Sustaining Catholic Education in and for the Black Community
By Lois J. Carson, Sr. Roberta Fulton, S.S.M.N., Dorothy Gupton, Veronica Morgan-Lee, Freida D. McCray, Mary Crowley McDonald, Kathleen A. Merritt, Sr. Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., Ph.D., Brother Gary Sawyer, ECSA, Deacon Marvin Threatt, PhD.
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School Climate
If a Catholic school is to be effective today, it must maintain a strong Catholic philosophy and identity, not only in the words of its mission statement, but in its climate, environment, and policies.
Authentic Catholic schools enable students to learn and achieve academically, as well as to develop and express their faith in activities that promote personal growth. Schools with a strong Catholic identity often provide liturgies, retreats, prayer, spiritual direction, and reconciliation.
At Mater Dei Catholic High School in San Diego, all students attend a school-wide liturgy each Wednesday; the sacrament of reconciliation is offered each Friday; and each class has a yearly overnight retreat for reflection and prayer. A vigorous religious education program, coupled with optional daily noontime chapel prayer and praise, enables students to participate in consistent spiritual activity. This daily reflection creates a prayerful campus atmosphere and identifies the school as an institution of learning that is spirituality rooted in Gospel values.
 Faith formation and spiritual development are followed specifically
in the design of all curricula at Loyola Catholic Grade School in Denver, Colorado.
Social Justice and Christian Service
Quality Catholic education goes beyond the concept of school identity, curriculum, and climate. Catholic education must also answer the call to social justice and Christian service.
The Book of Genesis tells us that when God created the world, He declared His creation was good. Although God indeed created a good world, sin has caused suffering and injustice to abound. The Christian's task is to work to return the world to goodness, to alleviate suffering, and to initiate a time of justice.
Catholic education gives students skills and opportunities to foster goodness in the world. Just as Christ transforms the world through the Church, the Catholic school prepares students to participate in that transformation, and thus to bring about the reign of God, when all will be as God intended. To seek social justice is to work to return the world to the original goodness in which it was created.
Church teaching, based on the gospel message of Jesus, calls us to exercise an option for the poor and vulnerable, to put their needs first among all social concerns. The terms “poor” and “vulnerable” refer not only to those who lack financial assets, but also to those who are deprived of basic human and civil rights, or who are deprived of the right to full and equal participation in society. Thus, enabling students to work for social justice gives them an opportunity to respond to injustice by putting their faith in action.
In the 1971 apostolic letter, Call to Action (Octogesimo Adveniens), Pope Paul VI called Christians to bring about the social, political, and economic changes needed in our society and world. The letter offered a three-step process for pursuing justice known as “the Circle of Faith in Action.”
The first step in the process is to see the world as God intended it to be. The second is to analyze what is wrong and why. The third step is to take action to restore the world as God would have it. Work for justice is accomplished in two ways: first, via direct action or charity, alleviating immediate, short term suffering; and secondly, via social action, seeking ways to bring about a systemic change to an existing injustice.
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