Catholic Schools
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
12 Aug 2007
On last Wednesday the feast of Mother Mary MacKillop, the Melbourne born founder of the Josephite sisters, the Catholic Bishops of New South Wales and the A.C.T. issued a joint pastoral letter entitled “Catholic Schools at a Crossroads”, the first since 1879.
At first glance the title seems a bit mysterious as Catholic schools are a well respected part of an harmonious educational landscape, where Catholic facilities and teacher qualifications have never been better, morale is good and student numbers are slowly rising.
Catholic schools remain our most distinctive achievement in Australia, still representing the "jewel in the crown". But a number of challenges need to be answered so that the jewel can continue to shine brightly.
The poor are now underrepresented in our schools and in fact the number of Catholic students has fallen. The rise in N.S.W. enrolments of 26,000 during the last 20 years has all been from non-Catholics. Half the Catholic students are in State-schools, which lower income Catholics are attending increasingly and wealthier Catholic children are going to non-Catholic non-government schools. Catholic schools educate one in five young Australians, most of them from middle Australia and happy with what they are receiving.
The educational challenges differ from region to region e.g. religious practice is higher in the Western suburbs of Sydney and often we cannot meet the demand for Catholic school places there. The situation is different on both counts in the Eastern suburbs.
The Sydney archdiocese is well aware of the financial challenges for Catholic school parents and has kept school fees down to C.P.I. increases. Presently it is examining ways of further extending help to the disadvantaged.
Catholic systemic schools are required to work to improve their students’ academic standards against national averages and are achieving this. At the secondary level the challenge is to meet parental expectations for academic standards without damaging other school strengths. Some Catholic schools do need to do better academically as more of our secondary schools should be among the top academic achievers.
Our schools are good happy communities, regularly sensitive to the needs of the disadvantaged. The challenge is to make the faith dimension strong and attractive, when regular worship is low and one in five students is not Catholic.
Secondary students are like their parents; they cannot be force-fed religion. But faith is attractive and catching when it is real. A good first step is the realization that “Catholic-lite”, a pale imitation of Christ’s challenging call, is unattractive and provides no answers to the hazards of today’s adult world.
The World Youth Day next year will be a strong reminder to students and parents that all the Catholic authorities Pope, bishops, principals and priests are not content to let sleeping dogs lie, to allow religious indifference to remain undisturbed. Christ’s message is too powerful and too useful to be missed.
