Disliking my Catholic high school

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I have been to Catholic schools all of my life. When it was time to pick I high school, I chose a Catholic all-girls school. I figured that being in single gender environment would be more productive because we wasted a lot of class time in my co-ed grammar school with all the tomfoolery that would go on. And when I started freshman year, I was liking it. It was nice and quiet and I did much better in school than I have ever done before. And in grammar school, I was one of the only girls who did not play sports. I felt a lot better about myself since, although there are still jock girls, a significant portion of my high school is made up of geeky/nerdy/artistic types and to be one is more fashionable and popular than the traditional athletic type.

Since then, I have always been in mostly honors classes and I so I share classes with pretty much the same people. And I have enjoyed the society of these people and the classes with the interesting discussions and clever humor. However, I was not slow to discovery that the religion classes are sorely lacking. There are no honors religion classes, so we all move at a snail’s pace. Freshman year, we had this grandmotherly lady for our religion teacher and we pretty much did nothing but watch movies that did bot have much to do with religion and most took naps. They were just feel-good family movies and we had to fill in questions about love, kindness,and all that that were exhibited in the movie. Than sophomore year, our teacher actually gave us real homework that involved reading Scripture. And it was still snail’s pace and he would always ramble on off topic in class.

This year we have a semester of morality. Our teacher mostly talks about societal sins and only the kind of ones that no one can really argue with, like we all agree that racism, sweatshop labor, polluting the planet is wrong, but not so much about personal decisions and more controversial nonetheless important moral issues. And now we are doing Church history. Like all of our religion textbooks, this book is a slim volume about 20% is just pictures and it seems like they always say the same thing over and over again but rehash it in different words. In contrast, my AP US history book is massive but covers a lot less history. Like most of my other books, it is thick enough to be are bullet-proof shield which is what one would expect from something that is at least a rough sketch of two millennia of Church history.

The whole atmosphere is pretty secular. It is an all-girls school, so they emphasize feminism, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. My choir, history, and English teachers can just go on to talk in support of the ugly dimension of feminism with the ease that comes with believing that all of your students will agree with you. And I fall into a sort of academic “elite” among the students who I share classes with and the majority are major homophiles and apathetic towards or vehemently hate religion of any kind. The one girl who I am in pretty much every class with for the past three years who has a great sense of humor and can be fun to talk to or work on projects with loves to rant about religion or about how much she hates children. This is frustrating because this entire establishment claims to be my friend, to help a girl succeed. Yet I cannot find a single deviant mind or ally in this school and I resent being shoved into the same fold with everyone else.

Since freshmen year after reading novel with heavy Christian themes, I have decided to teach myself religion and I have been liking what I find. I mostly only have time for Word on Fire videos and sermons with my homework load and Father Barron cuts like a razor blade through all the noise that I hear around me. I also have gotten into GK Chesterton and loving it since he puts into words why I find a lot of what I observe in everyday life so absurd and clears away pessimistic thoughts that I am tempted to accept in the moment since they are so convenient but are logically unsound.

I have had a brief year of good prayer and beginning the spring of sophomore year, I hit a spiritual dry spell and cannot pray the rosary anymore. And I started taking AP classes junior year so now I do not have the time or the energy to exercise, sleep well, or take care of my physical health let alone my religious health. And I am so frustrated, especially when I observe other teenagers that come on here and see that they are very active in there Faith and some that have even converted. How do people my age have time to thoroughly learn the Faith or even have friends? And I really want to escape the atmosphere in my school, but it is an academically good school and I am at the top of my game, have good teachers, and extra-curricular responsibilities and do not plan on leaving. There is a co-ed Catholic school that I could have gone to, but they have student drinking problems at that school and one girl I went to grammar school with said that people are really mean to each other there, so I guess it would not be much better. And there are a lot of gang affiliated students at the public school in my district.

