A Lovely Story with some unexpected Catholic Background

When I was doing my research for this year's library tree project, I spent a bunch of time at a local bookstore, checking out great new children's titles. Easily my favorite (which it turns out the library had already purchased) was Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola.

It's a lovely true story about a lady from Kenya who won the Nobel Peace prize for helping her country recover its economic security by starting a movement to replant the trees and small farms and gardens that had helped the country prosper in the past, but that had been cut down to make way for larger commercial farming (which had devastated the economy).

The thing that had struck me about the book on this first read-through was the beautiful sense of order and dignity - the importance of stewardship of nature, the use of the people themselves as important resources in solving problems, the simplicity of remembering that one person can really make a substantial change, the need for perseverance even when things aren't easy right away. Basically: we change ourselves to change the world. It also has lovely small-is-beautiful and principle-of-subsidiarity sort of themes in it.

The thing I had forgotten was a detail about the years that Wangari had spent in America - where she went to college and majored in biology. I had completely forgotten that she went to a Catholic college (even though the campus picture is portrayed with nuns in habits walking around!). There is a lovely indication in the story that their philosophical influence had a significant impact on her story (and is of course an essential part of the story that her background in biology helped prepare her for her good work):

Her heart was filled with the beauty of her native Kenya when she left to attend a college run by Benedictine nuns in America, far, far from her home. There she studied biology, the science of living things. It was an inspiring time for Wangari. The students in America in those years dreamed of making the world better. The nuns, too, taught Wangari to think not just of herself but of the world beyond herself.

How eagerly she returned to Kenya! How full of hope and of all that she had learned!

The story (and the book) is SO right and so beautiful in so many ways. It's a book anyone could love.

The unexpected discovery I made when I read the "Author's Note" in the back of the book was that the college Wangari attended in the United States was Benedictine College in Atchinson, Kansas, which is familiar to me for many reasons - most particularly because the husband of a good friend of mine is a professor of philosophy there.

Pope Benedict XVI on Freedom and Faith

I found the following quote on The CIN Blog when we got back from our trip earlier this week and I've been pondering it ever since. It's from a talk given by Pope Benedict XVI to Rome's Diocesan Convention earlier this month (the entire thing is immensely worthy of reading by the way, and I may post on some other aspects of it later on)...

As I said at the Ecclesial Convention in Verona: "A true education must awaken the courage to make definitive decisions, which today are considered a mortifying bind to our freedom. In reality, they are indispensable for growth and in order to achieve something great in life, in particular, to cause love to mature in all its beauty: therefore, to give consistency and meaning to freedom itself" (Address, 19 October 2006; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, 25 October 2006, p. 9).

When they feel that their freedom is respected and taken seriously, adolescents and young people, despite their changeability and frailty, are not in fact unwilling to let themselves be challenged by demanding proposals: indeed, they often feel attracted and fascinated by them.

They also wish to show their generosity in adhering to the great, perennial values that constitute life's foundations. The authentic educator likewise takes seriously the intellectual curiosity which already exists in children and, as the years pass, is more consciously cultivated. Constantly exposed to, and often confused by, the multiplicity of information, and by the contrasting ideas and interpretations presented to them, young people today nevertheless still have a great inner need for truth. They are consequently open to Jesus Christ who, as Tertullian reminds us, "called himself truth, not custom" ("De virginibus velandis," I, 1).

It is up to us to seek to respond to the question of truth, fearlessly juxtaposing the proposal of faith with the reason of our time. In this way we will help young people to broaden the horizons of their intelligence, to open themselves to the mystery of God, in whom is found life's meaning and direction, and to overcome the conditioning of a rationality which trusts only what can be the object of experiment and calculation. Thus, it is very important to develop what last year we called "the pastoral care of intelligence".The task of education passes through freedom but also requires authority. Therefore, especially when it is a matter of educating in faith, the figure of the witness and the role of witnessing is central. A witness of Christ does not merely transmit information but is personally involved with the truth Christ proposes and, through the coherency of his own life, becomes a dependable reference point.

