The Restoration of Catholic Civilization in SSPX Schools
Fr. Beck, since 2005 you have been the superintendent of schools for the US District of the Society of St. Pius X. In all those years of working with education, what has been your central aim? How would you express the purpose of the schools of the Society of St. Pius X?
The aim of our schools is no different than the motto of our patron, Saint Pius X, as set forth in his first encyclical: the restoration of all things in Christ. We hear this phrase so often it can sound like a cliché and we do not think about what it means, so it is good to refresh our understanding. The Archbishop explained that these words of St. Paul, in Greek, mean to put everything back in order under the Kingship of Christ: literally to recapitulate all things, to put all human reality under Christ as its head.
The goal of our schools is to work in close union with Catholic families to help each child become the saint God created him to be. A saint is a person whose entire life is Christ-dependent, every detail in order at the service of Christ the King. Through the children, with the families, our schools are meant to help recreate a Catholic civilization, and give back to society the Catholic spirit, the sense of God, that St. Pius X spoke of in his encyclicals.
Father, I imagine most parents who send their children to our schools are more thinking about protecting their children from our current civilization than hoping to change it. What would you say is the biggest threat or obstacle that the modern world poses to the education of our children?
Modern society is essentially in revolt against God’s order. Any attempt to give Christ back His rightful place in human lives, to order human life under the rule of Christ, is going to be met with opposition.
We see this opposition on every level, toward individuals and toward institutions. We have twenty-two schools across the United States, and each one is struggling valiantly to accomplish its mission. Large or small, each of our schools has to swim upstream. Thankfully, we do not yet face some of the legal obstacles that Catholic schools in other countries are obliged to contend with—I am thinking of certain European countries, or our neighbor to the north.
The greatest obstacle to our schools right now is not official persecution but the ambient culture of revolt and rejection of order. Twenty years ago, children drank in the spirit of the world through television and video games. Today, television has been replaced by the internet, available literally everywhere to children who have their own cell phones, and video games have reached a sophistication that really overwhelms the minds and emotions of the children who play them. Not to mention social media, which exercises an enormous pull, and lets young people live alternate, unreal lives outside the control of educators. It is a nightmare when these influences come into the lives of our young people.
This culture of revolt threatens differently the various members of society: children, parents, teachers—all of us. We have to be on our guard against attitudes in ourselves that actually reflect the spirit of the world and the spirit of revolt against God.
Father, isn’t the phrase “the spirit of the world” a bit of a cliché as well? What is this spirit of the world we are so often warned against?
One of the difficulties that we Catholics and educators deal with daily is that words have lost their impact, we are so disconnected from what is real.
The spirit of the world rejects the spirit of Christ—ultimately, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, who makes us cry to God, “Abba, Father,” as His children, coheirs with Christ. The spirit of the world is the Non serviam of Satan, an attitude of independence from God. Concretely, for us, the spirit of the world comes whenever we separate the details of our daily life from the principles of our Faith.
Our schools have to struggle, because our work is not flashy or exciting or a work of quick domination. It is a work of gradual submission of each individual student to God’s order, in nature and grace.
Father, how do our schools go about giving a Catholic education in this context of universal revolt?
As Archbishop Lefebvre said of the Society, our work is not primarily against the crisis, but for the Mass and the Catholic faith. In our schools, we strengthen children against the world by a strong, deliberate, faithful attachment to the traditions of Catholic education.
First of all, the education which we offer in our schools is Thomistic. St. Thomas Aquinas is the patron of Catholic schools, and his solid principles of philosophy and theology are at the basis of our curriculum and our teaching methods. These principles tell us about God and His creation, and especially about human nature and grace: how grace builds on nature, how nature grows, how nature is wounded by original sin. These principles tell us about what is real, about the world around us and about ourselves and the truths of our supernatural destiny. St. Thomas is very realistic, and if we respect these principles that he presents to us so clearly, our smallest practical decisions will be grounded in common sense. Our efforts will be realistic and united toward the same goal, never random.
So I would say that the first aspect of the Catholic education that we give is that it is realistic and ordered. This education takes into account what is, and aims to bring the students to live in God’s reality, not in a false, imaginary world of revolt and “me, me, me.”
