Abolishing Religion at Holy Angels

That headline had to get some attention! About a month and a half ago, the entire school was asked to respond to a survey about the school as well as share any thoughts or opinions regarding what is going on at Holy Angels. Some of the comments were ones we have received, and responded to, in the past, while others contained new critiques and insights. Probably the most interesting comment, to me, was the survey that called for the elimination of religion classes at the school.

My first thought was why would you send your child to Holy Angels if that was your opinion. If the desire was to obtain an inexpensive "private" school education, Holy Angels is a bad choice. We are first and foremost a Catholic school. (Yes, a significant difference exists between the two.) We provide a strong education, but our faith is the reason Holy Angels exists.

However, I did begin to reflect on what it would mean to the school if we did get rid of the religion classes. We would have the minutes in the day for the Spanish classes or extra P.E. people often speak about. That would be great! But we would also lose what makes Holy Angels the school that it is, and more importantly, it would change the students we produce at Holy Angels.

Teaching our students about our faith provides the foundation for so much of what we do and what makes the school special. We do not view Catholicism as a subject that fills thirty minutes of the students' day. In addition to being the building blocks of the values we pass on to our students, it also becomes the rationale behind our expectation that the students live their faith.

Living your faith may sometimes mean collecting for those less fortunate than ourselves. While compassion and social justice are qualities I would hope every school-aged child learns about, for our students, it is mandatory. Sometimes it may be taught through our school family activities or when classes collaborate on an activity. Responsible leadership, the sharing of knowledge, and community building are all characteristics of the Church that our youngest students should be learning about and participating in.

Even if we eliminated religion classes from Holy Angels, to eliminate the words and teachings of Jesus from our school would be doing our students a huge disservice. Peace, tolerance and love of God and others can only make our world a better place.

We are fortunate to have religion as part of our curriculum. It is an invaluable guide in helping us produce individuals who know that what they do is more important that what they say. As a principal, I'd rather have a Catholic child who only speaks one language than a bilingual child lacking the qualities that make our students who they are.