Secret Ingredient for Success: Consecrated Religious

SILVERADO, Calif. — Consecrated religious men and women, once the backbone of Catholic education in the United States, have declined in number dramatically in 30 years.

So have the schools they shaped: According to one recent study, about half of the U.S. Catholic high schools that existed in 1965 have closed, as have 4,000 parochial schools.

Yet among those religious orders that remain in schools, as well as new orders that are emerging, can be found the seeds of a renewal of Catholic education and the hope of more religious vocations, several educators say. The witness of the consecrated — living joyfully, serving unreservedly — can be the secret ingredient in the recipe of a successful Catholic school.

“Consecrated persons bring several special values to Catholic education,” said Norbertine Father Gabriel Stack of St. Michael Abbey Preparatory School, a boys boarding school in Orange County, Calif. St. Michael has the most consecrated religious teachers and the highest religious-per-student ratio of any school in the western United States.

Drawing from their own integrated moral and intellectual formation, religious men and women “provide young people with the opportunity to pray, to study and to work with people who have chosen Christ as their exclusive and highest good,” Father Stack said.

“Additionally, [consecrated religious] accent the communitarian dimension of the faith,” he said. “Our faith is not only preserved but also fostered by those with whom we live.”

Advantages

A mother of two sons at Cistercian Preparatory School in Irving, Texas, Brenda Lenzen cites the obvious financial advantage of having a consecrated order behind a school, with teachers who do not depend on salaries as do lay teachers. Beyond that, she said, there is a spiritual heritage that flows from the order itself that makes such a school distinctive.

“Just as a sacramental grace goes along with us as parents from the vocation of marriage, there is sacramental grace that goes along with them as teachers because of holy orders,” she said. “Our apostolate is to be parents; the Cistercian apostolate is to teach. That sacramental grace is felt at Cistercian [Prep].”

Also, a religious order's vision for education has a kind of permanence, unlike the more malleable vision possible at other kinds of Catholic schools, she said.

“Having dealt with two schools [established by Christian families], I saw there was a vision that was born by the families. As the children of those families grow, their vision might change,” Lenzen said. “[At Cistercian], with the permanence of that monastery right there, you don't have a problem of it beginning as one thing and ending as another.”

Consecrated religious who serve in schools were encouraged by a recent Vatican document titled “Consecrated Persons and Their Mission in the School: Reflections and Guidelines,” and written by the Congregation for Catholic Education, whose prefect is Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski.

“We want the document to serve as a stimulus to consecrated persons so that, in the present circumstances, given the decrease in vocations, the temptation to leave the educational service — and the complexity of the world of education and the school — they will be conscious of the loftiness of their educational mission,” he said at a November press conference.

Schoolwork is indeed tough work, said Sister Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz, a foundress of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, a 6-year-old order that runs four small elementary schools, called Spiritus Sanctus Academies, in Ann Arbor, Mich.

“Teaching is one of the most difficult, consuming-of-self, nonstop everyday professions,” she said. “There's no paycheck, no glory. But it's bringing in such a dimension of what really does ring true in all humanity, if [you're] after truth. It's as simple as wanting to work with each individual person to the fulfillment of their holiness.”

Women's orders that have abandoned their educational apostolates, “in reality gave up their closest link to spiritual motherhood,” she said.

By moving away from their roots, religious orders may also be decreasing their own future vocations, according to Third Order Franciscan Father Terence Henry, president of Franciscan University of Steubenville.

“That [Vatican] document mentioned many religious communities that really have the key right in front of them, and the key is the charism of their founder,” he said. “They don't have to climb Mt. Everest and consult gurus there; it's right in front of them.”

Most vocations to the Third Order of Francis are coming from Franciscan University, where students have the chance to interact daily with the friars who live and work on campus, Father Henry said.

“Whether they're teaching math or theology or working in campus ministry, the friars are visible signs of transcendent values,” he said. “It's a form of radical witness and it makes young men and women say, ‘Why would they do that?’ and then, ‘If they can live that life with joy…’”

Academics vs. Values

In a largely secular educational world, Catholic religious schools also face the challenge of balancing academic prestige with Gospel values.

“A school can have both, but it is a daily struggle,” said Dominican Sister Mary Jordan Hoover of St. Vincent de Paul School in Denver, one of 23 schools around the country now administrated by the blossoming order of the Nashville Dominicans.

“At St. Vincent's we begin each day with prayer,” she said. “Christ is present in every conversation. Teachers value the Christian formation of the students.”

Ultimately, she said, “Jesus Christ is the key to our success as a school. Academics are important, and whole-person education is important. Jesus is the heart of the equation.”

Scholarly goals, far from being sacrificed, are actually enhanced in a more religious environment, believes Sister Joseph Andrew of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.

“If you expose the child to the best in the faith, the best music, the best art, such that all the senses become imbued with what is best — and then obviously the correct teachings of life in Christ — what you're doing is making future saints,” she said. “We feel very committed to giving them the best in academics, because that is truth. When you've given them truth, you've given them God.”

Ellen Rossini writes from Dallas. (Zenit contributed to this story.)