Faith in Catholic Education
I go to St.Rose of Lima Catholic Church in San Antonio TX. It is a nice Church, very beautiful in it’s architecture. We have good Priest and Sisters and a great community of believers. However a dark cloud exist in our CCD or Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes. A problem (that I believe) the volunteer religious teachers can not solve. Many young kids who are entered into the program are atheist. For whatever reason, they don’t believe in God. Yet they are still in the classes. I feel that this is the greatest assault on one’s fabric of ontological value. Not only are they deceiving other people around them, they are also deceiving themselves. They are saying prayers to a God that they don’t even believe exist. They are going to Church and taking part in the Eucharist, yet believing it is nothing more than just a weird tasting piece of bread. I wonder how one can lie to themselves like that. I could never say I believe in something every week when I never really did. What makes this happen? For some, it’s the prize at the end of the classes. Not the prize of Heaven, but of a party, the Quinceanera . A girl told me how she was only in the class so she could have a party, after that, she would quit. Another reason why people stay in a program that they don’t even believe is true is because their parents force them to. This leads to a second problem. Parents are the best people who can show their kids the goodness of the Catholic faith. This should begin when the child is young, and it should be entwined with a fabric of Love. Religion can not be taught effectively if there is no love in the lesson. One can not learn religion from a stranger. That is why those people who are outside the malls or downtown who try to speak about God are usually ignored. Religion can not be accepted without an acceptance of love first, and you can not teach what you do not have. That is why sending kids to a class one hour a week is not going to help them learn more about their faith. Parents must be well educated in their faith and teach it to their children themselves in a loving manner. This will more than likely reduce the atheism of a teenager since it will help them understand it more . But if the kid still wants to be an atheist, the parents must try to help the kid see where they are wrong and still allow them to be educated by them, not the CCD program. Parents are the greatest defenders of the Faith for their children. Today in our decaying society, we need more educated parents. This is the first step towards a more abundant Catholic faith for the entire family.
