Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412140052
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH STROTHER EDITORIAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She came to St. Michael the Archangel School in St. Louis County at some vaguely recollected point during the years I spent there, from kindergarten through eighth grade. From experience, I can assure you that the Catholic kids were well-behaved, at least while we were on school grounds. And that we prayed.
A lot.
Every school day started with the Mass, with the entire student body except kindergarteners parading over to church in double file, by grade, girls in front, boys in back, in ascending order from the little first-graders to the eighth-graders, methodically filling every pew. I liked going, especially when my sometime-tormentor, Kathlyn, was being particularly mean. It was a refuge.
In school, we prayed aloud together at the start of the day, and again in the afternoon after lunch and recess. Religion was taught every day, in every grade except kindergarten, and pupils prepared as a class for First Communion in first grade, and Confirmation in second. We spent part of one Friday each month trooping over to the church to confess our sins, privately, to the priest, and stopped play on the school grounds when the church bells rang The Angelus at noon.
Religious faith was an integral part of the school day.
Taxpayers did not support our school, yet St. Michael's was no elite academic institution. It was a small parish school in a largely working-class neighborhood that charged a nominal tuition for children of parishioners - and we were all parishioners.
Except the non-Catholic kid.
She came to St. Michael's when I was in, maybe, sixth grade. She was not in my class, and I don't recall actually seeing her, but word spread quickly there was a new girl in school who wasn't Catholic. Or perhaps it spread only after she had gone, because of her reason for leaving.
It's not as if we didn't know people of other faiths. Heck, all of my dad's side of the family is Protestant. He was a convert, which made him a rather exotic figure, himself. But this was pre-Vatican II, pre-Ecumenical Council. Catholics could not attend any non-Catholic church, and we sheltered, parochial-school kids knew nothing of substance about other religions.
(We heard that Baptists couldn't drink and thought Catholics were all going to hell because we could, which outraged me and my friends for much of a day. But we took spiteful comfort in the knowledge that we were supposed to believe - and probably some actually did - that only Catholics got to heaven, which would show those Baptists.)
While I, at least, would have welcomed a little break in the conformity, this girl undoubtedly was just trying to fit in. She went to Mass with her class, I heard later, and when the Communion came round, she took Communion, which is, of course, restricted in the Catholic Church to those who adhere to its faith. A nun took her aside and explained that, while she was expected to attend Mass and to participate in all parts of student life at St. Michael's, she could not go up to the communion rail and receive Communion.
She could have remained in her pew during that part of the service, and she would not have been alone. Anyone could choose not to take Communion, and many sat it out for reasons of their own. Often, in those pre-Vatican II days before the church modernized some of its practices, it was simply because they had eaten breakfast. Communicants were supposed to fast for three hours and drink nothing for one hour before receiving the host.
The girl withdrew from school, though. The talk, never confirmed by the nuns, was that her mother had pleaded with them to let her daughter be like everybody else, something they simply could not do. They had neither the authority nor, I'm sure, the inclination to modify the teachings of the church. And, not liking those teachings, the girl's mother was free to send her kid to some other school.
I very much value my early Catholic education, though I belong to a different church now. There were parts of it I loathed, and parts I loved; parts I've shed and parts I've carried with me. And, yes, I think the emphasis on religion and morals generally did us good - but they were the religion and morals that our parents shared and wanted us to learn.
How does a public school, which must serve everyone, settle on whose religion a prayer will reflect? And if it is designed to reflect everyone's, is it not likely to be meaningful to no one, becoming a mere social nicety, like wishing the store clerk a nice day?
I went to a public high school, and we did not - could not - have school-organized prayer. We also did not have any guns. Drugs were more the stuff of shocked rumor than actual use. And "violence" amounted to the rare fistfight between a couple of tough guys - and once between a couple of tough girls - after school.
I had friends of many different faiths; some were regular churchgoers, some were not. I couldn't imagine any of them going to daily Mass back at St. Michael's, but we shared the same basic values. Those who were serious and deliberate in the practice of their faith did not get their religion piped in over the school P.A. system. They got it in their homes and in their churches or synagogues.
The values they learned, though, were supported in the public schools. Integrity, responsibility, respect, mercy, fairness - matters of character - must be taught, at home and school. They will not come, I fear, from some generic prayer.
by CNB