Continued (sorry, its long)
 
Continuation

I really wish I could have an ally in this, at least one, and not be alone. I know that I will encounter differences in opinion and lifestyle in the wider world, but I went to a Catholic school to be taught religion along with the usual classes and I am not getting my money’s worth. And I know that other practicing, orthodox Catholics exist in my age group, but I have yet to have met one where I should have been most likely to meet one. I try to be active in my parish, but it is mostly old people and the youth group is fine but volunteering with, but that’s about it. My parents are not that serious about religion and my school pushes a soft, domesticated Christianity that only emphasizes social justice and being nice and is far too sentimental. I do not care for sentimentality, I care for rationality; I am rather stoical. And it is not that I am saying social problems are not an issue, it is just my religion teacher even goes on to say that excluding other people is the sin of humanity that Jesus died for. I want hard, concrete Catholicism with all of its history, philosophy, theology, and all of that. I am trying to teach myself that although I will pretty much have my hands full this last month of school with AP exams and finals.

I am sure some people on here have similar problems or had them. How do you deal with them? I feel like a lousy Christian since I am irritable from the stress, fall into the same mortal sin every now and than, and cannot find time to volunteer and study the Faith or improve myself in any other way. If this is relevant, I do go to Sunday mass and confession once a week with Eucharistic adoration which is available at my parish once a month. Someone once replied on one of my previous threads that I do not have to be well-read to be a good Catholic. I do not have a choice, I have to have arguments and backup, especially since I will have political science next year and this class is open season and I really want to be able to stand up for myself if I have to express my opinion and my classmates see my true colors and I get outnumbered. Sorry for the long post and any typos, I checked once and already used up more time than I should have. And I did not realize it would be this long until my first post. I wanted to brief but I let it all out and I turn everything I write into an essay. Thanks for any replies. Sorry again.
 
I went to Catholic coed high school many years ago, and I hated for a number of reasons. I went to elementary school in the nearby parish, but then I went to high school at this other neighboring parish. First thing was, I was an outsider for four years. I never felt I was accepted by the kids who were from that parish.

There was a significant amount of hazing and/or the threat of hazing as well as just general fighting, usually instigated by upperclassmen. So, I developed a mindset of wanting to just leave school quickly each day.

I was resented for getting better grades than average ( I was not at the top of the heap, for sure). We had nuns teaching most of the classes, and they seemed to feel that we should live a near-monastic lifestyle, as they did. I thought that was just way overdone.

Later, I was accepted at the best public university in our state and did OK there – so the preparation in high school was adequate, for sure. But, there were far more opportunities for personal development in the local public high school, like many more sporting activities, band, clubs, etc.

The priest who taught our senior class religion class was later kicked out in a sex-abuse scandal incident. It makes me feel creepy, to look back at that time.

So, I have to agree with disliking my high school, too. I just felt everything was out of my control and I just had to “survive.” I had been fairly self-motivated for the academic part which served me in HS and in college and grad school. You just never know what you’re walking into, in high school. The kids 50 years ago were as immature and juvenile acting as they are today.They didn’t (don’t today) know what to do with their freedom and free will.

In far retrospect, I am disappointed that a Catholic high school curriculum didn’t prepare any of us for any parts of parish ministry.
 
Wow! You sound a lot like me. I could have almost written the same thing myself, with a few differences. I go to a Catholic high school as well, although it is co-ed. The religion here is also not quite as good as it could be :sad_yes: There is some attempt to teach sexual morality but it is not emphasized too much because students will protest. The students are very secular, or if they are in any sense Catholic, it is like you have described: there is a lot of sentimentality and “be nice to everyone”-only preaching.

There was a retreat that seniors can go on and they all come back in some emotional hysteria that I always found VERY suspicious, and so I asked a friend (I have found 1—1 out of over 2000 students, who is a passionate and orthodox Catholic, he is a sophomore) about it and he found out from someone else that at this retreat, it is extremely emotional and they focus on not judging people and “loving” (very emotionally) each other, and they apparently had a speaker who said to them: “Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what’s right, you decide what’s good. Just know that someone is by your side.” :eek:. Yes, they were preaching nasty relativism at an allegedly Catholic retreat :(. And this retreat is absolutely loved by everyone, even the teachers. Only I and my friend have vocalized our skepticism of it.

