Catholic Schools

[Dogtag]

I have noticed that a lot of people who I know who went to Catholic schools ended up leaving the faith. Can anybody shed some light on this phenomena? I didn't attend Catholic schools and I don't get it.

[cruciatacara]

8 hours ago, Dogtag said:

I have noticed that a lot of people who I know who went to Catholic schools ended up leaving the faith. Can anybody shed some light on this phenomena? I didn't attend Catholic schools and I don't get it.

I can't speak for everyone but a lot of people where I live were abused by priests in Catholic schools. This probably had a pretty big impact on them in terms of trusting the Church.

[Luigi]

The number of people who were abused by priests (or nuns) compared to the total number of students who attended Catholic schools is infinitesimally small. And I should note that, outside of the Church, school is the most frequent locale for sex abuse of children by adults - the abusers tend to go where the children are.

Attending Catholic school is no guarantee of faith. Students in Catholic schools are taught the tenets of the faith, and most are probably required to participate in faith-based activities such as service projects, sacramental preparation, and so forth. But faith can't be taught; it is a gift from God, freely given.

In virtually every Catholic family I know whose children attended Catholic school, some of the children have remained Catholic the rest of their lives, and some have abandoned the faith at the first opportunity. The following are reasons I've heard from those people: They made us go to Mass every day - I've had enough Masses to last me the rest of my life; they tried to brainwash us into believing what they believed; the Church is full of phonies; disagreement over tenets of faith such as divorce & remarriage, married priests, birth control, abortion, or homosexuality. I don't personally know anyone who left the Church because s/he was abused by clergy or religious, although I know a lot of people who attribute their abandonment to the sex abuse scandal. I do know a lot of people who left the Church when Church teaching conflicted with their own personal goals - with what they wanted in life; rather than examine the conflicting tenet and make a commitment to accept it and live it, most of these people have simply left the Church. If they remained religiously active, they found a church that teaches what they already believe.

We also live in an increasingly secular world dominated by secular media. But I attribute the greatest loss of church attendance to college. Non-Catholic college is the great secularizer. I can't tell you how many people I know who practiced their faith - not just Catholicism - until they went to college. They were faithful when they enrolled; they were non-practicing when they graduated.

However, I also know a lot of people - those lost-my-religion-in-college folks, or maybe they never went to college but they quit going to church after high school  - who come back to the Church later in life. Either they have children themselves, or they thought they didn't need God (when they were young) but they realize later that they can't control everything in their lives, or maybe that gift of faith that they always had just won't go away.

At any rate, people leaving the faith is nothing new. And the fact that children attended Catholic school is no indication that they ever had faith in the first place. And if you're going to talk about people leaving the faith, you won't have a clear picture of the problem unless you also talk about people coming back to the faith.

Edited December 31, 2019 by Luigi

[Lilllabettt]

1 hour ago, Luigi said:

 

In virtually every Catholic family I know whose children attended Catholic school, some of the children have remained Catholic the rest of their lives, and some have abandoned the faith at the first opportunity. 

We also live in an increasingly secular world dominated by secular media. But I attribute the greatest loss of church attendance to college. Non-Catholic college is the great secularizer. I can't tell you how many people I know who practiced their faith - not just Catholicism - until they went to college. They were faithful when they enrolled; they were non-practicing when they graduated.

Ehhh... maybe at state schools. There's a lot of fervency and devotion in the Catholic subculture at prestigious private schools - a lot, a lot. 

Thinking about becoming a mother (we are hoping to adopt) I have serious reservations about catholic grade/high schools and college. The reason is two-fold:

1. At the few "good" Catholic schools: Students spend every day at school immersed in a culture in which devout Catholicism is mainstream and then they graduate into a world in which the practice of the faith requires commitment to countercultural living. School for them is a sponge phase, where they are meant to soak in good stuff, but then too often they do not ever transition from sponge phase to sharpening their minds against what is inevitably waiting for them. 

