Catholics build new schools to promote old-school ways -- Traditionalists fight secular impact

Baltimore Sun ^ | 5-25-03 | John Rivera

[Salvation]

YPSILANTI, Mich. - In a former elementary school gym, framed by green-tiled walls lined with pictures of the saints and the Passion of Christ, Nicole Myshak begins the Angelus, an ancient prayer better known to her grandmother's generation.

"The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary," the 24-year-old intones.

"And she conceived of the Holy Spirit," respond classmates and teachers who fill the college chapel. The prayer is followed by a solemn Mass, a daily high point at Ave Maria College, one of a small but growing number of liberal arts colleges that promote traditional Roman Catholicism.

Myshak and her classmates see themselves as a vanguard that will renew a church they see drifting from eternal truth.

"We're apostles of the new generation," she says.

The confident Catholicism of Ave Maria and other traditionalist schools is emerging as mainstream Catholic colleges are struggling with religious identity.

Excerpted, Read Full Article

[Salvation]

For your comments and discussion about the movement toward more Catholic traditional values and schools.

[drstevej]

Were I a Catholic, here's where I'd put my money. Protestants have hundreds of such colleges wher the students are ardently evangelical and the faculty is a role model for them. Many go on to seminary.

In my 1st year class at seminary there were 400 men and the school had to turn away over 600 more that had applied.

Religious schools that are laced or infested with liberal unbelief are not worth a dime and need to die the death of dried up funding.

[Salvation]

**The result is a vacuum that conservative Catholics are attempting to fill: Three traditionalist Catholic colleges have opened in the past five years, and two more are expected to open soon.**

Monaghan -- Ave Maria
Loyola College in Baltimore
Christendom College in Front Royal, Va

I wonder where the next two will be?

[Salvation]

**They include Our Lady of Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Campion College, a two-year school in San Francisco, which is opening a campus in Washington, D.C., this fall. Traditional Catholics in Atlanta are raising funds to establish Southern Catholic College.**

Coming soon!

[Salvation]

We are learning this lesson a little bit too late. But perhaps this is the good that comes out of the terrible sexual abuse scandal that we have just experienced in the Catholic Church.

[drstevej]

They need to set the moral standards high in these schools beginning with the faculty. No godly young man or woman (or their parents) wants to pay for an education where they are sexually harassed.

[Salvation]

Did you read the quote in the article about one of the faculties? They took an oath to support Rome.

[drstevej]

Southern Baptist seminaries now require faculty to affirm the inerrancy of Scripture. This is the Protestant equivalent of the RC faculty oath to support Rome.

BTW, since this was implemented in SB seminaries enrollment has soared!

[Salvation]

Another interesting quote:

**The traditionalist schools share a classical Catholic core curriculum based on the works of thinkers such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.**

Excellent reading materials.

[Salvation]

Catholic Education and Discussion Ping!

Please notify me via Freepmail if you would like to be added to or removed from the Catholic Education and Discussion Ping list.

[drstevej]

Good reading, perhaps we need to add St. Calvin as well.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Salvation wrote: **The result is a vacuum that conservative Catholics are attempting to fill: Three traditionalist Catholic colleges have opened in the past five years, and two more are expected to open soon.** Monaghan -- Ave Maria Loyola College in Baltimore Christendom College in Front Royal, Va I wonder where the next two will be?

Loyola in Maryland is actually an older Jesuit college pretty much in the category of other older institutions which have been subject to liberal manipulation. Last time I heard, the majority of the faculty fall in a non-Catholic pattern.

[It's me]

At the Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH, all the theology professors take an oath of fidelty to the Pope and the Magisterium of the Church. There are also about 700 kids that attend Mass every day, which is offered at three times throughout the day.

[cpforlife.org]

I'd like to take this opportunity to mention a virtually unknown document: Respect Life Curriculum Guidelines

It was published in 1977 by the Department of Education, United States Catholic Conference of Bishops.

This 108 page book holds a tremendous potential to create an army of pro-life Christians who would live, work, and VOTE to restore equal protection to all citizens—born and UNBORN. From page 1:

"The Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities, issued by the United States Bishops in November, 1975, urged the development of educational tools to bring the Church's teaching on the value of life and on life-centered issues in an effective way, through our educational apostolate, to the whole Church."

This book has guidelines for "Pre-school through High School" It went further still into curriculum guidelines for "Adult Learners, Parents and Families, Adults in Leadership Positions in the Church ...and Community." (Page three) It is my opinion that it never received anything near the attention required to achieve its intended purpose.

IMO, no education can be truly Catholic or Christian unless it embraces and teaches The Gospel of Life .

The Guidelines, is the product of the vision from the 1975 Pastoral Plan. This is an outstanding example of the bishops exercising their teaching office in the promotion and defense of the most helpless among us—the unborn. They clearly spelled out the critical necessity for a new level of teaching on the sanctity of life. From page 4:

Through the process of ongoing education from early childhood through mature adulthood, programs developed from these Guidelines will strengthen positive attitudes toward life and weaken attitudes which are negative.

I'll stop here by saying PLEASE check this out and let all your contacts know about it. The bishops themselves have laid the groundwork for Sanctity of Life education but it is up to the laity to carry it out. We need to get this into our schools from coast to coast! Each day it doesn't happen is another day of victory for the pro-abortion forces, because ignorance of the masses is the only sure hope they have for survival.

Comprehensive education of adults, and more importantly school students, is
THE MISSING KEY OF THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT

[MHGinTN]

IMO, no education can be truly Catholic or Christian unless it embraces and teaches The Gospel of Life. And it would be more biologically sound and therefore more a service to Truth! [Want to read something really chilling? ... Read the article Pandora's Baby, in the June 2003, Scientific American Magazine, p.63. What I've been writing regarding in vitro fert dehumanizing early individual life has been turned completely on its head, to cast derision upon the notion of 'exploitation of human life', in favor of therapeutic cloning, etc.]

[Sursum Corda]

Christendom College was founded in 1977, not in the last five years.

Source: http://www.christendom.edu/welcome/history.shtml

Where did you get this list of three?

Sursum Corda

[k omalley]

I remember saying the Angelus everyday at noon when I was in Catholic school. My daughter just completed 17 yrs of Catholic education and doesn't even know what the Angelus is. Saying the Angelus was one of Catholicism's beautiful and rich traditions. Too bad it was relegated to the trash heap.

[TradicalRC]

The restoration of Traditional Catholicism reminds me of those chapters in Chronicles (2 Chronicles 30-35) where the Jewish leaders rediscover their faith and the law book of Moses.

I have often thought that if I had the wherewithal I would like to start a Traditional Catholic Elementary school.

The only matter of concern for me in the article was the comment from Mr. Healey. Some people just cannot reconcile themselves to the virtues inherent in strictness and obedience.

[Salvation]

Thanks for the clarification. I'll look back at the article. Unfortunately, the Balt. Sun is one of those we must excerpt from. Bah!

[Salvation]

**At the Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH, all the theology professors take an oath of fidelty to the Pope and the Magisterium of the Church. There are also about 700 kids that attend Mass every day, which is offered at three times throughout the day.**

This is wonderful! Thank you, God!

In the original post I questioned the statement that they did not emphasize attending Mass -- it just bothered me.