Parents have the ultimate responsibility to educate their children in the faith . . .

Catholic education recognizes that knowledge is at the service of man and must be directed toward the common good and the salvation of all. Such education requires training in the virtues and is rooted in the commandments of God.

To understand Catholic education, we must understand the nature of man, his relation to God, and his relation to others. A proper education is a natural right of every person. Because every man is created in the image and likeness of God, he has a right by the fact of his existence to obtain an education suited to his existence.

Such an education allows the person to grow into manhood according to the mature measure of Christ (Eph. 4:30) and devote himself to the building up of the Mystical Body. Moreover, aware of his calling, he should grow accustomed to giving witness to the hope that is within him and to promoting that Christian transformation of the world by which natural virtues may contribute to the good of society as a whole.

Authentic education primarily entails a formation in moral living and an invitation to knowledge of the truth. The ideals of an authentic Catholic education will not be realized unless they take form through the experiences offered by an educator. Unfortunately, much education today does not include a proper understanding of obligations toward others. Many educators emphasize knowledge for the sake of knowledge. In many Catholic schools, religious education, adoration of God, and liturgical worship occur but don’t always permeate the educational environment.

A Catholic educator has a serious obligation to saturate his methods with respect for the rights of students and Christian charity. Recognizing that many educational systems do not allow for an explicitly Catholic education to exist, the witness of Catholic educators by their way of life can nonetheless transform any educational setting into a Catholic experience.

Education is a tool of evangelization. To the degree an educator promotes human dignity and the knowledge of the truth, the education is authentic. To the degree the educator forms the students into the likeness of Christ, the education is truly Catholic. Catholic educators would do well to saturate their lives according to the principles given by the Church.

Men “realize today more than ever, amid the most exuberant material progress, the insufficiency of earthly goods to produce true happiness either for the individual or for the nations,” Pope Pius XI wrote in his 1929 encyclical Divini Illius Magistri (On the Christian Education of Youth). “And hence they feel more keenly in themselves the impulse toward a perfection that is higher, which impulse is implanted in their rational nature by the Creator himself. This perfection they seek to acquire by means of education” (#6).

LEON SUPRENANT is the director of My Catholic Faith Delivered. This column is reprinted with permission from his book “Faith Facts: Answers to Catholic Questions, Vol. 1,” which he co-authored with Philip C.L. Gray (Emmaus Road Publishing, 1999).

Catechism 101

The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation.

Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2221, 2223