2. At "typical" Catholic schools: the constant daily in-your-face lukewarm witness. From their classmates and their classmates families,  but from their teachers and administrators, especially, students see it is possible to be "catholic" and go through all the motions (mass attendance, service projects, etc) but also live with your boyfriend, have premarital sex, believe women should be priests and that Eucharist is a symbol, get divorced and remarried, etc. Some students will follow that example of not living the faith and other students will be disgusted by it and dismiss religion as hypocritical.

As a parent I think it would be MUCH easier to explain sin by saying, "they are nonbelievers, they are comfortable with sin because they don't have the benefit of knowing the truth" - vs explaining the lack of repentance among people who claim to be Catholic and should know better but are just as comfortable with sin as any pagan. 

[Luigi]

Lilllabettt - Yes, I mean at state schools. And even at strongly Catholic colleges, if the student isn't committed to the values of the school, it won't matter how strongly Catholic the school is. I know three people who went to the same Benedictine-sponsored college (over the course of some years). One is still strongly Catholic; one still goes to church, but not the Catholic church; and one hated being at a Catholic college because he was already committed to taking his life in a different direction - but he got the basketball scholarship to the Benedictine college, so that's where he went.

As you say, there is a danger of a Catholic institution (grade school, high school, or college) being a 'hothouse' of Catholicism, a sheltered environment. Then when faced with the secular world, graduates often don't know how to defend themselves against it. AND, as you mention, there's a cultural element to Catholic education - the parents send the children there so the children will be taught the tenets of the faith, but there are an awful lot of parents and students who attend this or that Catholic school more for the social status, or to 'keep up appearances,' or because they are culturally Catholic without being particularly committed to Catholic values.

But again, it's always been this way. School can teach the tenets of the faith, and it can try to develop habits of mind that are rooted in the faith, but faith itself can't be taught.

[Dogtag]

So the answer is to blame secular culture and lukewarm Catholics? How convenient. Is there anything that Catholic schools themselves do that turn people away from the faith?

 

[Luigi]

I think you'd be better off to ask people who went to Catholic schools and then quick practicing the faith.

[Lilllabettt]

Nah bro. I specifically said the lukewarm witness of Catholic school teachers and administrators is especially deleterious.

Catholic schools can make things better by 1. Hiring faculty who are faithful orthodox Catholics possessed of a spirit of repentance and firing those who prove unsuitable. 2. Developing a curriculum that is orthodox yet forthrightly addresses the challenges the ideas and arguments put forward by post post modern culture and institutions. Instead of either ignoring them or embracing them in a relativistic way. 

[Dogtag]

Did any of you attend Catholic schools?

 

[Guest]

I attended Catholic schools with Dominican nun teachers all through primary and secondary years.  I am blest by my experience.  I still practise my Faith.

[rkwright]

I attended Catholic elementary and Catholic high school. My wife the same. We both met at Texas A&M (state school for those not from the US. My wife’s two brothers also went to Catholic elementary and high school. My sister did Catholic grade school, one year catholic high school, and three years public high school.  

I have 4 children with my wife, we’ve been married 10 years.  Our kids are homeschooled, more on this later.  We are are faithful and dare I say devout? Catholics.  

My sister married a Protestant and while that has had challenges of its own, they are also faithful Catholics, with 4 children.  Their kids go to a Catholic school.  

One of my brother in laws is very faithful Catholic, married 11 years, with 3 children.  They homeschool. 

My other brother in law, sadly is fallen away.  He met a girl at a “Christian summer camp”, got pregnant, got married outside the Church and has never been back.  His wife went to catholic grade school but says Catholicism is a religion of guilt and won’t bring their daughter up catholic. 

 

Why homeschool my kids vs Catholic school?

1) the cost is insane. Our parish catholic school is 6K a year per kid. With 4 kids that’s just impossible. It’s sad that the cost is so high it prohibits traditionally large Catholic families. 

2)My experience with Catholic schools was generally good. It instills Catholic “values” - but does not inspire to be saints. There is so much opportunity for teaching our kids to be much more than what the world pushes. Yet I often see mission statements from Catholic schools that say something along the lines of building leaders for the world. 

