By JONAH McKEOWN
DENVER (CNA) — The U.S. bishops’ new chairman-elect for Catholic education says he hopes to bring his experience as a Catholic school teacher and president, as well as pastor of two parishes, into his new position.
In an increasingly secular society, when people’s lives seem more and more to lack meaning, “our schools remind us of Christ’s love . . . a dignity of the human person that is beyond the mindset of the present moment, or the latest educational trend,” Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane told Catholic News Agency November 17.
Daly’s fellow bishops on November 16 elected him to serve as chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education for the USCCB, which provides guidance for the educational mission of the Church to Catholic elementary and secondary schools, Catholic colleges and universities, and college campus ministry.
Daly worked in Catholic schools for 19 years before his appointment as a bishop, including serving for a time as a teacher and later as president at Marin Catholic High School near San Francisco. He succeeds Bishop Michael Barber, SJ, of Oakland as chairman.
The “first mission” of any Catholic school should be the salvation of souls, he noted, but too often Catholic schools focus almost exclusively on academics, to the detriment of their Catholic mission.
A Catholic school ought to be academically excellent, while always keeping in mind why Catholic schools exist — to strengthen the faith foundation, he said. Instead of operating as merely a private prep school with “a little bit of religious flavoring,” a Catholic school should encourage and guide its students to “seek the Lord with a sincere heart,” Daly said.
“We don’t need more ‘private schools.’ We need schools that are Catholic, that teach and proclaim the Gospel with the realization of academic rigor,” Daly said.
The USCCB’s Catholic education committee exists to support Catholic schools in their mission, Daly said, and one of the ways this is done is by supporting the priest who serves the school. This may involve training or inspiration for the priest to help him better shepherd the school, he said, and to motivate the parish community to support the school.
One of the most important factors in a school’s character is the academic leadership, which for elementary schools is most often the principal, he said. Daly said he saw the school he previously worked for turn from a more secular attitude to a direction of faithfulness thanks in large part to its principal, who “never forgot the example of his education growing up as a Catholic.”
One of the biggest current challenges to Catholic schools, to no one’s surprise, is the fallout from COVID-19 and ongoing lockdowns, Daly said. At least 140 Catholic schools — mostly elementary schools — have closed in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic and elementary schools remain the most vulnerable to closure.
Daly also said that laws in many states make public school curricula non-conducive to an education in Catholic values. For example, during the recent election, voters in Washington state approved a ballot measure that will require “comprehensive sex education” in public schools, which Daly noted “undermines core beliefs of our faith” by failing to address complex moral issues tied to human sexuality, and failing to discuss sex in the context of marriage.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress