Roman Catholicism is submissive to the Teaching Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church and to Scripture as seen through the prism of the Teaching Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church (aka Tradition). It is not the whim of the week club. It is not a religion of sexual libertinism. It is not a democracy. It is not an anarchy. It is not characterized by "slain in the spirit" experiences as are "reformed" pentecostal churches. It is not characterized by one shot deal guaranteed salvation in the form of "accepting" Jesus Christ as one's personal Savior. After all, if He isn't, who could possibly be???
The Roman Catholic Church was funded personally and guaranteed personally by Jesus Christ upon Peter who was given the "Keys of the Kingdom" which were passed by Peter to his successor Linus and by Linus to Cletus, etc. down to Benedict XVI through each of Cletus's successor popes. It is a specifically apostolic Church with the authority of each and every legitimate bishop traceable to the authority of an apostle.
The Roman Catholic Church has the Mass in which the one-time historical sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the Cross is made immanent upon the altar at each Mass and in which ordinary bread and wine (subject to requirements of Canon Law) are transubstantiated into the actual Body and Blood of Christ under the continued appearance of bread and wine at the Consecration of the Mass as the Holy Eucharist.
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes seven sacraments (outward signs instituted by Jesus Christ to give grace). They are: Baptism, Penance, Holy Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Orders, Matrimony and Extreme Unction. Penance is nowadays known as "the sacrament of Reconciliation" and Extreme Unction as "Final Annointing."
The Roman Catholic Church is a quite rigidly dogmatic church and not a venue for rank spiritual speculation (See Fr. Hesburgh and his execrable subordinate in theology department: Fr. Richard McBrien and so very many others of their ilk). One believes or one does not believe. The eccentric in the middle pew is not on a par with Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theolgica. A vote of eccentrics in the pews is not to be equated with dogma.
Fr. Hesburgh enjoyed high standing in academia as a result of his anti-Catholicism. Before Land o' Lakes in 1967, dissenting theology professors at Catholic schools were fired, tenured or not. They were CATHOLIC schools and submission to Church teaching was a condition of continued employment. We were not under the idiot impression that great-great-great (times several hundred) granddad was an ape. Nor were we taught that the "reformation" was a debatable proposition. Instead we were taught Roman catholicism. Fr. Hesburgh and his ilk lusted for academic "respectability" and knew that to get it they would have to suck up to the agnostics, atheists and other antiCatholics in academia by expelling Catholicism from their schools.
That you do not see much difference between Evangelical Protestantism and Roman Catholicism is one more reason why you or public school teachers like you or "Catholic" school teachers who resemble you will NOT be teaching my kids. This is not a personal insult any more than I would be insulted if you were to post that you want for your kids a more "open-minded" education than people like me would be likely to offer them. We simply differ in very important ways on what is important in education.
Now, ponder this. We have witnessed the decline of seemingly invincible American industries in our time: steel, automobiles, electronics, almost any sort of hands-on industrial processes. As these industries reached their apex of power and market penetration, all that was left was outsourcing of the jobs to places like Bangladesh where people would work for a nickel an hour and no benefits at age 10. Those big industries may still, for a time, belong to American investors but they no longer provide good jobs at good wages within our borders. It was also observed that productivity and quality of work force had declined even here.
In about 1958, the AFL-CIO was still refusing to enroll most government workers, especially public school teachers. My mother-in-law was one as were a number of my friends' parents. They were uniformly proud to be "professionals" and not union members. Nonetheless, from bank presidents to janitors, the AFL-CIO enrolled 58% of the American work force Today, the enrollment in the AFL-CIO is 11% and dropping like a lead sinker even though gummint workers like teachers are included.
We have certainly witnessed a major change in American morals and manners in our lifetimes (at least in mine since the 1950s) and not for the better.
Eventually sustained and permanent decline through mediocrity and beyond is fatal to any establishment. The Catholic elementary and secondary schools were generally destroyed when liberal demons were set loose in the Roman Catholic Church not by Vatican II itself but by the phony "spirit" of Vatican II which was more akin to the "spirit" and reality of the French or soviet revolutions (See Crane Brinton's book comparing them with ours and the British). The goddess of "wisdom" portrayed by a nude French prostitute dancing obscenely upon the altars of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was NOT Catholicism as public education and what mostly passes for diocesan and parish education are NOT education in anything that parents who are responsible should seek for their children and we don't.
If you and I are still available to converse candidly twenty years from now, you will recognize today's primitive exercises in homeschooling and parent-controlled small schools as the harbingers of the future that they are. Without them, civilization will be dead in the USA and in the West generally.
If you are deep into a public school career, it is understandable that you will want to preserve the institution so that your pay and perks continue and your pension well-padded. My wife and I are likely to live in poverty as we age because that is the price paid by the first generation of any social revolution but we will know that our pain is worth it if we succeed in playing even a small role in replacing the evils of public education and even the mediocrity and some evil in parochial education with moral and academic education that actually educates.
Just what was Fr. Hesburgh's academic expertise (a scholar???)(sociology???? heresy???? Academic logrolling? Leftist organizing? Running the US Civil Rights Commission during the height of its reverse racism? Being a Roman-collared mountebank and sockpuppet of the radical secularist left)?
As is my custom, I will refrain from characterizing "fundamentalist" Protestant churches further lest I offend these fine folks who are political allies but differ in aspects of faith.
Vatican II dictated nothing and is no excuse for Hesburgh. I was flaming Hesburgh not you.
You can come and live with us, and teach composition and rhetoric :-).
G.K. Chesterton, long ago, dissembeled all the pretensions and exposed all the fallacies and errors of the public school system. You stand in the same line as he - although, you are far more combative and your Christian witness always rekindles the fires in my Irish-Algonquin Catholic soul.
I love you, brother.