We are in the season of “back to school” time. It is important for all of us to reflect on schooling as regards to its importance.

It has been observed that at the point a human being stops learning he starts dying. All of us, one way or another, have to be life-long learners. Elementary school and high school serve mostly to give us the basic skills for self instruction, and a road map of how to do it. It does not matter so much whether we do it through formal education in college, and perhaps in graduate school, or informally by wide and critical reading of books and periodicals that interest us.

It is unfortunate that today we have only one secular newspaper left in the United States. Moreover, we have no reliable source of public information, since the electronic media available to us all are co-opted in one way or another by the various ideological camps that exist in our country.  Someone once told me that the way you do it is to compare the reports on ABC, NBC, and CBS, knowing that if all agree on something it must surely be false. Things have not quite got to that point yet in my judgment, but they are on the way. However, pursuing that digression does not help me make the point I want to make, which is that all of us should be convinced that growth in our Catholic faith requires not only that we practice it and love it, but that we also study it.

Of particular concern of course is the education of children. It is generally agreed that the government-dominated schools, while employing many skilled, devoted, and honorable teachers, seems to be failing in large part to give children the basics. Given the fact that the legal establishment in our country forbids education in basic Christian values in our public schools, it is no wonder that they are failing in ethical and moral standards as well.

Catholic people in the Diocese of Rockford continue to maintain a system of primary and secondary schools for the use of Catholic parents who want their children to be educated in the faith, the faith that those children see practiced by those parents in their homes. This system of education comes with an immense cost to Catholic parents who must pay tuition for their children in Catholic schools in addition to the huge taxes which are paid for the maintenance of the ineffectual public system. It is difficult also for the parishes, which give great subsidies to parochial grade schools, and for the central Catholic high schools.

As I write this I know that many families in the diocese are struggling through the present economic depression into which our country has been plunged by the government. I pray that this depression will soon cease, and that voters will continue to remove from public office those who have caused this debacle. I also pray the Catholic parents will try to find ways to see to it that their children can maintain their Catholic education in our schools. It cannot be an easy task to do this.