A concern about Catholic schools

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YinYangMom,

You’ve got some good points. I think it depends on your child, though. I’ve seen kids beaten down pretty bad depending on their maturity and makeup (not talking Mary Kay!). And it depends where you live, too. Some places are way worse than others.

You can find ways to give your kids a little more time before throwing them to the wolves. A good Catholic college is another one (and there are some now, thank goodness! 🙂 )

It can be scary and I hear you, they’ll all be out in the real world sometime so we can’t protect them forever. Hoo-boy. :o

Let’s all pray for eachother! 👍
 
👍 Brenda4God,

I must say I have to agree with you. Maturity has a lot to do with letting your kids “go it alone”. Often, I, as an adult, have trusted “wolves in sheeps clothing”. I find it difficult to handle and I’m very well grounded in my faith. It’s so frustrating out there. My son is doing o.k. so far. I believe I can see the influence of the CS already, though he is still far from the secular values of this world. Please keep him in your prayers.

God bless you and I will keep your prayer intentions in my rosary tonite!

love,

mom4truth
 
I was just talking about this (again) with my Mother about our school around here. Our pastor says we should close all the Catholic High Schools because they all lose their faith. I disagreed. I think he might have some anecdotal evidence, but I would be interested in hearing some REAL statistics, not just what people feel. For instance - the kids he knows - how does he know they are not just on a different time frame for doubting their faith? And you know how “problems” seem to stick out in people’s minds and they forget about the many successes?

I also think I have been arguing something different than some of you on this thread. I am thinking about Catholic schools that are truly Catholic where it seems some are concerned with the schools that are Catholic in name only. I would definitely agree that if a school were teaching against the faith it would be no place for a teen.
 
Dear HouseArrest,
I’m wondering how old you are, if you don’t mind my asking. I agree with you that a lot of Catholic schools are Catholic in name only and not in the Catholic church doctrine. I think this is horrible and an atrocious. There don’t seem to be many truly “Catholic” schools around lately. None that I know of in our area - and believe me - I’ve checked MANY. Question: why don’t our bishops do something about this???

truly puzzled -

mom4truth:confused:
 
mom4truth said:
Dear HouseArrest,
I’m wondering how old you are, if you don’t mind my asking. I agree with you that a lot of Catholic schools are Catholic in name only and not in the Catholic church doctrine. I think this is horrible and an atrocious. There don’t seem to be many truly “Catholic” schools around lately. None that I know of in our area - and believe me - I’ve checked MANY. Question: why don’t our bishops do something about this???

truly puzzled -

mom4truth:confused:
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No, I don’t mind you asking - I’m 41. I didn’t know there were so many schools that weren’t really Catholic until I joined this forum. Now I knew about the colleges but not the high schools and elementary schools. I don’t know why bishops aren’t doing something about this. All I know is that our schools ARE very much Catholic and can’t seem to get a break. For the past 4 years or so our diocese has been going through a consolidation process where they are closing and combining schools in the area. It makes sense for the city of Erie, I suppose, because they’ve got Catholic schools every 1/2 mile. But consolidation for the rest of the diocese would mean a 1/2 hour ride to and from school everyday. They started this before any type of marketing campaign or help with enrollment. It’s tough being on the chopping block all the time. We did just get a new vicar of education in the diocese who is now providing us with some advancement help.
 
If you don’t get the child to first love Jesus, you will not get him/her to love the Church. It really is that simple, at least from my egocentric viewpoint. Start with Jesus, not the Church.
 
I think Catholic schools have a few problems:
  1. Are faculty and staff required to be Catholic and assent to the teachings of the Church? I’m not saying this is the best Catholic School in the world, but I’ve read before at Stuebenville they require all the Professors to sign an Oath of Alleigance to the Magisterium.
  2. Catholic schools should mix up Clergy and Laity for teaching, instead of all one way or the other.
  3. Back to number 1, are either of the parents required to be Catholic and assent to the teachings of the Church? I think this is the main problem with Catholic Schools, most if not all of them have an open enrollment policy. If a school isn’t bringing up it’s Catholic students in the Faith, why should we expect that we’re going to do better with non-Catholic kids. The school system should be overhauled in that sense.
  4. This may be an odd idea, but it just popped into my head. If someone could create a watchdog group designed to find out problems, keep track of school’s progress, and fight for reform and change in the schools; you could use that group to put pressure on dioceses and other private Catholic groups to change things.
 
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