Simply by focusing on these solid, Catholic principles, we are already defending children against the world that surrounds them. The world is suffering from a kind of insanity, a fever of hatred for anything that comes from God the Creator, the Father of our souls. It prefers the worst disorder, completely reinventing the universe, rather than live in an order that comes from God.
Theology and philosophy seem a little remote from “reading, writing and ‘rithmatic,” Father. Could you give us some examples of how these principles turn into practice, in our schools?
Yes, I understand—“philosophy” and “kindergarten” are not usually words we would put together! But your question is important. We can take any subject—religion, English, history, science, math—to see how theology and philosophy really do trickle down to every detail.
Maybe the easiest to start with is science: human nature develops gradually, and a small child has to see and hear and touch and smell and even taste in order to form his first ideas. So science class in the younger grades is focused on nature study and bringing children into contact with what is, by their senses. Children cannot learn too many ideas at a time, so in the first years of school science class will be simple, concentrating on one real thing. A lesson might focus on leaves, for example, and noticing with the children all of the different trees that grow around their school or home and collecting a few samples, observing the different parts of the leaves, the way the veins of the different leaves spread out from the center. The teacher helps the students to observe the differences between real things, and the class can discuss the reasons why different leaves are shaped in different ways. So simple, but the child’s intellect is learning to distinguish between objects and process ideas and come to realistic conclusions.
The information that the teacher gives, and the way the teacher gives that information, follow other principles of Thomistic philosophy. For example, the human mind, child or adult, loves to discover for itself, and ideas are only really solid when the child is able to draw conclusions on his own. At the same time, the teacher knows more than the child does, and has to point to what the child should notice and help the child reason about what he sees.
Then in middle school and high school, science becomes more complex. When high school students study physics, complicated truths of mathematics are involved in the discovery of nature. Yet, the same principles apply: the teacher tries to show the students how real things act and move, and concrete examples and experiments keep the mathematical formulae realistic for the students. Even though science seems to become very abstract, in a Catholic, realistic education, it will still be tied to God’s Creation and what is. It is very important that children keep a sense of wonder and awe in front of nature and its laws, because nature comes directly from the hand of God and always obeys Him, in a really beautiful order.
Throughout the grades, this respect of the stages of development of a child are a major part of our curriculum: a respect for the way God created man’s intellect, for example—children form ideas slowly, and if we rush them to learn faster than their minds can absorb, or tell them things that aren’t at all connected to experience, we are not really teaching them. We are not making a foundation for later years, for adulthood.
That realism is clear when you speak of science, but what about a subject like literature? Isn’t English class full of imagination and fiction?
Excellent question. Literature is an extremely important tool in education because it shows children the principles of human nature in a way that is concrete and very “absorbable.” God made man in such a way that he loves stories; stories reach him, and can shape the way he thinks and acts. So, a skillful author, a true artist, puts us in contact with moral beauty and truths of human nature, even if he is creating characters who never actually existed.
The books that we study in English class show in a delightful way the order that God created and the destiny of man. Well-crafted, well-written stories give joy and cause admiration, and when a soul is open in this way, much learning can happen. We know how damaging bad literature can be—think of the vampire novels or the grim fantasy which are poison to the young reader, because he soaks in ideas of disorder as he follows the adventures of the characters. Good books are powerful to convey truth, in a way that sinks deeply into the students because they are open and delighted by a good story.
Do you mean our schools use literature to teach students about virtue?
Yes, although indirectly. English class receives a great deal of time in our curriculum because of all the human qualities it teaches to the students. A good book—like any work of art—awakens the child’s powers in a way that is ordered, inviting to admire and imitate. His emotions and intellect and will all become attentive to receive. The joy of discovery makes him want to obtain that moral beauty for himself, and he freely draws conclusions about his own action.
In class, the teacher fosters this effect of a good book by helping the students read faithfully, reflectively, noticing detail and appreciating the beauty of a work. Class discussion, with good questions from the teacher, helps the students identify with characters and their actions and think about why they do what they do, what actions are good and what are bad, what kind of choices are noble and admirable. When students write paragraphs or essays, this intellectual process continues. From literature and through the different ways literature is used in the classroom, students are gradually drawing conclusions about what is real and what is good, absorbing principles and thinking naturally about how those principles apply in their life.
