Catholic Education: An Act of Hope
On the last day of summer break, Bishop Fernandes published his first Pastoral Letter, “Catholic Education: An Act of Hope“.
In an interview with The Catholic Times, Bishop states his thesis for the letter.
There’s something distinctive about Catholic education. We propose Jesus Christ and the Church that He founded and life in the Church. We want our Catholic schools to engage our students, our young people, in the life of the Church. My measure of success for a Catholic school is growth and holiness – to engage in the sacramental of life of the Church, to see our students coming to Sunday Mass.
We can produce a lot of smart people, but what is that? Is that the goal of Catholic education? Or is it to make saints? We educate for eternity, as the phrase goes. That would be part of my vision for Catholic education.
Part of my vision of Catholic education is to go back to the question: What is unique about Catholic schools besides the sacraments? I would say that there’s a whole Catholic intellectual tradition in philosophy and theology, in the arts, across the curriculum. In science, for example, in genetics, the father of modern genetics, was an Augustinian monk, Gregor Mendel. The inventor of the Big Bang theory was a Catholic priest.
What are the significant contributions of the Church in history? How did Catholicism shape the future of the Western civilization? What was the role of the monks in all of that? We need to begin to look at the contributions of Catholic men and women, even in literature. Rather than reading controversial and controverted literature, which one could read, maybe there’s something beautiful in our Catholic tradition to offer – and the same thing could be said in art and architecture.
If all we’re doing is imitating our secular peers, we’re only ever going to be a cheap imitation, because they’re going to have greater sources of funding than we will. Is that what we’re called to be? Or are we called to be something more, something greater? And so, this is what I propose – is that we make saints, and we capture the best of our tradition and propose it for new generations as a way of confronting the challenges of the modern era.
All teachers, catechists and parents are encouraged to read the letter; or at least to listen to the interview.