3) My experience was very much lukewarm, or “cultural Catholic”. Interesting my sisters experience was pretty awful (a different catholic high school). Also the Catholic schools we went to were dominated by the big donor families, whose parents, grandparents, cousins and so on had all attended. They were the families whose kids could get away with anything.  They weren’t going for the Catholic part, but because it was family tradition. One of my brother in laws catholic high school (which now costs 12K a kid a year) is filled with these types and basically turns into a “catholic” all boys frat house. This environment doesn’t produce strong Catholics. 

I never fell away from the Church, even at a state school, mostly because I had gone to mass growing up with my family nearly every Sunday. It was just what we did, what felt right. My junior really college after a retreat I went on my faith really came alive. I also found phatmass shortly after that! Perhaps those values instilled or reinforced by the schooling kept me in line along the way. But it seems like such a missed opportunity. 

 

[Luigi]

19 hours ago, Dogtag said:

So the answer is to blame secular culture and lukewarm Catholics? How convenient. Is there anything that Catholic schools themselves do that turn people away from the faith?

 

It's not that convenient, because that's not all I said. Let me number my reasons for clarity. 

1. Catholic schools can teach the tenets of the faith - what Catholics believe - but they can't teach faith itself. Faith itself is a gift from God. So learning the tenets of the faith doesn't mean that any given student will believe and practice what she was taught. 

2. Students don't usually choose their schools - their parents choose the school and send the students there. Some students incorporate what they are taught; some merely endure it until their education is complete. Upon graduation, they follow their own beliefs - beliefs not necessarily taught in the Catholic school. 

3. Some students, and the parents who send them to Catholic schools,  are "cultural Catholics" - neither the parents nor the students are particularly committed to Catholic theology, or living the Catholic faith. But they still identify as Catholic. 

4. Some students do internalize Catholicism in their school days, but abandon Catholicism when it comes into conflict with their personal preferences as adults. 

5. Catholic schools can be 'hothouse environments' where students are raised to practice Catholicism. When they encounter conflicting ideas later in life, they may abandon Catholicism in favor of new ideas to which they were never exposed. OR, they are taught to live the Catholic way but are never taught the rationale for it, so find it difficult to resist new ideas or new temptations. 

6. AND, we live in a secular society that is not only not very faith-based, it's also antithetical to faith. The antithetical-to-faith ideas of modern American society are promulgated through colleges and the mass media. 

On another point, when I said you'd be better off to ask the people who left the Church why they left the Church, I was referring to the first sentence of  your original post: "I have noticed that a lot of people who I know who went to Catholic schools ended up leaving the faith."  Go talk to the people you know who left the faith - most of the people on this board are pretty committed to the faith, whether they went to Catholic school or not.  

[Anomaly]

I’m an ex-Catholic, who attended Catholic schools for 12 years and was involved in CCD and catechism teaching afterwards.   My mom was the school librarian and a substitute teacher for years at Catholic school.   I and my extended family is still involved in different ways with the same school and parish. 

There are many reasons for falling away.   There are no guarantees, people have free will. 

I’ve seen and experienced a lot in my years.  My reasons are my own, not really a failure of the Church. In my opinion, it’s hypocrisy and unrealistic expectations that normally turn people away.  Its maybe better to focus on working to be  a better person and how Catholic philosophy and theology helps.  Too often it’s merely being compliant with Catholic culture norms with little fundamental understanding of why or how it’s good.  

Or not, LOL.   

[CatherineM]

I attended catholic schools as did all of my brothers. I’m the only one still practicing. They left due to divorce mainly. One lost his faith when his child died. 

My foster kids didn’t attend because I couldn’t afford to send them. 75% of the kids in my Florida parish school weren't catholic. It was a white flight kind of school. The tuition was crazy high. Most of the kids they went to school with at the public school were catholic because it was an area where a lot of Croatians settled fleeing the war.