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Denver Newsroom, Nov 18, 2020 / 03:07 am (CNA).- The U.S. bishops’ new chairman for Catholic education says he hopes to bring his experience as a Catholic school teacher and president, as well as pastor of two parishes, into his new position.

In an increasingly secular society, when people’s lives seem more and more to lack meaning, “our schools remind us of Christ’s love…a dignity of the human person that is beyond the mindset of the present moment, or the latest educational trend,” Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane, Washington told CNA Nov. 17.

Daly’s fellow bishops on Nov. 16 elected him to serve as Chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education for the U.S. bishops’ conference, which provides guidance for the educational mission of the Church to Catholic elementary and secondary schools, Catholic colleges and universities, and college campus ministry.

The bishops’ conference has 18 standing committees that each focus on a specific topic related to the bishops’ mission. Each committee is made up of both bishops and lay consultants, with one bishop serving as chairman.

Daly worked in Catholic schools for 19 years before his appointment as bishop, including serving for a time as a teacher and later as president at Marin Catholic High School near San Francisco. He succeeds Bishop Michael Barber, SJ of Oakland as chairman.

The “first mission” of any Catholic school should be the salvation of souls, he noted, but too often Catholic schools focus almost exclusively on academics, to the detriment of their Catholic mission.

A Catholic school ought to be academically excellent, while always keeping in mind why Catholic schools exist— to strengthen the faith foundation, he said.

Instead of being merely a private prep school with “a little bit of religious flavoring,” a Catholic school should encourage and guide its students to “seek the Lord with a sincere heart,” Daly said.

“We don’t need more ‘private schools.’ We need schools that are Catholic, that teach and proclaim the Gospel with the realization of academic rigor,” he said.

The USCCB’s Catholic education committee exists to support Catholic schools in their mission, Daly said, and one of the ways this is done is by supporting the priest who serves the school. This may involve training or inspiration for the priest to help him better shepherd the school, he said, and to motivate the parish community to support the school.

One of the most important factors in a school’s character is the academic leadership, which for elementary schools is most often the principal, he said.

Daly said he saw the school he previously worked for turn from a more secular attitude to a direction of faithfulness thanks in large part to its principal, who “never forgot the example of his education growing up as a Catholic.”

The principal was at once a very good administrator, and also a humble man of faith, Daly noted. Thanks to his strong leadership, that school is now producing religious vocations, which Daly said is a strong indicator of a Catholic school fulfilling its mission.

One of the biggest current challenges to Catholic schools, to no one’s surprise, is the fallout from COVID-19 and ongoing lockdowns, Daly said.

At least 140 Catholic schools— mostly elementary schools— have closed in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, he said, and elementary schools remain the most vulnerable to closure.

“I think we have to re-examine why we have our schools, and why they’re so important to families,” he said.

Making Catholic schools accessible for students with disabilities is also a priority, he said, and he hopes his committee will be able to assist and encourage schools to expand their special education programs.

Daly said historically, Catholic schools arose in the United States during a time when many public schools were de facto Protestant, and often presented a somewhat hostile environment to Catholic families.

“The need for Catholic education today is as important as it has been since the 1800s, when the Church and our mission were [often] attacked,” he said.

Part of the reason for this, Daly said, is that laws in many states make public school curricula nonconducive to an education in Catholic values.

For example, during the Nov. 2020 election, voters in Washington state approved a ballot measure that will require “comprehensive sex education” in public schools, which Daly noted “undermines core beliefs of our faith” by failing to address complex moral issues tied to human sexuality, and failing to discuss sex in the context of marriage.

He said serving as a priest and educator in San Francisco— today a very secular and liberal city overall— allowed him to observe indifference and later hostility to the Church’s message firsthand.

Daly said within Catholic education, there ought not be a dichotomy between “social justice” and “piety.” He pointed to the life of St. Teresa of Calcutta as an example of strong faith and morals manifesting in a life of service.

Catholic schools ought to be places of learning, he said, which involves allowing students to encounter differing viewpoints and ideas. Catholic schools should respect students’ freedom, not forcing them to accept the faith, but also not compromising on the Church’s beliefs.

While realizing that not every student who enters a school or university is or will be Catholic, there ought to be at least an exposure to Catholic theology, morals, and intellectual tradition at the university, he said.

Today, many students graduate from Catholic universities having never taken a Catholic theology class. Some Catholic universities may do this because they fear that students of other faiths will be less likely to attend, or because a more Catholic curriculum may be viewed as “narrow-minded.”

“Too many institutions of higher learning and Catholic education have compromised their mission, and that to me is not going to be effective,” Daly commented.

“Education with humility leads to wisdom; without humility, it leads to arrogance.”

During February 2020, Gonzaga University, a Jesuit school located in the Spokane diocese, announced the creation of a law clinic focused primarily on LGBT advocacy.

“While the Catholic tradition does uphold the dignity of every human being, the LGBT Rights law clinic’s scope of practice could bring the GU Law School into conflict with the religious freedom of Christian individuals and organizations,” Daly told CNA at the time.

“There is also a concern that Gonzaga Law School will be actively promoting, in the legal arena and on campus, values that are contrary to the Catholic faith and natural law.”

