Catholic Exchange

Celebrating Catholic Schools

Written by

Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur

in

In 1810, Elizabeth Ann Seton began the first free Catholic school for girls in the United States in Emmitsburg, Maryland. It would become the model for the Catholic school system in our country.

Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born in August 1774 into a prominent New York City Episcopal family. Her mother died when she was three and she was extremely devoted to her father, who was a doctor, and her new stepmother who provided her religious education.

At age 19, she married William Magee Seton, the son of a wealthy shipping merchant. In quick succession, she gave birth to five children, three daughters and two sons. In spite of her busy life, she managed to find time to engage in work with New York's poor. She and her sister-in-law Rebecca Seton established a society for widows and poor children which led to them being called "the Protestant Sisters of Charity."

Unfortunately, within the first ten years of their marriage, the Setons faced a harsh decline in both William's health and their financial situation. They declared bankruptcy and were encouraged to travel to Italy in the hope of helping William's health. Despite her efforts, William died two days after Christmas. After his death, Elizabeth met up with the Felicchis, family friends, who took in the widow and her daughter for a time. During this period, she was introduced to the Catholic faith. Upon her return to New York, she went ahead with plans to be confirmed a Catholic, even though doing so meant that she would be financially cut off by both her own and her husband's families.

Attempting to support her family on her own, she opened a boarding school for boys, but when the parents discovered that she was Catholic, they withdrew the pupils. Elizabeth didn't know what she was going to do. When the Archbishop of Baltimore asked her to begin a Catholic school for girls in that city, she welcomed the opportunity.

In 1809, Elizabeth, her three daughters, two of her sisters-in-law, and four other young women began the American foundation of the Sisters of Charity. It was an austere life, but eventually they were able to establish a permanent convent including a school, chapel, and workroom.

Beginning a Catholic School in 1810 was extremely challenging. Funds were always low. The sisters relied on the generosity of benefactors as well as the tuition from families who could pay to support their charitable efforts to educate poorer girls for free. The sisters struggled with educating students from various backgrounds with differing abilities. They had to deal with parents who questioned their methods. They did the best that they could under less than ideal circumstances. By the time Elizabeth died in 1821, the Sisters of Charity had begun five additional schools in Philadelphia and New York.

This is Catholic Schools Week, a time to celebrate Catholic schools and the wonderful people who have sacrificed to make them a reality during the past two hundred years. Through it all, the religious communities and lay people who have staffed Catholic schools have done the best they could to educate countless young people and help Catholic immigrants become part of American society. Yes, Catholic schools still face many challenges, many of which are the same that Elizabeth Seton and her Sisters of Charity had at the very beginning. The other fifty-one weeks of the year can be used to discuss the problems that Catholic schools face and work on solutions. This is a week to celebrate the tradition and to say a hearty "Thank You" to all the teachers and staff, religious and lay, who have sacrificed through the years and who continue to sacrifice to work in Catholic schools.

Comments

  1. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Thank you, thank you, thank you! It's refreshing to read a short, simple overview of Catholic schools and to read of appreciation for those who labor there. No Catholic school is perfect but they are a breath of fresh air as they try to teach as Christ taught and share the faith. All this while attempting to communicate the love of God in word and deed. Thanks for the acknowledgement and appreciation. Pray for us! Peace, Allan

    http://www.allanwright.org

  2. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    The Catholic schools that my children attended are now filled with children from high income families because of tuition rates. (The new cars in the parking lot are the evidence.) Since the Church decided that educating our children is not the responsibility of the all of the Catholic community, only wealthy parents can afford a Catholic education.

    You cannot fund Catholic education for all of our children with an budget item buried somewhere in the annual "Bishop's Pastoral Appeal", yet that is the funding mechanism in many of our dioceses.

    Our children are the Church's future, and most of them are being educated at government schools with secular agendas. That does not bode well for the future of the Church.

  3. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    The days are long gone when Catholic schools could get by with 40+ children in a class taught by nuns who worked for free or married women working for pocket money.

    Now parents demand that the parish school offer everything available in the public schools — including programs for learning disabled and gifted students, interscholastic sports, art and music programs,  cafeterias, before and after school child care, state of the art computer labs, and fancy playgrounds, teachers with advanced degrees — while charging minimal tuition.  It can't be done. Parishes would be far better off devoting the money they are pouring into schools to family-based faith formation programs that would focus on religious education rather than the secular bells and whistles.  

  4. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Clare:

    The Church disagrees with you! 

    There is not a lack of money in this culture, just a lack of faith and will.  Every child deserves an opportunity to attend a Catholic school.