So, yes, literature teaches virtue, always in a Thomistic, realistic way, and according to the different stages of maturity. Genuine, ordered literature makes virtue desirable, by the way it causes delight and admiration. It makes the students think about reality and strive toward heroism.
Father, we have spoken of Catholic education and not yet said anything about the study of Catholic doctrine. Isn’t religion class the most important subject in a Catholic school?
Absolutely. In fact, all of the other subjects prepare the students to receive Catholic truth in religion class, the way nature is prepared for grace. In every class, the student is taught to see the subject in its place in God’s order: science gives admiration for God’s creation, mathematics give a sense of order by training the logic and objectivity of the child—something which grammar does, as well. In history class, our teachers help the students see the events of the past as the unfolding of God’s Providence and also as the results of man’s fidelity and courage, or his injustice and fear.
No subject prepares for religion class as closely as English class, though, because of the sense of admiration and receptivity proper to our English program. This class instills a sense of the sacredness of creation and of human life, the sacredness of anything that touches the soul. When the student comes to religion class, the words used to apply to natural realities have meaning when applied to supernatural realities.
Could you give us an example of nature preparing for grace, in that way, Father?
Certainly. One of the major themes in literature—whether children’s books or classical literature—is the idea that a father is sacred, and that a son receives his own honor and nobility from the qualities of his father and from his loyalty to what his father has transmitted to him. In our world, clearly this notion is attacked, and the strength of a father is caricatured and vilified as “toxic masculinity.” But when children from the earliest grades receive from literature beautiful, real examples of paternal love and kindness and guidance, this word “father” is full of strong meaning. This word helps children see their own father more clearly, as someone sacred, by nature. It also helps prepare children for the Gospel, because the Gospel is nothing other than Christ coming to tell us that God is our Father, and dying so that we would become truly His sons.
You can see how English class in our schools can be a very direct preparation for the child’s interior life, his spiritual life, as he learns to look at God as a father and speak to Him with real filial piety, with awe and affection.
English class also prepares the child very directly to receive from the Church, his Mother. Cardinal Wiseman said that the Catholic liturgy is made up almost entirely of poetry, in one form or another. Look at the preface of the Blessed Virgin, for example—this prayer of the Mass uses poetic images, calling Christ the light, which the Blessed Virgin shone out upon the world, effudit. So when a child is familiar with the analogous way words can be used, and when he is made very attentive to language and detail, it is obvious that he is going to be more affected by the words of Mother Church.
Father, you speak of the liturgy. How many of our schools have daily Mass available to the students?
Some of our smaller schools, located around mission chapels, only have Mass occasionally, often on a Monday or a First Friday when the priest from the closest priory is able to spend time at the school. However, sometimes when Mass is only available infrequently, students have an even greater desire to attend, and it is this desire that is most important.
One of our projects as we continually improve our religion program is to help the students appreciate and sing Gregorian chant, so that they can receive all the beauty of the liturgy on the days when Mass is available. Gregorian chant is the song of the Church to Her Spouse, and when we are able to join our voices to this song, it deepens our own spiritual life.
Archbishop Lefebvre taught that the liturgy is the source of Christian civilization because of how strongly it unites all the powers of man toward the adoration of God. Of all the sources of grace, and all the sources of defense and strengthening against the spirit of revolt and the corruption of this world, the liturgy is the most direct and the most powerful.
As educators, we keep this always in mind: the Church is the source of order and sanctity in individuals and families and nations. Every aspect of the school day should prepare the students, directly or indirectly, to receive from the Church. So religion class has that purpose, to prepare the children to pray and to be attentive to the Holy Ghost who wants to make brand new saints out of each one of them. And all the other classes in our school day have this goal in mind: to prepare nature for grace.
Father, parents probably dread the day their children step out of the protected environment of home and school and enter the world for themselves. Among all these details, is there one key or a secret that you can give us, for a Catholic education that stays strong and solid?
