Students who are not Catholics in Catholic schools: lessons from the Second Vatican Council about the Catholicity of schools
2012; Routledge; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/19422539.2012.708174
ISSN1942-2547
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Education Studies and Reforms
ResumoAbstract An emerging issue for Catholic schools is their increasing enrolment of students who are not Catholics. This issue requires Catholic schools to find the best way to express their Catholicity in a changing educational environment. Some people perceive the enrolment of students who are not Catholics in Catholic schools to be a hindrance to the Catholicity of the school. This need not be the case. This article expounds on three features of the Second Vatican Council and articulates how they might be helpful for Catholic schools in the way they express their Catholicity within this context. These features are the global church, ecumenism and the relationship with non-Christian religions. This article contends that these features are hallmarks of Catholicity. Keywords: Catholic schoolsstudents who are not CatholicsCatholicity of schoolsSecond Vatican Councilglobal churchecumenismrelationship to non-Christian religions Notes 1. There are alternative interpretations of the Council. At a micro level, there are a variety of interpretations of the documents and particular texts. At a macro level, there are different interpretations about the significance of the Council for the Church's Tradition. With regard to the macro level interpretations, there has been some recent scholarship that contests the interpretation of the Council as a 'discontinuity' or 'rupture' with Tradition (see esp. Marchetto Citation2005). In essence, he argued that the religious and institutional structure of the Church, formed over many centuries has not been transformed by the deliberations of one Council. 2. Eschatology (Gk eschatos, last) refers to the study of the last things or the final state of the universe. The Church as eschatological community refers to the evolutionary movement of the universe towards union with God in the realisation of the Kingdom. 3. The Syllabus of Errors accompanied Pius IX's 1864 encyclical Quanta Cura. It contained eighty condemned theses around three themes, pantheism, faith and reason, and liberalism. It was significant in the Church's defensive response to secular liberalism. 4. There were a number of external factors that challenged Christian ecumenical endeavours in the years since the Reformation. These include the Puritan revolution of the seventeenth century, debate about the relationship between Church and state (especially in seventeenth century England), revivalism in the United States and 'end time' fears in the nineteenth century. The Catholic Church's own agenda of dogmatic promulgation and papal centralism before, during and immediately after the First Vatican Council further hampered ecumenical initiatives. 5. The increasing enrolments of non-Catholic students in Catholic schools has been the result of changes to the educational landscape, particularly in the increased number of Christian schools, other religious schools and selective state schools. These schools present as new options for Catholic families. In Australia, contemporary parents enjoy greater affluence and are consequently choosing schools in the same way they choose other consumer goods. Also, 'citadel/fortress Catholicism' has less traction in contemporary times. The Catholic school is no longer as culturally isolated from the non-Catholic community. 6. The Church's 'teaching of contempt' was manifested in three main ways: first, in 'false and indeed unjust statements about Israel' (Oesterreicher Citation1969, 2) in Church teaching; second, through a pervading sense that Jews were responsible for deicide, the death of Jesus; and third, in hostile language about Jews in Church prayer and liturgy (for example, the Good Friday liturgy which included a prayer for the 'perfidious Jews'). 7. Initially, the statement on the Jews was to be included in the Decree on Ecumenism. After long and passionate debate, generally about anti-Semitism and specifically about accusations of deicide against the Jews, and given the proximity of the Council to the Shoah, the Council fathers saw the importance of a stand-alone document about the Church's relationship with the Jews. This, however, caused concern for those who were wary of the continued political instigations of Arab governments – they did not want to agitate the situation further by releasing a statement on the Jews. Consequently, a statement on the Church's relationship with Muslims was added to the text (the paragraphs on Jews and Muslims in the final Declaration are the two longest paragraphs in the document). Finally, it was decided to include a statement celebrating the variety of human experiences beyond Christianity to other religions. The document had become a declaration in its own right. 8. In 2006, nearly one in four students (24%) in Australian Catholic schools was not Catholic. In NSW Catholic schools in 2006, there were 1873 fewer Catholic students than there were in 1988 and 27,256 more students who were not Catholics than there were in 1988 (Croke Citation2008, 70). 9. Although Croke (Citation2008, 72) notes that there is a greater affluence in society today than there was 30 years ago, it is also true that the number of non-Catholic students may come from homes that can afford the rising fees for Catholic schools, while parents of Catholic students are often faced with financial stress and other challenges that force them to look to other-than-Catholic schools for schooling (Catholic Bishops of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory 2008, 6).
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