The religion classes are slow and watered down. This semester, I’m taking a philosophy class which I was so excited for! But the past month we have literally done nothing in class, and the lectures have been incredibly watered down from the textbook, so I sometimes read the textbook for myself. I heard there is one religion teacher who seems to be rigorous in her classes, teaching from more than just the textbooks (which usually are very thin, with my philosophy textbook being an exception (but even with that we probably learn like 1% of it)) however I never got to have her as my teacher, sadly.

One difference between our schools is that my school is heavy on the sports and there are many “jocks.” And these people, as far as I have observed, are often obnoxious (when I come to school in the morning, and am in my car in the parking lot, there are people blasting vulgar music) and from rumors I’ve heard, many of the people in general behave very… immorally. It’s probably as bad as a public school, just less overt. Still, the things I hear in the hallways are disheartening. Someone even made a Facebook page called “___HS Confessions” which is the most vile, disgusting thing I have ever read. People there anonymously submit things they have done, not to confess in repentance, but to GLOAT. Or they insult teachers and objectify female students. They have caused a mini-war between the school administration and themselves, because they are really making the school sound terrible. I had been commenting on some of the things several months ago, along with the friend I mentioned earlier, to defend the faith and morality, but after backlash and even a threatening message in my inbox, I left.

Like yours, my parents are not as serious about religion as I would hope. And I too love listening to Fr. Robert Barron and reading G.K. Chesterton. To be honest, I think that much of my most meaningful, solid religious education has come from the Internet, including this forum. I spend most of my free time reading Catholic sources, but also find myself overwhelmed with homework at times. I am currently a senior, and so I only have about five weeks left until graduation. I think that junior year was the most difficult homework-wise, and so you are going through that right now. Senior year is easier than that, thankfully. And truthfully, the only exit I see to this situation is when I go to college. I chose a small Catholic college that actually cares about its Catholic identity and education, as do its students. Summer is only about a month away, and so I hope that you will have more time to read Catholic materials then. Make sure you choose a good college, because many Catholic colleges are like our high schools. I hope we can talk more!
 
I sympathize. I remember my high school days and they were tough. I also went to a Catholic high school, but I must say I loved it. I was challenged by classes in all subjects which touched on all aspects of learning including my faith.

I am sorry that your experience has been so poor. I think we have a right, as Catholics, to hold our Catholic schools to a high standard of academic and spiritual learning. Unfortunately, our schools are run by fallible human beings.

Is there a religious “club” at your high school? I was in one and it was great. We did a lot of service work at a veterans hospital taking patients down to Mass on Sunday or to social activities on Wednesday nights. We collected food at holiday times, had bake sales and other fund raisers for the missions, the poor, etc. I remember a retreat or two also.

If there isn’t one, talk to a teacher who you respect and see about starting one. You could add other aspects of faith such as meeting to say the rosary once a month, doing a bible study, etc. There is no better way to find yourself an ally or two. 🙂

Three words about your first meeting: Posters, Food, Energy! Advertise, offer food :D, and find ways to excite those who attend your first meeting so that they’ll make your group THE place to be!

Good luck to you! God bless!🙂

PS Try C. S. Lewis! He’s amazing! I started with The Screwtape Letters and it was unlike anything I’d ever read before!
 
I am curious, could you both tell us a little about your catholic high school?

Is it an urban, inter-city school, suburban, or rural?
Parochial/Diocesan or independent (religious order)?

Are any teachers and/or administration priests? Do you see priests often?
Are any of the teachers not catholic?
What percentage of the school is Catholic (let alone practicing)?

I find that sometimes Catholic high schools in some areas are really just focused on keeping kids out of jail or too focused on prepping them for college. Just like some Catholic Universities, some catholic schools have forgotten that the number one goal should be helping the student become an orthodox Catholic. Getting into college should be number 2. But due to state test scores, parents, kids, not finding orthodox teachers, etc… Some schools have fallen away from the number 1 purpose.

I think that it’s not a bad idea to write a profession letter of concern to the Parish Priest or even the Diocese. But if you do, make sure you present only facts, not hearsay.

Regardless… Keep coming here to Catholic.com. Since coming to this site, I have learned more about being Catholic than I did in my first 30 years of life!

