I wish a school such as this was a bit more cost effective. $9600 would likely be too much for my wife and I to send our four children.
), remembrance of feast days, Catholic historicity (we really learned the Saints, ecclesiastical history) and general religious literacy (knowing all the classic prayers, knowing catechism/basic theology), holy water fonts inside the doors of every classroom. Starting every class period with prayer. (Wait, what a concept.):clapping::clapping::clapping: GREAT post!! I received a Catholic education similar to yours & you’re so right. Superior scholarship & genuine Catholic character were close to equal in value during those years. While the teaching of the faith came first, of course, the 3 r’s were close behind. It was the goal of the Catholic school system to produce genuinely Catholic, well-educated** leaders **of society.I find it interesting that many people assume there must be an either/or: either a truly Catholic identity or academic excellence. I attended Catholic schools at two ends of my childhood: Kindergarten/1st grades, and 11th-12th. What characterized the two different schools (& 2 different locations) was the common reality of the unmistakably Catholic character.
Not just daily Mass (yes, there was), but regular sacraments, ALL Holy Days off (no one remembers the jokes and envy from our Protestant brethren attending publics, who got off only secular holidays, while we got both?
Order. Silence. Respect. Actually faithful nuns, dedicated to teaching, within teaching orders with that charism (while other orders concentrated on nursing, social work, more). At least one priest connected to every Catholic school.
I never experienced it as superficially symbolic or artificially ritualistic. It was authentic & genuine, it provided a sense of identity, of community, of comfort.
During those time periods my academic achievement was leaps and bounds over the best publics in each of those two areas (with great public resources). The education was solid, tradiitonal, classic, and thorough. And I got a ton of music and plentiful P.E.
I did the best with my girls, who got a K-12 Catholic education, but it lacked the spiritual richness mine had, by comparison. Different time periods. In the '70’s both priests and nuns suffered major personal identity crises en masse, and Catholic laity abandoned its traditional roots simultaneously. I was fortunate to have been blessed before that time, but never say that academics and the good aspects of modernism need exist at the expense of spirituality. With the right leadership and committed staff, they can co-exist. I just haven’t see it during my adulthood, in Catholic schools.
…Maybe for the next generation – once people get sick of New Age fads with their empty promises of “self-realization” (self-worship) and become genuine seekers of the truly Divine. And when nuns rediscover that realization of personhood is achieved within real community and a focused mission.
The excuses ring very hollow to me. It’s difficult to believe that 40 yrs ago, millions of nuns had the true gift of teaching and the training to match that, whereas supposedly now practically no one in religious orders has a single talent to teach, let alone a desire to. It’s just not believable.
I want to give a shout out of thanksgiving to those sacrificial nuns who taught me, and the much smaller handful of still-dedicated nuns who make even a minor presence/witness in Catholic schools. Really I’m very grateful and you are forever in my prayers.
God bless both you & your husband.
You may have decided that you then or now prefer something else, but that is different than claiming that you were supposedly herded into something against your will. (You were kidnapped into a religious order? Hmmm. I thought that was illegal.)
Absolutely, The “feminist movement” of the 60’s both within the Church & within general society was terribly skewed. For one thing, it was not based on the fact that femininity is equal to (& in some situations, greater than) Masculinity. It basically taught that to be EQUAL to men, women must DO what men DO.
As were mine & God help the priest who tried to encroach on their territory. I remember one beautiful day in May when a young priest got on the P.A. system & dismissed school because “the day was too fine to spend indoors”. He was summoned to our principles office & she reminded him…quite gently but with the strength that comes with knowing who one is & what one is about that priests were NOT to encroach upon “her” school.
)of the 60’s are still wreaking havoc. The wife & Mother, the one who made a home, the one who took pride in her role of homemaker…was out. Nurses were considered to be servants, which is exacly what they were, but** Power **was so much more prestigious than service, who would **want **to be a servant??? Women needed to find a “career” & “rise to the heights of men”… & that notion has done more to enslave women than to help them. Sure there are the few who actually found such a career, but far more women are working today in factories & malls, while their latchkey kids make their way as well as they can. Please understand, I’m not putting down working Mothers, I became a working Mother when my youngest was 12 yrs. old. We had decided that some way we would put our 4 children through college, so I went to work outside the home, because I had to, not because I needed to, in order to raise my “self-esteem level”. NOT because I did not consider my vocation as wife & Mother inferior.Absolutely. I was blessed to have all of my children born in a Catholic hospital when it was still staffed mainly by the Sister’s of Charity. Most of the RN’s were lay women, but the administrators were all nuns. Their attention to detail still impresses me & their kindness to me when I lost a child by miscarriage, will never be forgotten.
Another fantastic post!! :tiphat:Not every female – religious or not – has abilities in teaching or nursing roles, obviously. Many have abilities in political leadership and in the business world, or in higher academia. But the latter roles are by no means superior to the aforementioned. They just represent different gifts & inclinations. I’ll say this again: It’s difficult to believe that if you formerly had a gift for teaching or nursing, suddenly you didn’t have it after 1969.
Great response!