Catholic education - better from home?

For homeschoolers, what follows should give affirmation in their deciding to embrace the education of their own children.  It is also a reason for homeschoolers to jump in and ask 'far away schoolers' "so what on earth made you decide not to home school your kids?" before (as so often happens) the onus is reversed by the homeschooler being asked "why did you chose to home school?"

This week, a Catholic organisation called the 'Broken Bay Institute' released a notification of an upcoming publication, said to be written for Australian Catholic educators, about the importance of keeping 'Catholic' in Catholic schools.  The publication is by Jim and Therese D'Orsa, who often write about Catholic education, and is titled 'Catholic Curriculum - A Mission to the Heat of Young People'.  

The press release for the book says that it aims to create an educational environment giving students a sense of  being Catholic so that they "gain the capacity to bring perspectives of faith and culture together in dealing with human experience" as opposed to students feeling like "victims of [cultural] change".

So what's the problem?  This all sounds pretty good. Well, having been exposed to post-modern theories of sociology at Sydney University, I'm always nervous when I see phrases like "perspectives of faith and culture" (or words like 'our faith journey', 'the Christian story', used elsewhere).  Such expressions ring of making your belief devoid of objective meaning, and instead only understandable as one way of seeing the world amongst others, all of which are equal. This is not language easily leading to a conclusion that the publication will foster in a desire to keep 'Catholic' in Catholic schools.    

In fact, there should be little surprise in this respect. It is published by the Broken Bay Institute. Consider the BBI's logo. Does this look like the sort of place that will succeed in keeping Catholic schools Catholic?

The logo, so the website informs, is not (as you may think) a representation of the planetary rings of Saturn.  It is said to be a Catholic symbol.  'What', you ask, 'if this is a Catholic symbol then wouldn't anything be?'  I suspect that that is all part of the 'faith journey' 'perspectives of faith' busness.  You see, the rings it turns out are ripples of water, and this obviously (apparently) represents baptism.  And the fact that there are three ripples - this supposedly reminds us of the call to holiness, mission and ministry. (In truth, this is, in fact, kymbaya-ism.)

Please do not miss the point.  I have no reason to believe that the BBI's publication will have any affect on Catholic education in Australia.  However, just think for a minute that this is the sort of gun that is pulled out when the idea of making Catholic schools Catholic comes up. If you homeschool, be grateful.  If you send your kids to a proper Catholic school, be grateful.