Smiles Everyone

Seeing how faith produces in smiles in Catholic schools

02/27/2022

I am here today "fishing" for students for Trinity Middle School. One day a boy came late to Sunday school. His teacher, knowing he was usually very prompt, asked: “Johnny, is there anything wrong?” He answered a little sad: “No, ma’am, not really. I was going to go fishing, but my daddy told me that I needed to get on up and go to church.” The teacher was very impressed and asked Johnny if his father had explained to him why it was more important to go to church than to go fishing. “Yes, ma’am, he did,” Johnny explained. “My daddy said he didn’t have enough bait for both of us.”

Today I am going fishing for students but I am also going to church to do it! Now, you might think this should be the easiest fishing in the world because who wouldn’t want to attend a Catholic school if given the chance, right? It should be a no-brainer. But it is not as easy a choice as you might think. I want to share a few insights from an article my brother sent me recently, called “Putting the Catholic Back in Catholic Schools,” by Thomas Carroll. It began with this startling statistic: “Catholic school enrolled more than 5 million students in the mid-1960’s, but today just 1.6 million.” Put simply, 3 out of 5 people who would have chosen a Catholic school in 1960, do not do so today. In other words, it is not easy fishing and recruiting for Catholic schools today.

Nonetheless, I am convinced the best bait for such fishing or recruiting is our Catholic faith. There is simply nothing more precious in the world than being Catholic. And that is the principal purpose, the raison d’être, of Catholic schools. We exist to teach the faith. Let me share three things from the article by Thomas Carroll and expand a little on each one.

The first point Carroll makes is pretty insightful but sadly often overlooked. See if you can catch it. He wrote: “The school’s academic program needs to reflect the full contribution of the Catholic intellectual tradition.” He adds: “One cannot conceive of Western Civilization without the existence of the Catholic Church.” That’s a big statement, so let me give you a concrete example of what he means. Do you know who invented “double-entry accounting,” the basis of most modern accounting? It was a Franciscan friar named Luca Paccioli, who was also the teacher of Leonardo DaVinci.

In other words, the intellectual engine of Western civilization were none other than Catholic priests and monks. Isaac Newton said famously that we see so far because we stand on the shoulder of giants. He was right. But what most people forget, but what we try to teach in Catholic schools, is that those giants’ shoulders belong to Catholic saints and scholars. We would not be able to see very far today without their enormous contribution. Catholic schools help us to see the Catholic foundations of the Western world.

Another point Carroll makes is the lack of “political correctness” in Catholic schools He writes wisely: “A truly Catholic school must embrace truth not relativism; must see individuals as the creation of God and not merely members of identity groups; and must uphold the human dignity of all lives from conception to natural death – regardless of the values of popular culture.” In other words, we can sum up all that with one word: Catholicism is “counter-cultural.” Catholic schools swim against the modern cultural currents.

Do you know what the word “F.A.D.” stands for? It means “for a day.” The Catholic faith, by contrast, is “for eternity.” That is, Catholic schools do not teach what is politically correct, what's popular today and unpopular tomorrow. Instead we teach what is eternally correct. The Catholic faith may end up on the wrong side of history (as some say), but we will not end up on the wrong side of eternity. I will let you be the judge of which is worse, and where you want your children to end up.

The third point is perhaps the most practical one. Carroll writes: “The children in our schools need to see vividly that Catholicism is at its core a joyful and optimistic faith.” In other words, saints should be the happiest people on earth. By the way, have you heard of the modern phenomenon of “cutting”? Young people, and they are invariably teenagers, feel a deep sense of sadness, loneliness, and even despair because the universe feels impersonal and empty. And so, they cut themselves. To a modern mind, it is full of shining stars but empty of saints, it stretches out for millennia, but lack any meaning, it is a world full of facts, but not one ounce of faith. That is a depressing world to inhabit.

By contrast what we teach in Catholic schools is the “joy of the gospel.” That was the title of the of Pope Francis’ first major document called “Evangelii gaudium.” His first lines capture the spirit pervading the halls of every Catholic school. He wrote: “The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew.” In other words, there is no need for cutting when you know Christ.

Do you recall that popular television show called “Fantasy Island”? It always began with Ricardo Montalban coming out and saying to those working on the island, “Smiles, everyone! Smiles!” Dr. Hollenbeck, the principal at Trinity, starts every day essentially saying the same thing to our students: “Smiles everyone! Smiles!” But there’s one big difference: our students’ smiles are real and lasting because they come from a timeless faith, and not from a temporary fantasy. And that is a one-sentence summary of Catholic schools: timeless faith not temporary fantasy.

Praised be Jesus Christ!