As someone who attended Catholic schools for 20 years (including seminary) and has been in and around them much of my priesthood, I’ve always had a strong sense of a Catholic education’s importance – to me personally, to my family and friends, and to the Church as a whole.
We celebrate Catholic Schools Week at the end of this month, and I now write from a different perspective than in recent years. I am part of the school system.
Since becoming chaplain at St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C., in 2023, I have been in a school most days the last 16 months. I also assist with sacraments and other activities at several additional Catholic schools.
My perspective might be a little different now, but my opinion is not. I still believe strongly in the importance and value of a Catholic education.
I see students that are happy and enjoying life. I see students who want to be at school, enjoy the challenges of learning, are excited about being with their friends, and have great respect and appreciation for their teachers. I see students preparing their best for college and engaged in many activities.
I am especially excited about the spiritual growth I see in our young people. I’m sure it is equally exciting at all our Catholic schools and with students of all ages.
We have a number of students at St. John’s on their way to becoming Catholic. Our retreat programs help students reflect on who they are, the gifts they’ve been given, what they want to do with their lives, and their relationship with God.
I also see many students receiving the sacraments. We have morning Masses available most days and an optional home room Mass weekly, in addition to several schoolwide Masses each year. We had a day of confessions in Advent with 12 priests assisting, and I am thrilled to say that about 175 young people received God’s grace and forgiveness that day.
What a blessing it is to help our young people grow in their faith as they also grow academically and socially. It is especially rewarding and inspiring to see such enthusiasm at a time when Mass attendance and participation in the sacraments has declined.
I often think back to when I began to understand the importance of a Catholic education. I was still a young boy and asked my father what we gave in the Sunday collection. He told me we did what we could, but that my parents’ real goal was to give their children a Catholic education. And that was no small goal with 13 kids!
“I’m going to send 13 faith-filled people into the world to spread the gospel and bring God’s love to others,” he told me. He succeeded. I’ve seen it every day in my siblings throughout the decades, and I still marvel how my parents accomplished their goal on one government salary.
More importantly, it was a tremendous gift to us children, which in time turned into gifts to our parishes, our own families as adults, the communities we lived in, and the Church as a whole. A Catholic education and my parents’ commitment produced more workers in the Lord’s vineyard.
Parents send their children to Catholic schools for a variety of reasons, including academics, culture, structure and safety. Many kids enrolled in our schools during the COVID-19 pandemic when public schools were unable to meet in person.
All our students – Catholic and non-Catholic – are taught and surrounded by values and principles they carry into adulthood. I know many non-Catholics who attended Catholic school and insisted their children do the same, largely because we incorporate prayer and values into the educational experience.
I have witnessed the fruits of a Catholic education more times than I could ever count. I know many young people blessed with a Catholic education who are now leaders in their own churches and the archdiocese. They do great things for others through Catholic Charities, the Office of Youth Ministry and CYO, religious education programs, and as faith-filled parents, coaches, volunteers and neighbors.
That’s not a coincidence. Catholic educators prepare our young people for the world they will enter, but they ultimately help us live our faith in our families, homes, the Church and the world around us.
I would like to give a shoutout to all those educators. They work for less than they could make in public schools, and they do it because it is their ministry. I am grateful to all teachers across the archdiocese committed to their ministry to help our young people know God in a very personal way.
Let’s celebrate and thank God for the tremendous gift of a Catholic education – past, present and future. Let us also give thanks and pray for our schools, students, faculty, and staff, as well as parents, grandparents and all generous hearts who make a Catholic education possible for our young people.
These gifts make a difference in our Church today, and they will long into the future.
(Msgr. John Enzler serves as the mission advocate of Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and is a chaplain at his alma mater, St. John’s College High School in Washington. He writes the Faith in Action column for the archdiocese’s Catholic Standard and Spanish-language El Pregonero newspapers and websites.)
