By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
First Teachers has received many letters in recent weeks regarding the secularization taking place at modern Catholic colleges. Some of the correspondents point to the honorary degrees given to pro-abortion politicians, others to performances of the play The Vagina Monologues, others to the official status given to LGBTQ student groups and activities, others to the large numbers of graduates of these schools who no longer practice the faith.
J.R.B., Ph.D., points to something else: the absence of courses in apologetics at these colleges. He writes, “I’m accepting your invitation to comment on why so many of our Catholic colleges are and have been ineffective in cementing religious loyalty to the faith in their graduates.
“In my view the answer is simple: Catholic colleges do not and have not taught apologetics! Even when Catholic colleges offer courses about the dogmas of the faith and moral precepts, for the most part they do not offer formal courses in how to counter the arguments of our adversaries.”
J.R.B. offers an illustration. “There are elements in the American economic system that run counter to our faith. Why? How? Our graduates just don’t know. Training in economic apologetics was never given to them. Our graduates find jobs in our economic system and quickly run into injustices which challenge their faith. Unarmed, they are mowed down and lost. Most graduates of Catholic colleges know virtually nothing about the social encyclicals.”
J.R.B. offers a second illustration: the American political system. “Do you think our graduates are properly schooled in an apologetics of government? Does America belong to Christ, and is our government beholden to acknowledge the fact? Poor graduates, they enter civil life and learn quickly to push their faith aside in deference to the mighty secular state. A third point — modern science. No apologetics to deal with the atheistic bias in much of modern science either. A few stalwarts manage to squeeze through the threat, but most simply succumb to the loss of their faith and the growing atheism of our time.
“Thanks to the apologists of the 16th and 17th centuries we have a well-developed apologetics on Protestantism. How much of that seeped into the education of our graduates, I don’t know. But it is clear that very few of our graduates lose their faith to Protestantism. Just the opposite. Apologetics brings Protestants into the faith. All of which brings up the question: Why have our Catholic institutions mostly refused to develop and teach courses in apologetics to confront the present threats to the faith?”
J.R.B.’s answer: “I would point to a desire to accommodate. Our leaders and teachers have avoided confrontation. They want to be accepted. It is painful to see laity engaged strongly in the fight against abortion, in contrast to the anemic demurral of our leaders. Is betrayal too strong a word?”
On another topic: the discussion of Arizona’s state tax credit program by J.M. of Arizona, which appeared in the June 30 edition of First Teachers. J.M. was disappointed by the relatively small number of Arizona Catholics who participate in the tax credit program, which offers tuition assistance to students attending the state’s parochial schools. J.M. described how the program works:
“Arizona permits residents to make donations to certain qualified organizations for which a portion of the donation is a direct tax credit. Included in the list are organizations that provide tuition assistance for parents with children in parochial schools. There are currently 13,000 donors who provide each year about $15 million to help students in 37 Catholic schools in the Diocese of Phoenix. The tax credit available for joint filers is a bit over $2,100.”
J.M. wonders why there are not more Arizonans participating than these 13,000 donors. He suspected that “inertia and indifference” were involved.
J.T., also from Arizona, thinks it is more complicated. He writes, “I would contend that the reason” for the lack of participation “is simply financial. The process of applying for a tax credit requires that the contribution to a group providing the tuition assistance must be made before the end of the calendar year for which the tax credit is sought.
“But those who make this contribution will not receive their tax credit until the return filing date — April 15 of the following year for most people. For taxpayers expecting a refund, the wait is still longer. Moreover, the contribution cannot be directed to the benefit of any individual student, but instead goes to a fund awarding scholarships based on financial need.
“Think of what this means,” says J.T. “Parents who are already enduring state tax deductions from their paychecks, and already paying substantial amounts of tuition at their Catholic schools, can hardly be expected to dig even deeper to make what effectively amounts to an interest-free loan to the state (during the Christmas season no less) for a period of several months benefitting another student who is paying reduced tuition at most (and certainly not making a tax-credit contribution).
“It’s very difficult for these parents to quantify any tangible benefit to their own children. Grandparents such as J.M. and others who are not typically the ones already paying tuition probably have a limited perspective on this.”
A final topic: The Action Bible. If anyone asked me to name my favorite subject when I was a student at in the early grades at my parish grammar school in Queens, I would have said Bible history. That was because our textbook was the Benziger Brothers’ Bible History: The Most Important Events of The Old and New Testaments and Church History. I can remember to this day the captivating ink sketches of the parting of the Red Sea, Jonah and the whale, and Daniel in the lion’s den.
I don’t know if those old drawings would still have the same magic for modern students, but Kevin Clarke, America magazine’s senior editor, recently reviewed The Action Bible (published by David C. Cooke, Colorado Springs), which is seeking to appeal to that audience by offering a comic-book rendition of the Bible. In fact, the artist is Sergio Cariello of DC Comics.
Clarke writes that he greeted the “gaudy graphics and bright colors” with suspicion. But quickly adds, “I can’t argue with the results. Each of my children in turn has run through The Action Bible, and they all consistently return to it — completely without any parental scolding or pleading. It is as near a painless introduction to Bible reading as I can imagine.”
Clarke informs us that the stories are told as they appear in the original biblical text, with no theological axe to grind. His wife Megan, a theology major in college, is also a fan: “You want to imprint your kids with the Christian themes so that when they get older it becomes something that is part of their own understanding of life….Knowing the stories is always the beginning.”
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
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