By Sean Fitzpatrick, Crisis Magazine, Jan. 31, 2024
Sean Fitzpatrick is a senior contributor to Crisis and serves on the faculty of Gregory the Great Academy, a Catholic boarding school for boys in Pennsylvania.
St. John Bosco underwent assassination attempts because of his bold mission in Catholic education. Should Catholic schools expect to make similar enemies if they are truly teaching the Faith?
It is calamitous how Catholic institutions have buried their lamps beneath bushel baskets in these diverse, intolerantly tolerant days of fear and trembling, concealing the true Faith as if it were a secret. Catholic schools in particular—including diocesan schools, sad to say—have become all but synonymous with the CINO (“Catholic In Name Only”) moniker. And that’s the way the devil likes it—hypocrites one and all.
Speaking of hypocrisy, this week is “Catholic Schools Week” and the general unawareness of this celebration is reflective of how Catholic schools downplay their sacred identity for the sake of secular integration. To paraphrase Eliot’s “Hollow Men,” this is the way Catholic education ends, “not with a bang but a whimper.” In short, it’s a legitimate question if Catholic schools have much right to celebrate their Catholicism. …