A Sociological Point of View

A CRITICAL discussion of some of the social aspects of catholic education in this country i s no easy task for Catholics themselves. The difficulty lies in the remarkable degree to which the story of catholic education has become ingrained in the folklore of the catholic community. Whether one perceives the story in terms of the hagiography of penal times or in terms of the financial sacrifices of more recent times, it has become a pervasive element in the collective consciousness of english Catholicism. An unquestioning commitment to separate catholic education seems to have become one test of catholic identity and orthodoxy. It has become so much a part of the everyday life of the catholic community that any radical questions ar e virtually pre-empted. The story of the emancipation and the struggle for the schools has assumed a quasi-sacred character in which fighting slogans such as 'Catholic schools with Catholic teachers for Catholic children' have been transmuted into something akin to articles of faith. The unquestioning acceptance of the official catholic stance on education and the existence of separate catholic schools is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the almost total lack of a well-worked and critical theology of education. There is much discussion and experiment in the field of religious education as a matter of curriculum, but remarkably little theological appraisal o f the principles and strategy of catholic educational policy in this country or of the educational enterprise in general. It is as if the historical background and the memory of the catholic community serve to pu t radical questions out of play. This paper attempts to bring out some of the issues of social and historical interest as a preface to theological discussion of contemporary catholic education. Even sociology may serve as a handmaid to theology, for as one writer has remarked: