Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Failure of Catholic Schools

It does not take learned analyses or complicated guesswork: collapse is collapse and failure is failure.

Of all these Catholic kids - my childhood friends - do any still practice the Faith?  And the important question is this: were they ever even taught the Faith?  I, myself, learned it at home (and on my own).

All the money parents have paid for their kids to have a "Catholic" education; we were taught over and over during "Religion" that  "Jesus is love" and that was just about the extent of our catechesis.

When my parents attended the same school in the 1950s the most important class was "Catechism" class.  By the 1980s it was already called "Religion" class.

Am I wrong?  Ask any of these kids, now adults, how many Sacraments there are and marvel at the fluent confusion.

16 comments:

  1. Are you describing my own experience, some years earlier, in a jesuit school? Later, already in my 30's (!), I found and learned the faith by my own, but meanwhile I suffered a lot and did awful things...

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  2. It amazes me how this happened in nearly all places throughout the world at the same time, my experiences in the UK were exactly the same as yours on the other side of the world.

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  3. I went to my high school reunion and found that most of the class weren't Catholic anymore. After 12 years of Catholic education that's pretty pitiful.

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  4. As an older (b 1938) Catholic we learned our Penny Catechism by rote & were regularly tested by teacher and/or priest. Every Monday morning immediately after Attendance Register we had Mass Register to check on our religious observance of the previous weekend. As a chorister I did not attend my parish church but a more distant church with a good (all male) choir. Missa Cantata was 11am & fasting from midnight meant no-one received Communion at this Mass so I would attend an early morning Mass with my father. My response at Mass Register was invariably " 2 Masses, Confession, Communion, Sunday School & Benediction". I & most others thought I was destined for Holy Orders.
    Insofar as learning catechism by rote is concerned, at that early age the answers didn't always make sense but as we grew to adulthood those answers in the backs of our minds answered many questions our older brains teased us with
    David O'Neill (UK)

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  5. Same experiences here in Canada (Greater Toronto Area). Generations w/o the Catechism.

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  6. Yup here in New Zealand the same
    My own family, everyone of my cousins went to Catholic School. Everyone but me! and out of them all Im the only one that goes to Mass on a Sunday
    Scott

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  7. Same here, in Rockville MD., suburban Washington, D.C. I went to a public elementary school, but at my Catholic high school reunion, very few were still practicing, and I was shocked that many who had become nurses were not even pro-life! I graduated high school in 1976, and like those here, both before and after me, I was pretty much an autodidact in matters of the faith. I was a huge reader, which played a big part, I think. What anonymous in NZ said re: Catholic school kids' high attrition rate as practicing Catholics (compared to their public school counterparts) is something I've observed, too. Perhaps my elememtary years in CCD sustained something vital.

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  8. I'd agree with the observation. Of all of my college buddies, the only
    practicing Catholics are those who attended public schools. The ones
    who had attended parochial schools without exception have all
    fallen away from the faith, seemingly without regret.

    It is as though parochial schools have become a place to spend a great
    deal of money to have the faith of one's children removed.

    While in college, I helped teach CCD to high school kids. Many had
    attended Catholic schools exclusively. The level of ignorance of the
    basics of the faith was terrifying. They were good kids who'd been
    badly cheated.

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  9. For me circa 1975 it was changed to "Religious Instructions"..Most of the time it was not even in the parish school. I remember sitting around some lay person's living room with other kids listening to Bible Stories and Parables. Never heard the word Trent. Cheated is the understatement of the year. Long Island, NY became a wasteland of liturgical chaos. Much of it still has not recovered.

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  10. Isnt it the parents duty to cathecize the kids first and then school second.

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  11. Seems very judgmental to me, both the original post & some of these comments.

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  12. Down Under in Australia it was precisely the same. I attended a school run by the SJs

    DU

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  13. Ah, yes, there's that famous word "judgmental" again!. Meaning just exactly what? It seems if any one makes an evaluation of something, points out a fact that is uncomfortable or expresses a politically-incorrect opinion, then the "judgmental" accusation is made which is a judgment itself - all without being "judgmental" of course. John raises a valid point and it does not appear that he is wrong.
    Stephen

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  14. What's judgemental about pointing out the obvious? My classmates were pretty frank about not being Catholic anymore.

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  15. I went to both a Catholic primary school and high school here in Australia. My experiences are the same. I am a priest and Religious. I attended my reunion a few years ago after 20 years. I thought I'd be prudent and wear clericals rather than my habit. I found that not only were my old classmates no longer practising their faith many were openly anti-Catholic and made me feel like the odd one out at a Catholic High school reunion!!! Sign of the times!

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  16. It seems to be the same, all pover the world. I was educated at a public school in Germany, but public schools do "religious education" here. The result was: I didn't practise the faith since I was fourteen, and had to learn it when I was 35. What a waste of precious lifetime. I owe my recatholisation to the holy father, who is one of the greatest sons of my nation, because he forced the cryptoprotestant German clergy to celebrate the old Holy Mass again.
    This is where I come from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%BCm_Abbey the former abbey was my school, the church was made a basilica minor by Pius XII. The father of Charlemagne founded the monastary and brought fragments of Christ's shoes as relics there. It should be possible, to raise good Catholics under such circumstances, but no one (but my granny) ever tried to.
    And thank you very much, for all the pictures of uncorrupted Saints. I love to show them to my agnostic, or even worse: protestant friends. A good reason to be Catholic is, that we don`t leave our dead alone, while the prots burn their dead, because it is cheaper.

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