You come to Rome; Rome doesn’t come to you

Vincent J. Curtis

17 June 23

RE: Catholic Schools need to venture beyond borders.  Op-ed by Richard Shield.  The Hamilton Spectator 17 June 23.

Richard Shield’s article was like the great London Fog of 1952: opaque, lacking in solidity, and it stank.  To add some solidity to the picture of Catholic education drawn by Shield, here are a few solid facts:

The identity of the “modernists” of which Shield speaks is clear from the encyclical Pascheni Dominici Regis of Pope Pius X, issued on September 8, 1907.  Modernists today are called “progressives,” and both their invincible self-confidence and self-contradictory beliefs Pius found dangerous to the teaching of the true faith of Rome.  The disasters in the political and social fields that progressivism has wrought amply confirm Pius’ worry and decisions.  Progressivism is what leads to Pride months.

The Catholic Church has been a teaching institution for well over a millennia.  From the fall of ancient Rome until the medieval period, the learning of the ancient world was preserved in Europe in the Christian monasteries.  The first universities of Europe were founded by the Latin Church and staffed with learned monks; and when the Kings of Europe began founding universities, they also were staffed largely with monks from the teaching orders.  Catholic education in Upper Canada was followed by public education, and will continue in some fashion even if the public funding guaranteed in the Constitution Act, 1867, is halted.

As was recently reported, Separate Schools did better, in some cases dramatically better, than public schools in scholastic attainment in reading and math at the grade 3 and 6 levels.  You wouldn’t know how poorly some public schools were performing without the Separate Schools to compare them to.  Scholastic attainment is less of a problem in Separate Schools than in public schools.

It is obvious that Shield’s problem is a poor understanding of Catholic doctrine.  For example, he says “doctrines and devotions are meant to be bridges to the reality of God in our world…”  It’s not God in our world; it is God, period.  Doctrines and devotions aren’t “bridges” because a bridge implies a kind of separation, which is completely inconsistent with the idea of becoming one with God.  And that about sums it up: Shield doesn’t understand Catholicism well enough at all.  I can tell he understands nothing of the Scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas.

And the intellectual rigor of Aquinas’s teaching is lacking in Catholic Schools too.  None of stuff about supporting Pride can withstand Scholastic analysis.  Shield’s quotes of Charles Taylor emerge as quite infantile under Scholastic analysis.

If there is a shortfall in Catholic education in Ontario it is a lack of teaching of the incredible logical rigor that supports the sacred teachings of the faith.  It shouldn’t be Catholic schools venturing beyond some imaginary borders; it should be people flocking to them to gain a superior understanding of the world.  If you want intellectual candy, you have to go to the candy store; the store doesn’t magically go to you.

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