God Bless
 
to Op,

i will speak to you as a parent and current had and have 2 boys in Catholic High School.
My husband and I look very carefully at sending our sons to either a popular all boys school or to a smaller co-ed school. After talking to lots and lots of people, we choose to send our sons to the smaller co-ed school. I’ve known and talk to parents and kids about their experiences with a single sex high school. Now this isn’t scientific but as a general observation, the kids that go to single sex high school in general seem less happy and more stressed, while both my sons have had and are having a much more normal existence and experience in a co-ed school. It seems to me that in the critical years during the teens, I am not sure why there is any advantage to separation of the sexes. On big part of growing up is learning to to interact and mingle and be friends with the opposite sex. Now maybe you felt there was too much drama and distraction in going to co-ed but from what the kids that have gone to single sex high schools is that the bad behaviors of boys and girls come out in single sex environments. Girls become mean and clichish. boy become more vulgar and cut throat competitors. Every girl I’ve talked to that has gone to all-girl HS has told me that they disliked it at first and it took about 2 years to get use to it or at least settle into a group of friends that made it tolerable. You are going to have to remember that high school is only 4 short years of your life. If you switch to another, you have already lost 2 years of settling in and making friends. That is why parents need to closely look at where they send their kids for high school. Believe it or not high school blows by very fast, you will be out before you know it. I think if you focus on your future, what you want to do and view HS as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, then the stupid stuff you dislike will pass and move on.
 
redbetta said:
Continuation

I really wish I could have an ally in this, at least one, and not be alone. I know that I will encounter differences in opinion and lifestyle in the wider world, but I went to a Catholic school to be taught religion along with the usual classes and I am not getting my money’s worth. And I know that other practicing, orthodox Catholics exist in my age group, but I have yet to have met one where I should have been most likely to meet one. I try to be active in my parish, but it is mostly old people and the youth group is fine but volunteering with, but that’s about it. My parents are not that serious about religion and my school pushes a soft, domesticated Christianity that only emphasizes social justice and being nice and is far too sentimental. I do not care for sentimentality, I care for rationality; I am rather stoical. And it is not that I am saying social problems are not an issue, it is just my religion teacher even goes on to say that excluding other people is the sin of humanity that Jesus died for. I want hard, concrete Catholicism with all of its history, philosophy, theology, and all of that. I am trying to teach myself that although I will pretty much have my hands full this last month of school with AP exams and finals.

I am sure some people on here have similar problems or had them. How do you deal with them? I feel like a lousy Christian since I am irritable from the stress, fall into the same mortal sin every now and than, and cannot find time to volunteer and study the Faith or improve myself in any other way. If this is relevant, I do go to Sunday mass and confession once a week with Eucharistic adoration which is available at my parish once a month. Someone once replied on one of my previous threads that I do not have to be well-read to be a good Catholic. I do not have a choice, I have to have arguments and backup, especially since I will have political science next year and this class is open season and I really want to be able to stand up for myself if I have to express my opinion and my classmates see my true colors and I get outnumbered. Sorry for the long post and any typos, I checked once and already used up more time than I should have. And I did not realize it would be this long until my first post. I wanted to brief but I let it all out and I turn everything I write into an essay. Thanks for any replies. Sorry again.
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You sound pretty level headed to me, perhaps a bit too much success driven, a bit too competitive. No matter what, don’t let your spiritual life slip. I think you should be reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church, including the footnotes. Use that as your guide for additional study and reflection. And of course you could start reading philosophy. I would start with Aquinas by Edward Feser and spend time on his blogspot. I think you will find him challenging. And take a look at my new thread " Aristotle, God, and Existence " on the Philosophy Forum.

I went to a Co-Ed Catholic High and I don’t remember 😃 much about it, it was so long along ago, but I do remember I was there :D. Well, at my age, I’m entitled to forget a few things.

We get high school kids volunteering to serve dinner to the poor once a month. They are great, they are a big help.

" Word on Fire " is excellent.