Read the entire text here.

The part that particularly struck me was the part about young people feeling the freedom is respected and taken seriously. This isn't an aspect of Catholic education I've heard a lot about before. I won't try to cover this in any sort of complete way here, but I'd like to start collecting some various thoughts on it in order to better understand it. I think this concept is one that my parents (Happy Anniversary by the way!) had a great sense of - at least intuitively. Over time I've come to understand more fully what this means - particularly in the context of helping/preparing our children to choose the good for themselves (certainly one of the ultimate goals of Catholic education).

I suspect that this respect for freedom (Dr. Thursday might be able to help me out here) is related to the principle of subsidiarity. Within our own family this has come to mean things like:

-Fostering initiative is a priority - if the children are doing something very good on their own volition, I will seldom interrupt it, even for school work since that intiative itself is something that needs to be fostered and certainly can't be forced!

-We don't dictate every last detail of our children's lives, but instead allow them to make choices for themselves wherever possible/reasonable. Sometimes this involves "closing my eyes" to some very creative dressing on the part of my little ones! (I do have my limits, though, LOL!) This also tends to force me to pass along principles to them beginning at an early age which provides them with a certain degree of understanding of what really matters to me.

-We purposely set up some good things for which participation is optional, although we sometimes "sweeten" the deal. For example, during Lent we talk about the importance of sacrifice, but let the children choose whether or not they will make that sacrifice on Sundays as well as the other days. Given the gift of choosing such things for themselves, I am delighted at how often their answer is on the generous side. No, certainly not always! As far as "sweetening the deal" goes, I will sometimes set up a task or project and simply ask for volunteers. After the project they may be surprised with a reward (like a treat) and the older kids, at least, have a sense of that sort of thing already.

For these things to work, I think an atmosphere of appreciation and generosity is essential. Now we're talking about human beings here! It's not like we manage this at every moment of every day, but it's an awful lot about what your priorities are and what you're striving for.

Charity, Teens and the Principle of Subsidiarity

We finished discussing Pope Benedict XVI's Encyclical Deus Caritas Est last night. I blogged on this segment last year when I first read the encyclical, but *I* definitely got more out of it discussing it with the group and reading it a second time.

This second half is about the Church's charitable activity, and the nature of charitable action and charitable needs.

We spent a lot of time talking about the principle of subsidiarity and the role of faith in keeping even the best-intentioned people working in politics and charity from "the danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by the dazzling effect of power and special interests."

Part of this involved simply the nature of government - in fact we spent much of our time discussing the difference between having decisions made regarding disaster-relief and the needs of the poor on a national level vs. a local level. It makes sense that some things are better done by local government or charitable organizations who are able to provide personal interaction according to the needs of individuals. It's not just a matter of coordination and plenty of resources; as one of the girls put it - "People aren't bridges!" In our efficiency-based culture we do have a tendency to expect the federal government to handle people the way they handle bridges.

That doesn't mean government has no role in making sure people's basic needs are met. Unfortunately, they often have a track record in many areas of causing new problems (consider the foster care system!) and thwarting the efforts of charitable organizations (such as causing the closure of charitable Catholic hospitals by trying to force them to perform abortions). The encyclical says: "We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces; she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ....In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live "by bread alone" - a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human."

This was interesting too:

Christian charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies. It is not a means of changing the world ideologically, and it is not at the service of worldly stratagems, but it is a way of making present here and now the love which man always needs. The modern age, particularly from the nineteenth century on, has been dominated by various versions of a philosophy of progress whose most radical form is Marxism. Part of Marxist strategy is the theory of impoverishment: in a situation of unjust power, it is claimed, anyone who engages in charitable initiatives is actually serving that unjust system, making it appear at least to some extent tolerable. This in turn slows down a potential revolution and thus blocks the struggle for a better world. Seen in this way, charity is rejected and attacked as a means of preserving the status quo. What we have here, though, is really an inhuman philosophy. People of the present are sacrificed to the moloch of the future - a future whose effective realization is at best doubtful. One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now. We contribute to a better world only by personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the opportunity, independently of partisan strategies and programs.

