ALLOW me please, an answer to the responses to my letter re Catholic and ecumenical schools (CL 20/6/01).
Fr John Therry was not alone in recognising the need that Catholic parents living in hostile surroundings had for good Catholic teachers to help them pass on their Catholic Faith.
Half a century later Pope Pius XII, the then visible head of the Church on earth, in an address to Catholic women – mothers and school teachers – told mothers: ‘In this great work of Christian education the training in the home, however wise, however thorough, is not enough. It needs to be supplemented and perfected by the powerful aid of religion. Choose carefully then teachers like yourselves, for to them you entrust the faith, the purity and the holiness of your children.’
So no, Mrs Walker, I don’t think that my expectations of a Catholic school are too high. Parents today surely cannot leave the media nor secular society to dictate the beliefs, attitudes, morals and behaviour of their children. Surely they have as much need and as much right to good Catholic teaching in both school and church as did parents a century and a half century ago.
Mrs Semple may well be proud of her grand-daughter and with good reason, but doing good to other people is not all that is required in the practice of our Faith.
Many seem to think today that because Vatican II was a pastoral, not a dogmatic council, there is no need for doctrine nor dogma. I know of more than one young person who never darkens the door of a church, though the pitfalls of taverns and nightclubs do allure him, who, sincerely or otherwise, will declare he’s alright with God since he harms no one.
As a catechist to state school children, I too have had non-Catholic children, including one Hindu girl, in my Catholic classes. Teaching the Catholic perspective on the Our Father, Apostles Creed, seven sacraments and Ten Commandments is sometimes akin to treading on eggshells as one cannot offend these children, those from non-practicing homes nor their parents. I am careful to point out that I make judgments of no one but give the teachings of the Catholic Church so that in later years these children may be able to make right judgments for themselves.
My experience is that children, aided by the gift of baptism, are receptive of the Church’s truth and one little boy with more than a touch of the devil in him is a joy to behold when at the end of a lesson he kneels unbidden and adopts an angelic pose for our closing prayers.
N. MACKENZIE Taigum, Qld