Linus2nd
 
I have one more comment directed at Op and the other high school poster. While this isn’t excusing watered downed and poor relgion instruction in high school, I think from both your posts that both of you are more advanced in your commitment and knowledge that probably any religion class is going to seem like milk toast. I would say that you may need to realize that your religion classes and teaching may need to sometime try to go at the lower end of religious desires than the more advanced kids like yourselves. Instead of trying to nick pick at what your aren’t getting, use your more advanced commitments to be an example and leader in your religion classes. The best religion instruction that anyone can get is the one you do on your own time by reading and listening and watching. That type of search and study will last you a life time. That is what every Catholic should be doing but sadly, most people’s religious instruction ends at 8th grade.
 
I cant tell you how much i sympathize with your concerns about those puny religion books…they should be the heaviest ones! 😉
 
Laircy, yeah I have also wondered about those senior retreats. It is a graduation requirement and I have asked if I could go to a retreat at my own parish instead and present proof, but I cannot. However, like I said, I’m stoical, so I probably will not come back from the retreat acting as if they lesioned part of my brain like some of our seniors do. I would have to disagree on the Internet. Although the Internet is helpful for individual questions and narrowing searches, I think it is best to grab a hold of primary sources. I learn the most for a book and although Word on Fire is nice, Fr. Barron references a lot of Church documents and books that one should probably read in his or herself. Some documents you can get online, but for the present, I have been struggling to get some books read, most obviously the Bible. It seems to me like the Internet is an appetizer and I am not nearly so satisfied until I get the main course: books.

chefmomster2, yes we do have a religious club that does service, but it is more sentimental than anything. Plus, transportation a major issue in extra curricular activities for me so I try to volunteer more locally. And I have read some of Lewis and will read more, that’s a given.

phil19034, a small order of nuns started the school and one still teaches while a few work as bus drivers, receptionists, etc. Most of them are retired. We are part of the archdiocese. We are in the suburbs of a major US city. None of our students look like prison risks, many of them are middle-class. We see priests once a month for mass, twice a year for confession, and there are non-catholic teachers and students, I just do not know the percentage. I just know orthodox is not high.

robwar, I get very competitive, but that is just my personality. I do not see a lot of rivalry or clicks among the girls at school and as you go up the difficulty of level of classes, the less juvenile people are. Maybe our lower instincts are bogged down by all of the books, or maybe where I am at only the more mature make it. It certainly does not stop the girls at my level from making dirty jokes. All of us are AP students and yet I feel like I am still in 8th grade at times. I think it is good not having boys at school, otherwise I would be much more worried about my looks and get distracted. Plus, I have read some teenage girl posters post here how the guys at their are extremely disrespectful towards girls and downright pigs. Not that I believe all boys are like that, it is just these kind of things made me afraid to go to a co-ed school. As crude as the humor could get at our school, we are all virgins in my peer group except one.

And I disagree about appealing to lower religious sensibilities.They are preaching sentimentality at my school in an already overly emotive society. What I would like to see is bottom up religious education. Instead of just constantly focusing of the softening up Jesus, they could try introducing us to Thomas Aquinas, proofs of God’s existence and than work their way up to objective truth, morality, and more basic truths and then get into the Christian God, then Catholic dogma, and then the finer nuances of morality and doctrine. After all, something is not going to stick in someone’s mind if there is no glue underneath it. This is why I love apologetic and why I think it should be taught freshman year beginning with proofs for God’s existence and not one semester senior year. After all, teenagers are mentally developed enough to think abstractly. And there should be alternative classes for students that want to go in depth instead of a on size fits all curriculum. If they followed a one-size fits all policy with all school subjects, the school would be hell for anyone wanting to pick up the pace.

Sorry for any typos, I really have to go to bed now and I took quite a while with this thread. Thanks, glad people can sympathize/empathize with me.
 
I too can sympathize with what you’re going through. My Catholic high school was co-ed, but – like yours – there was no honors track for Theology class. So it did tend to move at a much slower pace than I was used to from my other classes. (Of course, even some of my AP classes moved slow, too – which is partly why I didn’t pass the AP tests for those classes.)

If you want a High School Church History textbook with some heft to it, try this one. It’s hardcover and 816 pages long. It’s size rivals most any secular history textbook 🙂

I don’t know if this describes you, but I recall feeling overwhelmed in High School by all the expectations. We were expected to go to school (of course). Then there was homework. And you just had to be part of some extracurricular activities to be “well-rounded”. And then you should be reading the newspaper to be an informed citizen. And of course praying and reading the Bible. And volunteering and doing community service. And somewhere in there you need to squeeze in time to figure out where to go to college and what you want to do with the rest of your life. There just aren’t enough hours in the day!

