In a recent parenting-advice column published by Slate titled, “We Put Our Kindergartner in Catholic School. Uh, We Never Expected She’d Actually Start to Believe,” a nonbelieving parent shared that she was disturbed her daughter “loved the Catholic teachings” she was taught in kindergarten at her local Catholic school. 

“The stories they are learning and how they are taught are very appealing to a young child, and I know that, even when she gets older, my daughter might just be someone who is attracted to religion and spirituality in a way that I never was,” the girl’s mother, writing anonymously under the sobriquet “Jesus Is Not the Reason for My Season.” 

“I also get that the ‘we are made of stardust’ is not exactly [the] warmest and fuzziest thought. Lately, however, she has been asking really pointed questions about what I believe, and I’m not quite sure how to answer them,” she continued. “For example, the other day, she asked if I believed in Jesus, if I believed that Adam and Eve were real, and on and on. I tried asking her what she believed, but she just asked me again: ‘I want to know what you believe.’” 

“The short answer is no, I don’t believe in those things,” she acknowledged. “But any version of my not believing makes her upset, and pointing out other faith traditions basically gets her to say, ‘Yeah, those are interesting, but Jesus is real.’” 

The advice columnist recommended that the mom tell her young child that she (the mom) was a nonbeliever and to start educating her daughter about competing religions. I felt like both the advice columnist and the parent wished the federal government had a vaccine that could “cure” her daughter’s growing belief. 

Catholic schools often face the tension between their solemn obligation to pass on our Catholic faith and the reality that many parents choose Catholic schools for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with faith. These include strong academics, smaller classes, strict discipline, a safe environment and a sense of community.   

In the Archdiocese of Boston, where I served as superintendent of Catholic schools for five years, I encountered many parents who just were “not into the whole religion thing.”  For example, I had one parent say to me, “I know the school has to have sacraments, but do we have to talk about them all the time?” I thought the phrase “have sacraments” was particularly revealing — as if celebrating sacraments was like your mom forcing you to eat your vegetables. 

At another school, a parent at a school-wide meeting argued that we should dismiss any teaching about St. John Paul II’s theology of the body — articulated across 129 Wednesday audiences between 1979 and 1984 — because (gasp!) these teachings “are more than 40 years old!” Trying my best not to burst out laughing, I responded, “We believe in lots of things that are more than 2,000 years old” and called on the next parent. 

Now, more than ever, this world needs children who embrace the truths of our Church, who understand that God created man and woman, who believe in the sanctity of life, who see the human dignity of each of God’s children, and who believe in objective Truth.  

 Last year, I founded the nonprofit Catholic Talent Project because I believe that America’s bishops need help finding and cultivating faithful Catholics to serve at all levels in our Catholic schools. We cannot evangelize children in our Catholic schools effectively without making sure we have witnesses in every classroom and every leadership position. 

In Boston, I presided over what the Register called a “renaissance of Catholic education.”  At the core of this effort was the largest intentional turnover of Catholic school leadership in the nation (I replaced 75% of parochial-school principals over five years) and the creation of the St. Thomas More Teaching Fellowship. Through this fellowship, we recruit faithful Catholics as they graduate college, train them over the summer and get them placed in Catholic schools to teach and serve as daily witnesses to our faith. 

 The need for dramatic action is evident. By age 13, 50% of children raised in Catholic families walk away from their faith — a staggering 86% by age 18. This high failure rate can only be turned around if we make Catholic schools engines for evangelization. 

Here are a few practical ideas. 

First, the leader of every Catholic school must not only be Catholic but also be a true witness to the faith, someone who is a role model for children and an evangelist for our faith.  

 Second, the school’s academic program needs to reflect the full contribution of the Catholic intellectual tradition. One cannot conceive of Western civilization without the existence of the Catholic Church. The Church has made significant contributions as diverse as art, architecture, music, literature, philosophy and science. A Catholic school in which the only Catholic aspect of the curriculum is the daily religion class is treating Catholicism as a mere footnote to the day. This approach doesn’t do justice to the Catholic contribution to culture and to the history of the world. Effectively, these schools are turning over the rest of the day to secularism. 

 Third, the faculty of the school needs to be comprised of accomplished individuals who represent the faith in their words — but also in the lives they lead. 

Fourth, political correctness — which first took hold in our colleges and universities — is now infiltrating elementary and secondary schools. This trend has been openly embraced in public schools across America. In contrast, a truly Catholic school: must embrace truth not relativism; must see individuals as the creation of God and not merely members of identity groups; and must uphold the human dignity of all lives from conception to natural death, regardless of the values of popular culture. 

 Fifth, ideally a Catholic school needs to take steps to ensure that children are given the opportunity to build positive relationships with seminarians, priests and religious brothers and sisters. These relationships are a central part of instilling our faith in children — and preparing them for the salvation of their souls. 

 Lastly, the children in our schools need to see vividly that Catholicism is at its core a joyful and optimistic faith. Through the sacrament of reconciliation, for example, no matter what mistakes we make or how many times we stumble on our path, we each have a second chance to redeem ourselves on our path to eternal salvation. How great is that! 

 Our culture is under attack. Our values have eroded. And our faith is mocked. We have a clear choice. We can stand by and do nothing. Or we can restore our Catholic schools to be a force for good amid a broader cultural decline.   

Instead of watering down our schools to appease nonbelieving parents, our Catholic schools must plant the seeds for a brighter, more faithful future for the Church and for America.