from claiming that schools in the Denver Archdiocese accept non-Catholics to an assertion that they should be allowed to require students to assume and embody a Catholic identity
He's moreover duplicitous when referring to just what constitutes the "serious counter-witness to the Church's mission" that's required to expel a student.  At first he notes that his educators have welcomed single and divorced parents into the fold.  Then he says that, "If Catholics take their faith seriously, they naturally follow the teachings of the Church in matters of faith and morals; otherwise they take themselves outside the believing community. "
 
He furthermore says that his educators shouldn't be burdened by the fear of hurting their students' feelings when doing their duty to present Church teachings to their students.  He suggested that it was out of a desire to protect the children that they were expelled.  Why then do they not extend the same protection to the children of divorced parents?  Or perhaps they're just selective about which Church teachings they can hold their tongue about out of decency to the students placed in their care.
I don't pretend that everyone else's experience with Catholic Schools are the same as mine. Or that the Jesuit model is universally emulated (even though it should be). But one thing is clear here.  The Catholic Church has lost sight of its mission.  I know. I've been there.  I've studied the mission.  In my own way, I've been a part of it, even though I'm now no longer with the Church, or indeed any religious organization.  
I still believe in the mission of Ignatius.  It helped form my political identity.  My support for gay rights, and my self-identification as a Progressive do not come in spite of my Catholic background. They come because of it.

 

 

 

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