Taking the long view helps. There are some stages in your life where you’ll have more time to dedicate to one thing and another stage where you might have more time to dedicate to other things. That’s okay. We don’t have to do everything all at once. That’s why God gave us the gift of time. 🙂

I would say the most important thing is to foster an active daily prayer life. That prayer life is what sustains all the other parts and what makes the study of the faith fruitful.

You only see a priest once a month? That’s unfortunate. Every Catholic school has a chaplain assigned to it. Ideally, that chaplain should be a daily presence at the school. Unfortunately, in many places there aren’t enough priests for the diocese to be able to assign one to each school on a more full-time basis. Even so, I would suggest maybe trying to talk about some of these issues with the priest, even if he’s not around that often. He might have some helpful insights to offer.

I’ll say a prayer for you. You seem like a girl with a good head on her shoulders. I hope my daughter grows up to be so level-headed and conscientious about the Catholic faith. As robwar said, the high school years really are over in a flash. At the time, it seems like they dragged on forever. But this won’t be your reality for long in the grand scheme of things.

God bless!
 
I just noticed your location. I might recognize the name of the school you go to. My Catholic schooling experience growing up is in the same vicinity.
 
Op, I think you kinda prove my point that there are pitfalls to single sex schooling. Being afraid of guys because of posts from other girls on the internet about the jerks they pick to be involved with is a skewed existence because not all guys are like that. One isn’t going to have a more well rounded view and interaction of the opposite sex if all they go to school with is the same liked sex. Your opening thread “disliking my Catholic high school” and you go to a single sex high school says it all. For every one or two kids that have loved it, there are about 4-5 kids that really didn’t have the greatest high school experience in a single sex environment. I know most of your complaints is focusing on the religion classes content, but religion class is only one class. Being involved in all honors classes is like a cliche of the brightest and best. Usually those in cliches don’t see themselves in cliches, but they are. Becoming afraid of boys and thinking they are all jerks should be concerning.
 
Joe 5859, yes there are few things that I dislike more than the well rounded person stuff. How many hoops that I have to jump through? Do colleges even care if I did this, this, and that if I got the GPA and ACT score? I will see if I can get that textbook, it sounds great. I may not get as well rounded, but I at least want to be well-read enough to back up my beliefs. One of the things I am really afraid of is being outnumbered in political science next year if I have to state my opinion in class.

robwar, I said that I do not believe that all guys are jerks. I thank God that I have a father and I pretty much learned everything outside of school from him. I just want a comfortable school environment. Like I have said in my original post, I do did not have many other options regarding school. The local co-ed Catholic high school has plenty of other issues of its own and the public schools in my area have a lot of gang affiliations. And I am not in a clique. I end up with the same people in the same classes and would rather sit with them at lunch then with people I do not know. Also, I rarely talk with people at school, because I am not too social and because my classmates usually talk about subject matter that I am not comfortable with. I do not feel that others are inferior, it is just sad that the people I know best in school are pretty much all in opposed to what I hold dear and classes are pretty much all we have in common. Although I like some of their humor, they spew out a lot of dirty jokes and garbage as well along with the occasional gems. I do not have time to chat or hang out with peers after school, but I think I would rather not given some of what I hear come out of their mouths. Sorry, if this is getting long, but I just want to want to get across that I am not in a clique and sorry if I sounded like that, I just wanted to give some background. When I said my class levels, I did not think of it as any different from saying that I am not a jock or something. I am not that much “in” the group, if anything, I am like part of the background like the wall paper, but I have been like that my entire life.

