I want to tell you a parable. Two men went into a church in Ireland to pray. One man, wearing a £600 suit, went up to the altar and said "I am a great Christian, Lord. I presented this altar and the stained glass. The PP loves me, I give him plenty of money.
"I am in the Dail. I voted for contraception, homosexuality, divorce, and abortion information. I'm working on legislation to instal multi-denominational secular schools throughout Ireland. I use the media to put down Catholic influence.
"I own several factories, but I don't tolerate trade unions. I pay by the hour, as little as I can. I am a director of many banks and many companies. Our profits are all invested abroad. I send my children to multi-denominational schools. These are good for their accents and for connections. I am opening Ireland up to the world and the 21st century."
The other man stood at the back of the church, cap in his hand, and said: "God have mercy on me, a sinner - I taught him."
Catholic education is a struggle. You win some, you lose some. The students will not fully understand the priceless and irreplaceable value of Catholic education until they have experience of life as it is in the west European/north American context, which has sadly taken over the minds of the Irish media and politicians.
Their parents know only too well how difficult it is to preserve the values of Irish Catholic tradition in the face of secular humanism and the liberal agenda, where the individual sees his personal greed and pleasure as the supreme values of life. Secular means concentrating only on this world, in the present, with the aim of extracting as much pleasure out of it as possible, forgetting about the past and ignoring the future. Even paganism is preferable to secularism because at least pagans believe in spirits, good and bad, and can be easily converted It is practically impossible to convert the liberal secular mentality because it is based on pride and greed for money.
Ireland is now the land of non-stop tribunals; of non-stop legislation, without any political opposition; of immoral practices destructive of family life and human life, plus hostility to Catholic education, even to the words "Catholic", "Pope", "priest". It all indicates how far the pride and the passion of the secular liberalists have gone.
The unique value of Catholic education was well expressed by Cardinal Newman in Dublin in 1852. He wrote: "Quarry the granite rock with razors: Moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the pride and passion of man." In other words knowledge does not save, does not make you a better person, does not make you holy. If knowledge produced holiness then all the learned teachers in our schools and universities would be lined up for canonisation, and they are not. There are three levels of Catholic education. There is the academic level, which trains the intellect, and the cultural level. The third level is the devotional, sacramental, religious level, where the will is trained to resist evil and be holy. This level is unique to Catholic education.
To conquer hatred and passion a stronger passion is required, namely the love of God and the love of one's neighbour for God's sake. This love can only be developed by penance, prayer, and grace-filled contacts with the Son of God in the sacraments and the Mass. An education based on prayer and devotion has a past, a present, and a future. The past lies in the Bible, especially the history of Jesus in the Gospels, in the history of Ireland, especially in the writings of St Patrick and the history of Irish missionary work. The future lies before us in the Paschal Feast of the Lamb, which is really the Mass, in Heaven.
These are all-powerful forces which students assimilate in Catholic education, almost without knowing it. They acquire good habits, by constant dedicated practice. These good habits are called virtues. They were revered by the pagan Greek masters like Plato and Aristotle and the Roman Cicero, and they are now ridiculed by the liberal agenda. These virtues include reverence for life, temperance, charity, and purity. A tough programme for the present day, dominated by soulless secularism.
At Catholic schools students first learn to be virtuous and then how to do science and mathematics. I was asked once, in a dispute about Catholic schools versus multi-denominational/integrated/secular or Protestant schools, if I thought there were such things as Catholic physics and Catholic chemistry.
The answer is Yes. The crucifix in the classroom reminds the students that physics and chemistry are gifts of God to be used to cure and to heal, to empower people to help their less fortunate neighbours, to protect life and to love life, not to facilitate abortion, warfare, or genocide.
Finally, I would like to say that there is one virtue that the Irish people admire and praise most of all, namely courage. Alasdair MacIntyre states: "If someone says that he cares for some individual, community or cause, but is unwilling to risk harm or danger on his, her, or its own behalf, he puts into question the genuineness of his care and concern. Courage, the capacity to risk harm or danger to oneself, has its own role in human life because of this connection with care and concern." Courage must define our relationship with others, not only physical courage, but, more importantly in the Ireland of today, moral courage - that is the strength to speak alone against the scoffing multitude who are running down the teachings of Jesus and the traditions of the Irish people learned by Catholic students. The ability to say "no" to drugs, drink or crime. To say "nonsense" to the supporters of divorce and abortion and those who want to remove religion from schools.
"Surely you don't go to Mass, surely you don't send your child to a Catholic school?" These are the chants of the newly rich, half-educated conformists of present-day Ireland with no past, no future, and a present where two people, usually women, are murdered on average every week in comparison to one every two years in the 1940s and 1950s.
The challenge is great for young Irishmen, to save and restore the great cultural and spiritual traditions of the Irish Catholic people. The strong point of Catholic education is that it teaches the truth about this life and the next life. Catholic students may do wrong, even do evil, under the pressure of pride and passion. They know the difference between right and wrong. But they do not "think wrong". When they see a sin they call it a sin, not a virtue, as the modern media do. We rejoice in the truth, in the sure and certain teachings of the Church, of Pope John Paul II. This truth will set us free.
Monsignor Denis Faul is retired headmaster of St Patrick's Academy, Dungannon, Co Armagh.