The world today
simply doesn't need more private schools; there are plenty out there. Perhaps
too many. But, the world today and the
Church do need more Catholic schools
that remember who they are. The identity of any Catholic school is both a
distinction and an opportunity, a great challenge and a unique grace. If it was
the critical task the 20th century to ensure that Catholic colleges would be true colleges accepted academically by
their peers at secular institutions, it is perhaps just as vital in this 21st
century to ensure that our schools also continue to be unashamedly Catholic,
morally grounded, and qualitatively self-consciously different from purely
secular schools. To be homogenized into
the undifferentiated academic culture of most schools today would constitute a
colossal loss of nerve and a sad—perhaps a shameful—betrayal the church's
academic tradition. Because of the
gospel of Jesus Christ we should never be like everyone else. Existing at the
heart of the church should make Catholic schools better. Think of the Lord we
serve. Think of the history that is
ours. Think of the tradition of learning, the gift of culture, the spirit of
holiness, the commitment to service, the shared sense of community that
constitutes the educational heritage the Catholic Church. Our own CSC (Congregation of Holy Cross) schools should never choose between being excellence or being Catholic. A school in the Holy Cross tradition should
not be either-or, but rather both-and. Catholicity in itself has both identity
and universality. Catholic tradition in
all its ancient variety and richness is so profound, so wise, and so
self-confident in its own exploration of the truth that it can dare to ask
questions and it can dare to promote dialogue. The excitement, the energy, and
sometimes even the passionate dissidents of ‘disputatio’ all are a valued part of our intellectual
heritage. It was well known to the
Fathers of the Church and to the great lecture halls of the first medieval
universities that our Church invented. Catholicism exposes needs and empowers
capacities that can fill the human heart with amazement, the intellectual life
with the light the Gospel, and the academic enterprise with profound purpose.
The community experience, the vast exhilaration of worship, can humanize the
rigor the intellectual life and give both students and professors an enduring
passion for learning, and a deeper capacity for wonder, a hunger for knowledge,
a commitment to justice. The connections between science and mysticism, friendship
and generosity, and especially the transforming experience of God give hope and
meaning to academic inquiry. Scholarship and teaching, if pursued in the
context of faith should be open to a truth that is without end, that enlarges
our hope, and diminishes are apprehensions. Catholic colleges in general, and
all Holy Cross Schools in particular, are therefore called by our confidence in
the Gospel to be the yeast in the loaf of higher education and make a singular
contribution—both in our own church and to the educational mosaic the wider
world. So our schools can never think
and act just like every other school—politically correct, unquestioning, and
totally submissive to all the cultural dogmas of this moment. Universal Church and
the world does need excellent schools that have the conviction to be true to
themselves and, therefore, stand out rather than blend in.