The secret is in the interior life of the child, a life of prayer and openness to grace which has to build from the very beginning. It is absolutely essential that our young people come to love their faith so genuinely that when they leave home and leave school they will not be tempted by the false, flashy attractions of the world. If we do not give students a deep spiritual life, a life of sursum corda, and we only expect them to repeat catechism questions back to us and behave externally according to the rules we give them, certainly, we are building on sand. But if we help students love the Gospel and the liturgy and help them receive from it, we are building on the rock of God’s grace. We are preparing a new generation of heroes of the faith, who will reclaim and renew civilization, instruments of the Holy Ghost.
Father, you said in the beginning of this interview that schools have to work in close union with Catholic families. What is the relationship that should exist between parents and schools?
Parents can give their children no greater gift than the witness of unity among the authorities whom God has established over His faithful. In the plan of God, parents and the Church work together, like nature and grace. The schools of the Society of St. Pius X are part of the Church, a work of the Church. So parents and school authorities have graces of state to work together for the same goal of educating children. This is a very consoling doctrine, because it means God wants to guarantee the unity of education by promising His grace to each educator. These questions are treated very clearly in Divini Illius Magistri, Pius XI’s encyclical on Catholic education.
A Catholic sense of trust, based on supernatural motives, needs to be the basis of any relationship between home and school. In God’s plan, a stable, loving home is absolutely necessary to a child; this education in the home is primary in the sense of fundamental. Parents are irreplaceable, and the school can only do a limited good if the child is not receiving deep, ordered affection at home, in a genuinely Catholic atmosphere. When children receive the same Catholic principles at home and at school, from the family and from the Church, they realize that what their parents tell them is real and universal and eternal—not just “what mom and dad say.”
One of our most important tasks in the District is training our teachers, so that they are able to correspond to their own grace of state as Catholic educators. Every summer we host Catholic Teacher Seminars, in a cycle that lasts two years, uniting practice and principle. The deeper the Catholic formation of teachers and parents, the more we will be united.
Do you have concrete advice to parents on deepening their formation and helping their children receive?
The source of all formation is always the Church. Go to the liturgy, go to our Mother and learn to receive from Her. Learn to love Gregorian chant and attend the High Mass with your children if at all possible. Read The Liturgical Year of Dom Guéranger. And cultivate the grace of state which you possess by your marriage; for example, listen to the conferences or read the book by Fr. Grün on the Wine of Cana. Angelus Press has other good resources as well, the Art of Parenting conference series, for example. Take advantage of any formation that is offered by your priory or mission.
Communication is hugely important. Speak to the principal of your school, ask about what is taught in the classroom and how you can help your children receive. In most of our schools, children do their work in beautiful permanent notebooks; look at what your child brings home, discuss it with him. Show your children that what they are learning is important. That kind of parental attention increases a hundredfold a child’s desire to learn.
Be aware of the things that undermine Catholic principles by disordering the emotions of the children so that the truth is less welcome. Sentimental or violent movies, sensual, rhythmic music—these sterilize the soul of the students and keep them from desiring what the school tries to give.
Father, do you have any final words to summarize the situation of our schools?
We have to be souls of hope. Supernatural hope is realistic, because it is based on the almighty power of God and His love for us. We are doing His work. Providence has brought us very far. We do see some beautiful results in our graduates—solid vocations to the priesthood and the religious life, and young Catholic families starting a new generation—children and even grandchildren of students enrolled in our schools. Archbishop Lefebvre hoped our priories and missions would be like miniature Christendoms, seeds of Catholic civilization.
But supernatural hope is also realistic in that we cannot count on ourselves. The situation of the world today is humanly hopeless, and the task before us is gigantic. We have the principles, we have the teaching methods, we have many good teachers, we have parents with strong faith who support our schools, and we have students ready and eager to receive. But we are still very, very fragile in ourselves. Many of our schools cannot afford to hire teachers at a living wage that would allow stability of staff, so we are continually training new teachers. And all of us need to be more completely penetrated by the Catholic principles which we are trying to transmit to the students. If we are souls of hope, we will not be impatient and discouraged, first of all with ourselves. The task is immense. But if we are souls of hope, we will see each moment and each trial as a way to anchor ourselves more firmly in God, who loves nothing more than to show Himself a Father. He is able to surprise us with graces and victories beyond what we can imagine.