  5. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Every child deserves to be educated in the Catholic faith.  But that does not require attending a Catholic school.  Nor does it require forcing parishioners whose children do not and have never attended parish schools, and who are already paying taxes to support their public school systems, to subsidize the educational choices of other families.  

    If parents want a Catholic school education for their children, they should be prepared to assume the costs, which are considerable, rather than expecting that Someone Else will pick up the tab.  Someone Else picked up the tab back in the day, when  classes were large, teachers were not paid living wages, classrooms were bare-bones, and insurance was not a major budget item.  Those days are gone forever.  

    This Someone Else is not convinced that the graduates of parochial schools are any more likely to grow up to practice the faith than are graduates of non-Catholic schools who come from families with similar levels of involvement in the faith.   Many students and even teachers in Catholic schools are not even Catholic, and many parish schools are Catholic In Name Only. 

  6. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    It is interesting that our country is willing to invest in its children by asking everyone to contribute money toward the education of our children, but Catholics no longer feel this responsibility.  Our children are worth the investment. 

    No one will force any parishioner to do anything.  its an invitation.  We invite parishioners to share in the burden of providing the children of the parish with a Catholic education.  Propose, never impose. 

    Please do not turn this into a home-school versus Catholic school discussion because homeschooled Catholic children are not whom I'm speaking about.  I'm speaking about children who are public schooled because they have no other choice.

    Once again, the Church documents on this issue are clear – the Church wants good Catholic schools for its children.

  7. Guest Avatar
    Guest

     Our parish, like most I know, contributes a large percentage of the collection revenues to the school.  Unless parishioners decline to support the parish at all, they are supporting the school, whether they want to or not.

    We never sent out children to the parish school.  When we moved to the area, there was a waiting list at the parish school, and our son went to public school.  But I visited the parish school for open houses and was not impressed.  The classes were too big, the teachers were all female, and there was too much emphasis on sitting in seats and raising hands.   The facilities were outdated, and there were no real art, band/orchestra, or foreign language offerings for the upper grades.  There was also no true accelerated or gifted program, and Algebra I was not taught in the 8th grade.  But, just like the public schools with which we were growing weary, the diocese required standardized testing each year.  

    Fast forward several years, and my children are all attending an independent single-sex Catholic school, for which we sacrifice greatly.  We receive no parish subsidy for this tuition expense.  But the boys are thriving in an all-male atmosphere, with small classes, Latin and Greek, male teachers, daily Mass, and no standardized tests of any kind until the PSAT in high school.  This is a true Catholic school, which treats parents as the primary educators, and it has to turn students away even though tuition is three times what the parish school charges.  The parish school is now struggling to fill its classes, with no waiting lists in most grades.  Though most parents in our affluent community could pay more than $4K in tuition, the school is unwilling to increase the tuition because of some outdated notion that the parish should be picking up the tab for the school.  

    If an affluent and orthodox parish cannot make a Catholic school work, then perhaps there is something wrong with the template.   So why not think outside the box?  "Catholic education" doesn't have to be parish-based.  Parents should have the freedom as primary educators to determine the best educational fit for their child, which may be homeschool, public school, a secular private school, the parish school, or an independent Catholic school.  Independent Catholic schools are thriving, free from the stultifying  bureaucracies of diocesan school systems.  And when they find a good independent school, parents are willing to make sacrifices to pay for it.  Smart proponents of Catholic education should be studying what makes these schools successful.  

     

  8. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Agreed.  We do all we can to make Catholic schools successful.  The Catholic schools over the past few decades have mirrored the Catholic Church in the U.S. over the past few decades.  The schools like the rest of the Church has truly struggled.  A large part of that was disobedience.  However, this does not have to remain the standard.

    Our local Catholic school was struggling as well.  There was a real temptation to abandon it.  But in spite of questionable practices and questionable diocesan guidance, there was something wholesome as well.  Something worth fighting for.

    Christ was abandoned when he walked Calvary.  He suddenly wasn't so attractive.  The hopes and wishes of so many were dashed.  Maybe the Church isn't looking so hot right now.  Maybe it's schools are struggling a bit.  Shall we jump ship? 

    As Pope John Paul II stated, there is a crisis of saints.  Everyone is looking around waiting for somebody to do something. 

    Instead of looking at your parish school as it is, why not look at it as it could be.  Is abandoning the parish school to start another Catholic school the only answer?  If it so, so be it.  BUT the attitude of letting everyone else fend for themselves seems pretty crass. 

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