What is the purpose of a Catholic school?
The most direct answer to this question is that a Catholic school seeks to cultivate faith and conscience in each pupil so that they can live a life of heroic virtue – in the service of Almighty God and man in this world in preparation for eternal bliss in the next. How might such an explicitly religious mission statement square with the fact that the majority of St Anthony’s boys and their families are not Catholic, with a significant number being adherents to non-Christian religions? In the English context of the 16th Century Reformation and Emancipation in 1829, Catholic schools emerged as fortresses against the Anglican establishment, where catechesis was fused with academic study. Such a model is anachronistic and not fit for the age in which we live.
To try to make sense of the question posed, I suggest that we look east, more specifically to the Indian subcontinent, where Catholic – and Protestant – schools have flourished for nearly two-hundred years, that too in a land where Christians number barely 3% of the population. From Karachi to Calcutta, and Bombay to Madras, girls’ convent schools and boys’ schools run by the Jesuits and Salesians flourish, often educating the children of well-to-do professional elites. The vast majority of these families are Hindu in India and Muslim in Pakistan.
I think first and foremost there is the attraction of a clearly understood mission. An institution will not succeed if it does understand the purpose it serves. It is noteworthy that the primary rationale for Catholic education is a commitment to seeking ‘truth’ and authenticity within the context of a community where virtue is both taught and practised. There is nothing easy about trying to live a life of virtue, as adults well know. It is easy to love our friends but how do we make sense of the injunction to love our enemies or to turn the other cheek? Justice demands that a wrong doer is punished, although a truly noble man finds his repose in forgiveness and reconciliation. One thinks, in more recent times, of Nelson Mandela or Fr James Mawdsley (the latter incarcerated in a Burmese prison) who forgave their oppressors even though they had good reason not to do so.
It is these values, as well as high expectations in all aspects of school life, that make Catholic schools so attractive for those with or without religion. There is, I think, something more than a perception that what takes place at St Anthony’s, by way of example, is good for the boys and different from your run-of-the-mill independent prep school. Not everything of value in life can be weighed or measured so perhaps it is wise to trust our perceptions and embrace all that is holy and true.
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