Things I Never Learned in Catholic School

I was over at Cosmos Liturgy Sex reading one of David's posts on B16's discussion on modernity with a bunch of European professors. David's post always challenge me. Often they require me to pull out the dictionary or to go off and Google something in order to better understand the context in which he is speaking. But I love that! It is in those moments I feel like I am truly learning and that's exciting for me. Yes, yes I'm a big giant NERD!

Anyhoo, The post was titled Regnum Hominis and the Crisis of Modernity. At the end of the post David expresses his hope that there is still an opportunity for Europe to avoid the mistakes of the past. He says "...this may avoid a 21st century resurrection of the 18th century's Reign of Terror. Mercifully, that malignant progenitor of what I think is now possible was confined to France. However, the current trajectory seems to suggest a spawn, secular humanist Regnum hominis, that will endanger the entirety of the West."

Lots of five dollar words in that right? So off I went to look them up. Specifically the reference to the 18th century Reign of Terror. I ended up reading Wikipedia's whole page on the French Revolution and the surrounding circumstances. What an education and just think it took place in a matter of minutes! A portion of what I learned follows...

French Revolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790 (although not signed by the King until 26 December 1790), turned the remaining clergy into employees of the State and required that they take an oath of loyalty to the constitution. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy also made the Catholic church an arm of the secular state.
In response to this legislation, the archbishop of Aix and the bishop of Clermont led a walkout of clergy from the National Constituent Assembly. The pope never accepted the new arrangement, and it led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement ('jurors' or 'constitutional clergy') and the 'non-jurors' or 'refractory priests' who refused to do so. The ensuing years saw violent repression of the clergy, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests throughout France."

This leads me to my larger point. Why in God's name did I not learn this in 12 years of Catholic education? Now some who know me well may say "Kris, maybe that's because you weren't such a great student." (unmotivated better put) But to say I just forgot this information could only be true if it weren't for the fact that all these years I've had a vague recollection of learning about the French Revolution. I did in fact remember learning about it. But, it seems I learned the wrong things, or at the very least not the COMPLETE story.

Why is it that I came away with a general understanding that made me think that the French were the twin of the American Patriots fighting the English for freedom? Why is it that I NEVER knew or would have even considered persecution of the Church and of priests and religious a possibility during the French Revolution? I didn't even know that there was an atheistic component to it all. Aren't these valuable and important points to emphasize especially considering that I was supposedly receiving a "Catholic" education. A VERY expensive education I may add.

Sadly, I feel like there are a lot of very important and foundational truths and information and literature that are either glossed over or completely omitted from a "Catholic" education these days. In all my time in Catholic High School I never once read the life of a saint, nor Chesterton, nor and encyclical, nor Belloc, nor, Flannery O'Conner, nor any other Catholic writer of fiction or non-fiction. Why is that? I was even in elevated English courses and took extra literature and creative writing courses, because that was my stronger area of study. But still, we never covered these writers or any of the important philosophical writings of the Church. No Saint Thomas, no Saint Augustine, nothing. What an absolute failure on the part of the Dominicans who ran our school. I sure did and still do love them for a number of other reasons. But I feel so cheated looking back now.

These are the times when I say thank goodness I home school. I can "brainwash" my kids properly. Not to mention all the benefits I reap from reading and discovering all these things on behalf of my children. Tim wants to send the kids off to school for high school. Mainly due to organized sports. I can see his point there. Organized sports meant a great deal to both of us growing up. But I hate to think that one day Morgan or Mary grace or another one of my kids will have to be 33 before he or she knows about the Reign of Terror during the French revolution and how it impacted their fellow Catholic brothers and sisters.