Thanks for the replies, I really hope it will all blow away soon.
 
redbetta said:
Laircy, yeah I have also wondered about those senior retreats. It is a graduation requirement and I have asked if I could go to a retreat at my own parish instead and present proof, but I cannot. However, like I said, I’m stoical, so I probably will not come back from the retreat acting as if they lesioned part of my brain like some of our seniors do. I would have to disagree on the Internet. Although the Internet is helpful for individual questions and narrowing searches, I think it is best to grab a hold of primary sources. I learn the most for a book and although Word on Fire is nice, Fr. Barron references a lot of Church documents and books that one should probably read in his or herself. Some documents you can get online, but for the present, I have been struggling to get some books read, most obviously the Bible. It seems to me like the Internet is an appetizer and I am not nearly so satisfied until I get the main course: books.
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There is a Catholic Encyclopedia which I would consider a valuable primary source, but it is on the Internet. It’s a wide world-web out there. It’s not all Yahoo Answers-esque drivel (which, admittedly, is what provoked me to research more about my faith in the first place). Peter Kreeft, Marc Barnes, and many Catholic blogs have greatly helped form my conscience, understanding, and ability to defend the faith. It brings teachings to the common person’s level without diluting anything, because while it may be more exhaustive to read a book, it also makes it that much more complex to explain to other people when “backing yourself up.” Anyway, you may want to look into a college that teaches from the Great Books, which are all primary sources and rich with the ideas that contribute to the Catholic faith and understanding of reality. The college I will be attending has that, and I can’t wait to get to directly read what I seem to have been trying to teach myself for the past few years.
 
First and foremost, I would like to point out that your personal story is the reason why I registered as a member of this forum. It really affected me in a very special way, in that it reminded of my own experiences as a Catholic High School student.

Anyway, I’m sorry to hear about everything you’ve mentioned. It’s a shame that some of our Catholic Schools are like that. I just wished that it wasn’t what it really is. As a rising senior Catholic High School student myself (not to mention a Catholic who spent a good portion of his education in a Catholic School), all I can do is only sympathize with your past experiances.

I think you can my word on this: whatever happens, always try to find a way to nourish your faith further. You never know, you may find it in the unlikeliest of places (in my case, it was solitude). I say this becase, from what I read, you seem to be a person who seriously cares about your faith. Now that, I can admire. In this day and age, a Catholic such as you is hard to find, especially in our age group.

-From a fellow Catholic High School student
 
I went to an all Catholic girls high school in the archdiosces of Chicago. I chose that particular all girls school even over other closer ones. I preferred the relief of not having to worry about boys during school hours…haha, just reminiscing.

Anyway…couple thoughts. You could see about attending RCIA classes at your church. In many churches they are the only real adult courses in the faith available, and you might learn a lot and enjoy it.

My sisters went to a rather feminist Catholic girls high, and got some pretty light religion classes. One of them chose to attend Loyola University and major in theology, so…even though she wasn’t able to get it in high school, she found a way to get it not much later.

Listen to Catholic radio, there are some shows that really teach the faith, pick and choose appropriately, you can stream it and hear the shows that are most helpful to you.

consider getting a spiritual advisor, perhaps a nun, brother or priest, or trained Catholic advisor in your area who you can meet with regularly. They can probably suggest some reading, and then discuss things with you to help you along your way.

I brother is an advisor, so I know they are available!
 
I attend a Catholic high school and my freshman year of religion was a lot like your religion classes. However, the religion classes I took last year were so interesting. In the first semester, I had a class on the Gospels that was more than just reading the bible. It focused on the cultural context and the portrayal of Jesus in each gospel and I found it extremely interesting. In the second semester, I took an OT course that was similar to my first semester class which meant I loved it. The classes made me eager to read and learn as much as I could about my faith, so much so that my religion teacher asked me second semester if I had ever thought about joining the seminary.

Now that it’s summer, I’m just devouring Fr. Robert Barron’s videos on YouTube and reading and studying the Bible on my own.

That said, I don’t necessarily love my school or, more specifically, my classmates. They, despite being baptized Catholics, seem to have an aversion to learning and talking about the faith. One time I was talking to my friend about the Bible and a girl turns to me and says “Ugh, I already had religion class today. I don’t want to hear about it anymore.”

On top of that, my school has a terrible Marijuana and Alcohol problem. Most of the people in my grade put on such a nice face during class but then go home, party and drink or smoke pot. Plus, let’s just say that a lot of the people in my grade are not virgins.
 
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