Daly said he wrote to the university president in February, requesting that the president speak to him about the clinic, but never received a reply— likely because the situation unfolded right before the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Smoke from the 2021 Boulder County fire over Superior, Colo., Dec. 30, 2021. / Tristantech via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Denver, Colo., Dec 31, 2021 / 14:06 pm (CNA).
Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver announced on Friday the establishment of an… […]

Washington D.C., Sep 1, 2018 / 06:44 pm (CNA).- The former nuncio to the US wrote Thursday his account of Pope Francis’ 2015 meeting with Kim Davis, a county clerk who had refused out of conscience to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Davis, a clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, served five days in jail for her refusal, in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges.

The pope met Davis at the apostolic nunciature in Washington, D.C., Sept. 24, 2015, during his visit to the US.

Davis’ lawyer told multiple media outlets of the encounter. According to the Liberty Counsel, Davis said that “Pope Francis was kind, genuinely caring, and very personable. He even asked me to pray for him. Pope Francis thanked me for my courage and told me to ‘stay strong’.”

When first asked about the meeting, then-head of the Holy See press office, Fr Federico Lombardi, said: “I don’t deny that the meeting may have taken place but I don’t have comments to add.”

Several days later, Oct. 2, 2015, Fr. Lombardi said Pope Francis met with Davis alongside several dozen others who had been invited by the nunciature to greet him as he prepared to leave Washington for New York City.

Such brief greetings “occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope’s characteristic kindness and availability,” he said, adding that the only specific audience granted by the Pope at the nunciature “was with one of his former students and his family.”

Fr. Lombardi stated that during Pope Francis’ meeting with Davis, the Pope “did not enter into the details” of her situation, and specified that the meeting with her “should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects.”

Fr. Thomas Rosica, an English-language assistant to Holy See Press Office, told journalists Oct. 2, 2015 that Pope Francis had not been fully briefed on Davis’ situation, or the impact such a meeting would have.

Archbishop Vigano, who was apostolic nuncio to the US at the time of Francis’ visit to the country, issued his Aug. 30 statement in response to an Aug. 28 article in the New York Times.

In that article, the clerical sex abuse victim Juan Carlos Cruz recounted that in April, Francis told him: “I did not know who the woman [Davis] was and he [Msgr. Viganò] snuck her in to say hello to me — and of course they made a whole publicity out of it. And I was horrified and I fired that Nuncio.”

In his statement, published by LifeSiteNews Aug. 31, Archbishop Vigano stated that “Faced with the Pope’s reported statement, I feel obliged to recount the events as they really unfolded.”

The former nuncio said that on Sept. 23, 2015, he spoke with Pope Francis “to bring to his attention, and possible approval, a delicate and easily achievable initiative; that is, to meet personally and in a completely confidential way, out of the media spotlight, with Kim Davis.”

He says he gave the pope a brief memo summarizing Davis’ case, and that Francis “appeared in favor of such an initiative” but wanted Archbishop Vigano to speak with Cardinal Pietro Parolin about the political implications of such a meeting.

Archbishop Vigano said he went that evening, with two of his counselors, to the hotel where the Secretary of State was staying, and he was met by two of his deputies, Archbishop Angelo Becciu and Archbishop Paul Gallagher. Cardinal Parolin had already retired for the night.

“I gave them the same memo that I had given to the Pope, setting forth its content and explaining the reason for my visit, Archbishop Vigano wrote. “After considering the case, Archbishop Becciu was immediately in favor of the Pope receiving Davis privately before he left Washington for New York.”

He said Archbishop Gallagher was more cautious, but was reassured by a canonist of the nunciature that “there were no procedural obstacles,” and he then “gave an unconditionally favorable opinion that the Pope should receive Davis.”

According to Archbishop Vigano, the following morning he told the pope of the positive opinion of the officials from the Secretariat of State. “The Pope then gave his consent, and I organized to have Davis come to the Nunciature without anyone noticing, by having her sit in a separate room,” he said.

The former nuncio wrote that he told the L’Osservatore Romano photographer not to release photos of the meeting without his superior’s permission, and that his photos are kept in the paper’s photographic archive.

That afternoon, Archbishop Vigano recounted, Pope Francis “entered as planned into the sitting room where Davis and her husband were waiting for him. He embraced her affectionately, thanked her for her courage, and invited her to persevere. Davis was very moved and started crying. She was then taken back to her hotel in a car driven by a pontifical gendarme, accompanied by an American Monsignor and staff member of the Nunciature.”

The former nuncio said he was called by Cardinal Parolin in October 2015, after the news of the meeting had broke, who told him, “You must come immediately to Rome because the Pope is furious with you.”

Archbishop Vigano wrote that he met with the pope Oct. 9, 2015 for about an hour, during which he “did not mention even once the audience with Davis”, and praised the visit to the US and his reception there.

“As soon as my audience with the Pope was over, I immediately phoned Cardinal Parolin,” Archbishop Vigano wrote, “and said to him, ‘The Pope was so good with me. Not a word of reproach, only praise for the success of his visit to the USA.’ At which point Cardinal Parolin replied, ‘It’s not possible, because with me he was furious about you.’”

Archbishop Vigano wrote that regarding Cruz’ interview with the New York Times, “either Cruz or the Pope” lied about Francis’ understanding of his visit with Davis.

“What is certain is that the Pope knew very well who Davis was, and he and his close collaborators had approved the private audience,” the former nuncio stated. “Journalists can always check, by asking the prelates Becciu, Gallagher and Parolin, as well as the Pope himself.”

“It is clear, however, that Pope Francis wanted to conceal the private audience with the first American citizen condemned and imprisoned for conscientious objection.”

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