WASHINGTON — The mission and foundation of Catholic education are
directly related to evangelization, said the head of the National Catholic
Educational Association.
Catholic schools are obligated to evangelize simply because that
is the core and mission of the Catholic Church, according to Thomas Burnford,
president and CEO of the NCEA.
"The apostles told the good news of Jesus Christ, and
Catholic schools are an essential and integral ministry of the Catholic
Church," he said.
Nationwide, 1.8 million students are enrolled in 6,300 Catholic
schools, he noted. Additionally, 80 percent of students are Catholic, and the
remaining 20 percent are non-Catholic.
Despite the percentage difference, the mission of Catholic
education is the same for Catholic and non-Catholic students, Burnford
explained.
"The teaching of the faith, the way we witness the Catholic
faith fully to Catholic students is the same for all students. All students are
invited and welcomed to participate fully in the whole culture of the school,
the formation of the school and the life of the school," Burnford said.
Evangelization is present within schools because students are
presented with a Catholic worldview that reveals the reality of God and the
Gospel through the curriculum, he said.
"In that way, we are evangelizing students by giving them a
real understanding of the world and society. Everyone in a Catholic school is
being moved along in the process of evangelization and outreach," Burnford
said.
Acknowledging the inherent relationship between Catholic
education and evangelization in the presence of faith, community and identity,
Pope Francis in a June 2018 address said: "Schools and universities need
to be consistent and show continuity between their foundational mission and the
church's mission of evangelization."
He delivered the address to members of the Gravissimum
Educationis Foundation, which he established in October 2015 at the invitation
of the Congregation for Catholic Education to commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Christian Education.
In that same address, Pope Francis proposed a challenge to
members of the foundation, which aims to renew the church's dedication to
Catholic education, saying: "To fulfill your mission, therefore, you must
lay its foundations in a way consistent with our Christian identity, establish
means appropriate for the quality of study and research and pursue goals in
harmony with service to the common good."
Elisabeth Sullivan, executive director of the Institute for
Catholic Liberal Education, identified roles within Catholic schools that help
bring Catholic and non-Catholic students together. "I think Catholic
schools have a unique opportunity to provide hope in a world that is
increasingly beset by hopelessness. A world without God is a world without
hope," Sullivan said.
Sullivan believes that Catholic education is uniquely distinct
from other education systems due to its long tradition of conveying the
inherent and inseparable relationship between faith and reason. Consequently,
Catholic schools "restore what the industrialized model of education has
stripped from the classroom — an understanding of the meaning and purpose of
things," she told CNS.
Catholic education asks the deeper questions, regarding the
nature of something and its purpose, according to Sullivan. "Secular
education can't offer that, can't decide on a meaning or a purpose, so it has
to stay away, and therefore, it's incomplete," she explained.
Mary Pat Donoghue, executive director of the Secretariat of Catholic
Education at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, expressed a
similar viewpoint regarding evangelization efforts within Catholic schools.
Donoghue said because formation in a Catholic school is integral, students are
not solely taught religious doctrine in a religion course.
"What we seek to do is bring forward the church's
intellectual tradition and form their minds in all of the content and areas
that they study. This is an excellent tool of evangelization because it exposes
kids not just to Catholic practices, regarding prayer and liturgy, but also to
a Catholic understanding of reality."
Donoghue is hopeful that Catholic schools will continue to
fulfill their mission of bringing children and young adults into a relationship
with Christ.
As populations shift, she said, many Catholic schools will be
located in new areas, creating a changing landscape. However, Donoghue said
that Catholic education in America has been around for centuries and "will
renew itself by turning toward the church's own tradition and that can be the
way forward in the future."