Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, highlighted the tenets of Catholic education and the modern challenges facing educators in a pastoral letter on September 2
In his letter, “The Joy and Wonder of Catholic Education: Developing Authentically Catholic Schools,” Conley noted that “a truly Catholic education is concerned with the formation of the whole person: intellectually, morally, socially, and spiritually.”
Bishop Conley highlighted the many challenges that Catholic schools face today in the letter, including the “crisis of imagination,” loneliness among students, and a lack of joy in education.
“Ultimately, the way our schools can address reductive, utilitarian, and functionalist worldviews is to foster wonder, joy, and hope with Jesus at the center,” Bishop Conley noted.
Technology in classrooms
Bishop Conley noted that technology should be used as a tool, not a replacement for imagination.
“Today, in a particular way, we must understand that we live in the age of the image, the virtual, and the synthetic. All of us have been influenced by technology, and our students have been especially harmed by too much of it,” Bishop Conley wrote. “Their entire lives have been lived in the age of the digital and the screen.”
“To be sure, technology can help us to do great things, but there is a kind of unreality about our time when we are too immersed in its virtual reality,” he continued.
Schools should be “deliberate” with technology use, ensuring it doesn’t “dominate our classrooms, Bishop Conley said, according to a Catholic News Agency report.
“In a virtual age, Catholic education must offer real experiences, with real things, preparing our students for the countercultural experience of a holy and joyful Christian life,” he wrote.
“Technology can also sap students’ imaginations of their natural creativity and curiosity, leaving them anxiety-ridden, flat souled, and unmoored in a culture of joylessness,” he noted.
“There is a disturbing rise in mental health issues among young people today connected to smart phones and social media,” he added, citing the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
“Children need time away from screens, which have become omnipresent, in order to think clearly and use their imaginations,” he wrote.
A Catholic worldview “demands the fostering of the imagination,” the bishop said.
“To mold saints, we must form vivid and joyful Christian imaginations,” Conley continued. “Deliberately introducing the arts will awaken the imagination of students, moving them from technology-induced passivity to the attentiveness needed to appreciate and reproduce the great works of the Catholic tradition.”
The liberal arts: forming the whole person
Bishop Conley, a convert, never attended Catholic school, but recalled that the liberal arts had a deep impact on his conversion.
“If I were to distill what converted me down to one thing (beyond the power of supernatural grace), it was a ‘great books’ liberal arts education,” he explained.
“As I was reborn in wonder my heart began to sing for joy,” Bishop Conley recalled. “St. Augustine wrote, ‘only the lover sings,’ and ultimately, I discovered love Himself through the joy and wonder suffused throughout my liberal arts program.”
Bishop Conley defines the liberal arts as “an education meant to free the student for truth.”
“We should emphasize the liberal arts, particularly the use of primary sources, classroom discussion, critical and logical thinking, discovering the legacy of the Western and Catholic traditions, and effective oral and written communication,” he wrote.
“The classroom can provide opportunities to experience the wonder of reality, engage all of the senses in a process of discovery, and form the dispositions needed to recognize and defend the truth amid opposition,” he continued.
“The poetic and the scientific are both important, but only the former can stave off scientific reductionism,” he added.
Bishop Conley notes that the Catholic worldview should be “imbued” throughout the curriculum.
“We can have the very best religion classes in the world, and still lose the students if faith is not woven through the entire curriculum,” he explained. “Faith cannot be added on as a stand-alone subject; it must be integrated into every class, subject, and activity in a school, like yeast that causes everything to rise.”
“Every subject bears the fingerprints of God, pointing to the beauty, joy, and wonder behind all reality,” he added. “Whether that be the marvel of number, equation, order, and sequence in mathematics, or salvation history, all reality is ‘charged with the grandeur of God.’”
School choice
In the letter, Bishop Conley also emphasized that those who desire Christian education for their children should be able to have access to it, citing Pope Paul VI’s 1965 Declaration on Christian Education, Gravissimum Educationis.
He noted that “charity demands we ensure Catholic education is not a privilege reserved only for those who can afford it.”
“Catholics within the Lincoln Diocese have risen to this call, with parishioners taking ownership of their parish schools and contributing a substantial part of what it costs to educate each student,” he observed. “Their generosity has helped keep Catholic education accessible and affordable.”
Bishop Conley suggested that Catholics support legislation in favor of parental school choice, such as vouchers, tax credit scholarships, and educational savings accounts, to help offset the cost of education.
“This principle of parental choice in the education of their children is an important piece in the mosaic of social justice — especially because such programs typically have income caps and therefore disproportionately benefit low-income households,” he noted. “Still, more reform is needed to include middle-income families — especially those with multiple children, who are embracing the pro-life teaching of the Catholic Church.”
Bishop Conley recommended that Catholics lobby local elected officials on this issue, noting that “more needs to be done on this front and it is incumbent upon the Catholic faithful to make their views known to public officials.”
Education should be joyful
“Education can be work for children, but it also ought to be fun! Catholic schools, forming children for the delight of eternal life with the Lord, should foster joy,” Bishop Conley noted.
Bishop Conley suggests that “one reason students find so little joy in learning today is that they’re not taught the meaning of things.”
“They are not learning how everything fits together as a whole nor how God gives meaning and purpose to reality and, ultimately, their lives,” he explained.
“Another hallmark of a Catholic worldview is that it fosters joy and wonder, natural happiness, confidence, virtue, and an eagerness to learn,” Bishop Conley noted.
Bishop Conley noted that a sacramental, Catholic imagination “fosters a love for learning,” enabling students to become “creators of beauty: singing, painting, performing on stage, entering into the great stories, reciting poems, and writing creatively.”
He also noted that education is “a form of friendship” and that “teachers give testimony to a Catholic worldview and the faith through their lives.”
Therefore, priests and religious should “play a central role” in Catholic education, he added, noting that there are more than 60 diocesan priests and almost 30 religious sisters serving as teachers or administrators in Catholic schools in the Lincoln Diocese.
“In a genuinely Catholic school, teachers and administrators foster friendship through the hard work of love,” Bishop Conley noted. “They inspire, form, and lead students out of the virtual into the world of what’s real — to the true, good, and beautiful — where they can encounter and glorify the Lord.”
“Our call is to help students experience the joy of being alive, the wonder of God’s creation, a love of learning, and a hunger for faith,” he continued. “To do so, we must live these ourselves.”
