CREEDE HINSHAW: The high quality of a Catholic school education

This Protestant pastor wants to say a good word about Roman Catholic education, particularly elementary and high school education. I congratulate all parochial education, whether the schools be Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim, but today I am writing about Catholic schools.

The small town where I grew up in central Indiana had four elementary schools in a town of 6,000 citizens. Two of the schools were public, one for “city kids” and the other for “country kids” who rode the bus. The other two schools were parochial. The Lutherans and Catholics established elementary schools for catechetical training as well as general education.

I highlight Roman Catholic education not because I agree with every aspect of Catholic theology or school administration. I don’t.

But there are no perfect schools, private or public, and one doesn’t have to agree with every doctrinal point in Catholicism to know that this church has – for centuries – produced very fine scholars, men and women able to hold their own and more in relationship to the most learned secular scholars of any age.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I am reading St. Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine represents the best of church scholarship from some of the earliest ages of the church. This stellar Catholic was widely read in the classics, unafraid to learn from his pagan predecessors, and quite clear about the saving power of the gospel expressed intellectually.

A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that Catholic schools across the United States are closing at an accelerating clip. Financial considerations are making it more challenging, I suspect, for most private schools to keep their doors open and teachers employed.

What is especially sad to me is that — long before segregation academies were founded — Catholic schools enrolled those who could least afford a private education. Whereas many private schools (religious and secular) recruit the middle and upper classes, Catholic schools have also historically been established in the poorer urban centers where educational opportunities and choices are more limited. Whereas some private schools set aside a few scholarship slots for minority or low-income students, many Catholic schools opened their classrooms to the poorest of the poor, giving many children a path to escape poverty and low education.

Now, according to the Journal, many of these schools are closing at the fastest rate since such statistics were first compiled 50 years ago. The article suggested numerous possible causes of the decline: the economy, the decreasing percentage of Americans who are Catholic, the church’s sex-abuse scandal, a decline in contributions, and the church’s opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. You can quibble with the analysis in the article, but the statistics don’t lie. Many of these schools are closing and that is cause for sadness.

Here is one Protestant who hates to read about the closures. I am a proud product of the public schools. But today I am grateful for those faithful Catholic churches that offer high-quality education to our children.