Why Choose a Catholic School?

Catholic Schools: Purpose and Ministry

The purpose of this article is to encourage parents who may be considering the choice of a Catholic school for their child’s education. This alternative will require that you commit to a considerable investment of your time, talents, and financial resources for your child’s educational future. So why should you choose a Catholic school? There are many compelling reasons, beyond the benefits of higher academic achievement.

Teach your children right from wrong,
and when they are grown, they will still do right.   

Proverbs 22:6

The integration of life with religious truth and values distinguishes the Catholic school from other schools. In their 1972 pastoral message on Catholic education, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops outlined educational objectives for carrying out the mission entrusted by Jesus to the Church he founded:

Education is one of the most important ways by which the Church fulfills its commitment to the dignity of the person and building of community. Community is central to education ministry, both as a necessary condition and an ardently desired goal. The educational efforts of the Church, therefore, must be directed to forming persons-in-community; for the education of the individual Christian is important not only to his solitary destiny, but also to the destinies of the many communities in which he lives.

Catholic schools afford the fullest and best opportunity to realize the threefold purpose of Christian education among children and young people. A school has a greater claim on the time and loyalty of the student and his family. It makes accessible to students participation in the liturgy and the sacraments, which are powerful forces for the development of personal sanctity and for the building of community. It provides a more favorable pedagogical and psychological environment for teaching Christian faith. Only in such a school can they experience learning and living fully integrated in the light of faith.

Catholic Schools As Faith Communities
Jesus, the rabbi and teacher, addressed his apostles for the last time and charged them with the responsibility, "Go, teach all nations." This invitation, command, and promise are the wellsprings of Catholic schools: an invitation to know him more clearly and to live him most completely; a command to make disciples by teaching his message and proclaiming his Good News; and a cherished promise that he would abide with us in a community of believers until his second coming. The educational mission of the Church is an integrating ministry embracing three interlocking dimensions: the message revealed by God, which the Church proclaims; fellowship in the life of the Holy Spirit; and service to the Christian community and the entire human community.

More than 5 million parents truly believe that Jesus "came that they may have life and have it to the full" (John 10:10), and they search for that fullness of life for their children in Catholic schools. The Catholic school is a "privileged place" to hear that invitation, that command, and that promise. Next to the family, it is the most effective place for Christians to search the inscrutable mysteries of revelation and to be assured that, even before the world was made, God had decreed to call each person to life and prepare each person for the fullness of life. In the Catholic schools, young people learn Christ’s commandment to love God and one another. They are taught that this is the greatest of the commandments. The Catholic school is a living testimony of millions of Christians that Jesus is alive in his community and is continuing his promise to strengthen each "with the utter fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19).

Sincerely,

James J. Brescia, Ed.D.

Principal & Parish Administrator