What Catholic Education Is Really About
By PAUL KRAUSE
There are many success stories in Catholic education. Many schools that were on the verge of closing turned to faithful religious education and a humanities curriculum which brought them new life. The disastrous policies of closing schools and the virtual learning initiatives during COVID have also revealed that Catholic schools remain superior to their peers in all measurable metrics. With the start of a new school year and a growing renaissance in Christian education, we must understand what the heart of Catholic education is really about.
Catholics must remain vigilant that their education is more than just an academic alternative to failing public schools. Catholic education must always remain Catholic in orientation, focused on the love of God and how love of God is the true and only source of wisdom in all things.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with earthly excellence nurtured through religious education. That is something that Catholic education does, in fact, strive to achieve. Excellence in all things can be an expression of the love of God and all things Good, True, and Beautiful.
Nevertheless, the focus of Catholic education should not be excellence in mere reading, arithmetic, writing, science, or sports. The excellence of achievement in the classroom and on the extracurricular playing field must always be tied to God.
To be made in the image of God is to be made in wisdom for wisdom and in love for love. As such, we are called to excellence of mind (and heart) and the fact that Catholic education remains the peak of educational performance is a good thing. But Catholic education must never lose sight of the fact, and it is a fact, that it is first and foremost involved in forming souls to God through Christ and inculcating into students a love for the Good, True, and Beautiful in all things.
If Catholics forget that their educational vocation is found in the love of God and the love of Truth (God is Truth), then what is Catholic about Catholic education?
In our age of pluralism there is a tendency to want to minimize what makes us distinctively unique. If there is anything distinct to celebrate it is the bland secularity of academic success. Promoting that Catholic schools do well in all the metrics of academic excellence subtly minimizes the Catholic nature of education while elevating the ordinary standards of education that can appeal to all persons.
This is not a bad thing in-and-of-itself. As Catholics, we should strive to have and be happy with high standards of excellence inside the classroom. That is part and parcel of what being made in the image of God demands.
But, as mentioned, the need to retain a Catholic identity and make it known that educational success is because of love of God is something that must remain at the fore of Catholic educational identity. Participating in Catholic education shouldn’t be seen as a means to success in the City of Man. It should always be known as a place in the training of virtue that guides one to the City of God.
Moreover, in our own secularizing society that association of educational excellence with the virtuous soul who loves God and creation is the only true spirit that can transform lives and the world. To attain mere secular success leaves the soul empty and estranged. The success that the soul achieves in the world, when illuminated from the light of eternity, makes those successes far more meaningful and transformative. It can, and often does, lead souls to seek to inspire the same love of learning as a love of God to others.
Part of the vision of Catholic education is the whole human life. The whole human life cannot be separated from God since we are made in the image of the Creator. The wholesome life we seek will never be whole when it only has half of the equation: We are more than matter, we are more than bodies, more than political animals.
While unpalatable for some, this fact is something that Catholics should always be joyful about.
The excellence in the classroom is but a steppingstone for excellence in one’s entire life. The love of learning is an expression of the love of God and answering God’s call to each and every one of us to strive for the greatness that humanity is called to as the crown jewel of creation.
As our public, even charter, schools continue down the path of destruction and failure, more and more eyes will turn to the bright light that is Catholic education. Here, though, exists a temptation that Catholics must not fall into: to become like the world bereft of the Goodness, Truth, and Beauty of God.
Eyes turned to Catholic education should always see the Catholic nature first and that all wisdom and education flows from that Catholic basis. As those eyes turn to the excellence found in Catholic education, those eyes should equally see that excellence flowing from the love of God through Christ and not just high-test scores, high levels of proficiency in reading comprehension, and large numbers of graduates attaining scholarship and prestigious university admissions.
If Catholic education swaps out God in favor of just secular excellence, then Catholic education will cease being Catholic and just become another outpost of the city of man which is destined for destruction. The failure of our public school system is precisely for that reason. Nothing divorced from God’s reality is permanent. Nothing divorced from God can be truly excellent.
Catholic education is about more than just academic excellence. It is, first and foremost, about the love of God and how that love can transform your soul and from that transformation all excellence flows. The excellence that Catholic schools exhibit is tied to love of God.
And in the throes of our educational crisis, that is the true bright light that illuminates the mere academic excellence that others see.
