Catholic schools must be a work in progress
Dear Friends of Catholic Schools,
“Do you love Me?”
“Only if we do, can we teach our youth.”
“Catholic school students must be called to holiness.”
“We must ask the children to be saints.”
These are just some of the compelling statements Sister Clare Fitzgerald spoke
at the National Catholic Education Association conference held in Baltimore
during Easter week. Her keynote presentation was inspiring and
thought-provoking.
Since I came to work at the archdiocese, I have heard legendary stories about
Sister Clare. Blake Mulvany, my predecessor, often quoted one of her famous
lines to lay Catholic school educators. After she described how consecrated
religious men and women established an extraordinary system of Catholic schools
in the United States, Sister Clare said,
“Now we are turning them (Catholic schools) over to you (lay educators) — don’t mess them up!” Blake said that he thought she was speaking directly to him. After hearing
Sister Clare speak, I can understand what Blake meant!
Sister Clare’s talk this year was the highlight of the conference for me because I was
challenged to reflect about the essence of what we are doing in our Catholic
schools in the archdiocese. We cannot afford to become complacent in any aspect
of what we do. We must continually evaluate the degree to which we are
accomplishing our mission, and we must pray for wisdom and courage to change.
Sister Clare is a great example of staying current. She easily could have
recycled one of her hundreds of talks to present in Baltimore. Instead, she
clearly had prepared for a new audience, year, and setting. I wonder how often
this happens in schools.
In fact, Sister Clare told a version of the Rip Van Winkle story that speaks to
this point. Perhaps you have heard it. It seems that Rip Van Winkle woke up in
2007 and was completely disoriented by cell phones, PDAs, iPods, and so on. It
was not until he went inside a school that he felt comfortable
— because nothing had changed!
Of course, change simply for change’s sake may not be wise. However, if there was one message that was loud and
clear at the conference, it was that we must explore new models in Catholic
schools
— new models of financing, new models of governance, new models of operating.
In this archdiocese, I think we are on the right track in these areas. The
question we must continually ask, though, is the one Sister Clare asked us in
Baltimore. This question can never have a
“final answer” — how are we, in Catholic schools in this archdiocese, bringing children and
their families closer to Christ?
¡Vaya con Dios!
Kathy O’Hara is the superintendent of archdiocesan schools.
