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EDUCATION-MILLER Sep-16-2005 (780 words) With photos posted Sept. 15. xxxn
Vatican official decries lack of public funding for Catholic schools
By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The lack of public funding for religiously sponsored schools in the United States is an injustice and an "incredible anomaly" in the world, a Vatican education official said Sept. 14.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, said Europeans "are absolutely amazed at the situation in the United States," one of the few nations in the world that provides little or no public funding for the education of children in religiously run schools. That policy puts the United States "in the company of Mexico, North Korea, China and Cuba," he said.
Citing "the enormous contribution to society made by Catholic schools," he said providing public funding for that service is a matter of distributive justice. The right to a Catholic education "is so fundamental to the life of the church that this struggle cannot be given up," he said.
Archbishop Miller, a Canadian who was president of St. Thomas University in Houston for six years before his appointment to the education congregation in 2003, was the keynote speaker at a conference on Catholic elementary and secondary education held at The Catholic University of America.
His talk focused on what characteristics make a Catholic school Catholic.
In a brief conversation with Catholic News Service just before his talk, he confirmed that the next day he was to begin meeting in Baltimore with the 117 U.S. bishops and seminary personnel assigned by the education congregation to conduct visitations in all U.S. seminaries and formation houses over the next year or so.
The visitations, sparked by the clergy sexual abuse crisis, are to focus especially on seminary admission policies and the quality of programs forming seminarians in fidelity to church teachings and in living chaste, celibate lives.
Archbishop Miller declined to discuss details of the meeting in Baltimore, saying it would be inappropriate for him to do so.
In his talk he emphasized that in Catholic teaching "parents are the first educators of their children" and the education given in schools is an extension of parental education, carried out "in the name of the parents, with their consent."
Because of parental rights to form their children in accord with their moral and religious convictions, "in principle a state monopoly of education is impermissible," he said. The church upholds the principle of a plurality of school systems and the rights of parents to choose among them, he said.
Speaking of what makes Catholic schools Catholic, he said the church's mission of evangelization is fundamental. Education, raising children so that their whole life is imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, "is an ecclesial responsibility," he said.
The first mark of a Catholic school is that it is "inspired by a supernatural vision," seeing to the education of the full child, not only for service to society, but for love of God and holiness of life for the sake of the child's ultimate destiny, he said. "It is about saint-making," he commented.
He said Catholic education should be marked by "a profound Christian anthropology," an understanding of the human person as a child of God, seen in the light of Christ and divine revelation.
Many views of the human person found in education "simply are not Christian," he said, but in a Catholic school the person and message of Jesus Christ should be what "anchors the whole system."
Another mark of a Catholic school is that it is "animated by communion and community," he said. He praised U.S. Catholic schools for their recognition of the importance of parental involvement in their children's education.
Archbishop Miller cited the "totalizing experience" of Catholicism as another element that should pervade Catholic education. The Catholic world view encompasses the entire spectrum of education, he said, because it affects one's understanding of history, society, the person and the nature of knowledge.
He recalled Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's homily, on the eve of the conclave in which he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, in which the pope-to-be condemned the widespread "dictatorship of relativism" in contemporary culture.
"The greatest challenge to Catholic education in the United States today," the archbishop said, would be to restore in American culture "the conviction that human beings can grasp the truth" and that real freedom rests on truth.
A final critical mark of Catholic education lies in "the witness of the teachers," he said.
Catholic schools need committed, practicing Catholics as teachers because children learn from their example and their witness to the faith, he said.
The conference, which drew a variety of local and national Catholic education leaders, was co-sponsored by Catholic University and the Solidarity Association, an organization that promotes Catholic schools.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
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