Why the Church has schools

God wants us to love him. Since it’s hard to love what we don’t know, God instructs us. He uses nature itself and he also intervenes in history to tell us who he is. God entered human history definitively in sending his only begotten Son to be our Lord and Savior. Jesus taught about God and our life with God and then, in dying and rising to save us, brought us to know more fully who he is. The Church, which is Christ’s body and his people, therefore teaches.

Over the centuries, the Church has developed institutions to help her teach: universities, elementary and high schools, medical and nursing and law schools, schools attached to parishes or owned by religious orders of women or men. As Catholic schools, these institutions teach what God wants us to know so that we can love him. They also teach what human research enables us to know about any field of human knowledge.

In teaching the faith, schools usually presuppose that students, if they are Catholic or call themselves Christian, have been told who Christ is and have been trained to live as believers. The school’s job is to catechize, to help students come to a deeper understanding of the truths of faith as the Church presents them. Higher educational institutions often offer instruction in theology, which goes beyond catechesis, examining the truths of faith by placing them in dialogue with culture, history, science and other disciplines in order to expand and develop our understanding of them and allow faith to influence all spheres of human meaning and existence.

Two practical problems are with us today. First, the presupposition that baptized children have even a rudimentary sense of how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ is not always verified in fact. Teachers as well as pastors note that parents sincerely desire some kind of moral formation of their children, but the parents themselves do not always support the teaching in the way they live. Secondly, the Catholic “identity” or nature of an institution is more difficult to assess with fewer religious and priests involved in the schools. It is not that lay Catholics are any less Catholic than priests and religious women and men. It is only that the formation in a common mission that is given by seminary and religious formation cannot be presupposed in the shaping of a mostly lay staff into a unified religious corps. It needs particular attention.

To judge and support the Catholic mission of a grade school or a high school, the Archdiocesan Office of Catholic Schools long ago began creating criteria and lists of practices that protect the mission. The “Catholic School Viability Framework” from the Schools Office sets out the place of prayer in the school day, the formation of the faculty to teach religion, the connections between the faith and the development of curriculum. The difference these concerns make is evident as soon as one begins to visit a Catholic school. The children are taught to respect each other because each of them is made in God’s image and likeness. While violence is always a possibility, the incidence of violence in Catholic schools has so far been minimal. The positive presentation of the faith not only in religion classes but in the way of life, the ethos, of the school itself seeps into the students’ self-consciousness.

Speaking to U.S. Catholic Educators in 1987, Pope John Paul II said: “The goal of all Catholic education is salvation in Jesus Christ. Catholic educators effectively work for the coming of Christ’s kingdom. This work includes transmitting in full the message of salvation which elicits the response of faith.” Eleven years later, he said more: “The distinctiveness of a Catholic school ... reaches beyond catechesis and religious instruction to touch every aspect of education, transmitting that true Christian humanism which springs from the knowledge and love of Christ. Such an education guides the young to appreciate the wonder of human dignity and the supreme value of human life. It helps them to understand (that) faith needs reason if it is not to wither into superstition and reason needs faith if it is to be saved from endless disappointment. This is because the human person is made for a truth which is absolute and universal—in the end the truth of God—a truth that can be known with certainty. ... In the end, the distinctively Catholic identity of your schools ought to be visible, not only in external signs, important as these are, but above all in their success in teaching justice, solidarity and true holiness of life based on a deep and abiding love of Christ and his Church.”

Preserving the Catholic mission and identity of an institution of higher learning or a university has been a subject of discussion in recent years because the Holy See has instructed Catholic universities to clarify their mission and attend to particular ways the university’s Catholic identity is carried, especially the teaching of theology. This year, I’ll be speaking with those Catholics teaching Catholic theology in the local Catholic universities to see which of them needs a “mandatum”, a statement that the professor is teaching in communion with the Catholic faith community. Since Catholic theology depends upon the faith community for its data, teaching in communion with the Church, out of the Church’s own faith, is intrinsic to doing Catholic theology. The “mandatum” recognizes that fact. I look forward to these conversations.

The Catholic Church always teaches from life: from the life of God incarnate in Jesus Christ, from the life of grace which transforms the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints. This year marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of St. John Baptist de la Salle, whose life and ministry contribute to the identity of Catholic schools as we know them today. This 17th-century French priest founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Three hundred years later, his sons in Chicago conduct De La Salle Institute, St. Patrick High School, St. Joseph High School and San Miguel School at 1949 W. 48th St. Their cousins, the Irish Christian Brothers, are responsible for Brother Rice and St. Laurence High Schools and taught for many years at Leo.

To his brothers, St. John Baptist de la Salle said: “Jesus Christ has chosen you ... to be his cooperators in the salvation of souls.” Students, he directed, are to be trained so that “they often think of Jesus, their good and only Lord, often speak of Jesus, long only for Jesus and live only for Jesus.” Teachers were instructed by De La Salle “to recognize Jesus in the children whom you have to instruct. Adore him in them.” These are the ideals and instructions of a saint who understood that Catholic educational institutions are to be schools of sanctity. That’s why the Church has schools.

To all those involved with our schools—the students and teachers, the principals and staffs, the superintendent and Catholic schools office, the parents and benefactors, the presidents of high schools and universities, the boards, the religious women and men, the priests and the pastors of parishes supporting schools—I offer my heartfelt thanks and prayers. God bless you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago