The Treasure of Our Catholic Social Teachings

In 1997, a House sub-Commitee debated the partial birth abortion bill, and solicited 3 "experts" before the committee to testify both for and against the bill. Among those who testified was Helen Alvare, a spokesperson for the United States Bishop's Conference, who gave an articulate, forceful and above all reasoned argument in favor of banning the procedure in the United States. As much as I was impressed with Ms. Alvare's testimony, it became clear that the Congressmen were even more impressed, for over the next 30 minutes, they questioned, prodded and solicited her opinions to the near exclusion of the two other witnesses co-testifying.

Watching all this on C-Span reminded me of something we Catholics often take for granted: the power and intellectual consistency of our social teaching tradition. Beginning with Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum" in 1891, and refined through the years up to John Paul II, our Church has developed sets of principles and perspectives which can give coherent guidance to public policy, ranging from topics as diverse as welfare reform, capital punishment, and development of third world countries to substantive critiques of socialism and capitalism alike.

It is the internal coherence of these positions that makes them so valued by policy makers and ethicists outside our tradition. Yet sadly, only a small percentage of Catholics understand our social teaching tradition with any depth. Few would know what "subsidiarity" meant, fewer would be able to articulate the proper relationship of government to the economy, perhaps even less would be able to discuss the implications of "preferential treatment of the poor and vulnerable."

Too many of us, rather, are reduced to sincere though unhelpful platitudes that we are to "serve the poor" or "love our neighbors". But how do these gospel commands translate into the issues of our day? What is a "just wage" and how does that translate into the minimum wage debates over the last year? What can we say to those who believe capital punishment is defensible? What about immigration reform? Acceptable levels of unemployment? The role of the state vs. the role of the federal government in Hurricane Katrina reconstruction? Does our faith have anything REALLY to say about these things beyond a sentimental appeal to "just get along"?

I believe it does! Over the course of the next several blogs, I will outline the principle themes of our Catholic social teaching which derived originally from the gospels, but which has crystallized in a sophisticated way over the last 115 years through papal encyclicals.

Excellence!

One of the fundamental creeds of the Jesuit order, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, is to seek “excellia in omnium”, or “excellence in all things”. That’s a good goal for all of us at Montgomery Catholic as we move forward in our institution’s history.

If you’ve been keeping up lately, there are a number of students, school organizations and athletic teams who’ve exemplified excellence in their endeavors, all worth mentioning here:

First, congratulations to our band under the leadership of Mr. Kerry Palmer. In just their third year of existence, they have qualified for the second time for state competition, this time by scoring straight “superior” scores in all categories at district competition. Last year at state, they scored an overall “superior” rating. These are remarkable accomplishments for such a young band, indicative of their hard work and the excellent leadership of Mr. Palmer at the high school and Mr. Valient at our elementary campus. Together with the “Marching Knights” band that started this fall and entertained at football games, our band program has been an unparalleled blessing to our school community.

Second, congratulations to our elementary campus’ Science Olympiad teams. Under the able leadership of Mr. Larry Meiers and Miss Melanie Grayson, the students of St. Bede placed second overall in the state competition in Jacksonville in February and first and second place in competition at the University of West Alabama earlier this fall. These teams learn advanced science in a practical, hands-on way, and their success reflect both their teachers’ and their commitment to excellence in science education. We are proud of them.

National Merit finalists were recently announced, and Montgomery Catholic is proud to have three students who qualified: Thomas Herge, Trey Griffith and Cynthia Weber. (Though Trey left after his junior year due to his parents’ transfer, we’re still taking credit for him since he took the test with us and has been a member of MCPS since his St. Bede days!). These students are three of the top 16,000 students in the nation, now eligible for merit scholarships. Thomas’ first choice of college is Ohio State, whereas Cynthia and Trey aspire to go to Notre Dame. A fourth MCPS student, Emmy Profio, was named a National Achievement semi-finalist earlier this year. Having three finalists and one semi-finalist for a school our size is a great credit to these students, their parents and their teachers.

Kudos again to our world-class speller Ben Szatanek, who for the third straight year will represent Montgomery County in the state spelling bee contest. You may remember that Ben won the state title last year, and competed at the National Spelling Bee contest in Washington, D.C. In case you think it’s just talent, you need to watch Ben around the middle school, using just about every available minute to drill words that few of us have ever heard, much less used in speech!

Finally, if you’ve been reading the sports pages closely, you’ll notice one of our spring athletic programs is off to a tremendous start. Our boy’s team, with young alumnus Timothy McCormack as their coach, is currently 7-0, whereas our girls coach, led by (older) alum Brian Belsterling, is 7-3, having recently won the “MA invitational” this weekend. A combined 14-3 record having played top-flight competition bodes well for our soccer program for the rest of the spring!

We are, then, blessed to be around so many students, coaches and teachers who aspire for excellence in all things. May their example encourage all of us to strive for excellence "ad majorem deum glorium" ("for the greater glory of God", another Jesuit saying, often abbreviated A.M.D.G.).

On Bucking Broncos and Fences

I like asking people "set-up" questions to see how they respond. On the occasion of his golden anniversary, I asked my grandfather the “secret” of a successful marriage. Without missing a beat he said: “Well, I’ve got that all figured out. You see, I made a pact with your grandmother when we first got married that she’d make all the little decisions, and I’d make all the big ones. That has kept the peace between us for 50 years, and I recommend that arrangement to you.” “Of course,” he whispered to me, smiling, “ I’m still waiting to make my first big decision.”

Similarly, on the occasion of her last child to graduate from our school, I jokingly asked a mother the “secret” of raising teenagers. She paused for a moment, then said, quite seriously: “Teenagers are like bucking broncos. If you ride them, their natural instinct is to buck you. Our job as parents, then, is to build fences that lead them in the direction they need to go, so that they think they’re going there of their own accord.”

I consider this mother’s remark the single wisest comment I’ve heard about teenagers in the 22 years I’ve worked with high school students as a teacher, principal or president.

Our tendency as parents is to micro-manage every aspect of our kids’ lives, and however well this works when our children are younger, it is a certain recipe for fruitless conflict as our children become teenagers. When my 15 year old brought home a mediocre report card recently, my knee-jerk response was to set up a rigid schedule at night for homework, with a defined starting and ending time, and with me as “inspector general” , scrutinizing the quality of the work that was done. We battled every night. After a few miserable weeks, the quality had not improved, nor did he seem any more an “owner” of his education than when we started. So I changed tactics, telling my son I expected at least an hour of homework each night before his 10:30 p.m. bedtime, that I would not check it for quality, but I would ask his teachers at the end of each week how he was doing. If I received a favorable report, we could continue with this arrangement and all would be well. If not, he was on complete restriction ( including no cell phone) until the end of the following week, when I’d ask the teachers again. This plan worked much better—he appreciated the “freedom” to schedule his homework around a couple of television shows he wanted to watch, his father wasn’t looking over his shoulder every night, and he had no intention of losing his cell phone (cell phones were once described by an exasperated parent as the “teenage umbilical cord”). I had learned to build fences.

What about the weekends?

I have three teenage children, and my 12 year old is showing signs. Rather than try and choose their friends, or know precisely what they are doing every minute they’re out at night, or “ping” my kids to death by calling them every 30 minutes on the cell phone, my wife and I have learned to keep things simple with three rules:

First, they can go out on Friday and Saturday nights until curfew time (midnight for our 12th grader, 11 for our freshman) but they can’t spend the night at someone else’s house, so we tell them not to bother asking. They ask anyway (being teenagers) but then grudgingly accept the rule as a given. My experience as principal is that almost all of the time, kids get into trouble on weekends when they are spending the night with other teens, and thus do not feel accountable to their parents.

Second, to increase that feeling of accountability, they must talk with me when they get home (yes, that means I must be awake to do so). This gives them the “excuse” they may need to say no to drinking, ala “You don’t know my crazy dad. He actually inspects me when I come home….”

Third, especially with my daughter, she must call us when she arrives and when she leaves a destination, so we know she got there safely or should be arriving home within a certain time. We live in a world where safety matters.

Of course, going out at all is contingent on meeting their classroom and family responsibilities that week. If they do so, they have relative “freedom” during the weekend.

I won’t lie: It sounds cleaner and easier in an essay than it does in real life! We often don't get it right. We get angry and jump on the bronco and ride it for a while, however much we foreswear this as right. Too, we may build fences, but they’re often flimsy things in need of mending (and teens are excellent at spotting where the fence is weakest!). Parenting is trial and error (and error, and error), but I believe we approach things right if we take that mother’s advice. May we all become good fence-builders!