There's a lot more great stuff in this encyclical - it's really a great read. It also seems like providential timing that just this week I discovered a local charitable organization that distributes clothes, toys and other things that would welcome Ria and Gus as volunteers. I'm hoping to make this a weekly activity for them. After all, as the Holy Father put it:

Significantly, our time has also seen the growth and spread of different kinds of volunteer work, which assume responsibility for providing a variety of services. I wish here to offer a special word of gratitude and appreciation to all those who take part in these activities in whatever way. For young people, this widespread involvement constitutes a school of life which offers them a formation in solidarity and in readiness to offer others not simply material aid but their very selves. The anti-culture of death, which finds expression for example in drug use, is thus countered by unselfish love which shows itself to be a culture of life by the very willingness to "lose itself" for others.

There are a number of homeschool gurus who consider regular service work an essential part of a child's education. If memory serves me right, John Taylor Gatto and Raymond and Dorothy Moore both advocate this. Makes a lot of sense to me!

Footnote on Subsidiarity

I wanted to mention that my friend Dr. Thursday, who is working on a book on the Principle of Subsidiarity, has also helped me begin to see the importance and beauty of this Church teaching and how it might apply to family and education. I hope his book doesn't take too long, because I'm really looking forward to learning more about it.

The Catholic Vote and the Principle of Subsidiarity

My sister is writing about the Principle of Subsidiarity over at Clairity's Place. Interesting points!

Catechesis and the Principle of Subsidiarity

Don't stress on the vocabulary words. Even though Catechism has been a familiar term to me for a long time, I had to come across Catechesis (basically "the process of teaching the Catechism") quite a few times before it was a comfortable word for me to use (and this was after I was married and studying the Catechism of the Catholic Church with some other moms).

The Principle of Subsidiarity is one I've been vaguely familiar with for quite some time - I first heard the term from Kolbe Academy who model their homeschool program, in part, on this Catholic teaching. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1883): "The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which 'a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.'"]

This has a lot of implications on education and there are two pieces I've just put together that are helping me see the bigger picture relating to Church teaching much more clearly - particularly with what I've been wanting to further understand about the role of method in education...

The first I've quoted several times before from Pius XI's encyclical On Christian Education regarding the teacher's ability to choose what is good from methods available...

There the Christian teacher will imitate the bee, which takes the choicest part of the flower and leaves the rest, as St. Basil teaches in his discourse to youths on the study of the classics.[51] Nor will this necessary caution, suggested also by the pagan Quintilian,[52] in any way hinder the Christian teacher from gathering and turning to profit, whatever there is of real worth in the systems and methods of our modern times, mindful of the Apostle's advice: "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good."[53] Hence in accepting the new, he will not hastily abandon the old, which the experience of centuries has found expedient and profitable.

The second is from Cardinal Ratzinger's papers at a conference on "Handing on the Faith in an Age of Disbelief" (which I quoted from yesterday) which makes it quite clear that many particulars should be left to individual teachers (who are living in communion with the Church), but without at all compromising the essential content of the catechism:

It may surprise today's reader to learn that the Roman Catechism in the sixteenth century was fully aware of the problem of catechetical methodology. It remarks that a lot depends on whether the instructor teaches something in one way or another. Therefore one must carefully study the age, intellectual ability, way of life, and social situation of the listeners, so as really to become all things to all men. The catechist must know who needs milk and who eats solid food, and he should adapt his teaching to the ability of the listeners to absorb it. The biggest surprise for us, however, may be the fact that this catechism allows the catechist much more freedom than contemporary catechetics, generally speaking, is inclined to do. Ineed, it leaves to the instructor to determine the sequence of topics in his catechesis, depending on the persons being instructed and time constraints - assuming, of course, that the catechist himself is personally dedicated and lives a life based on an ongoing meditation upon his material and that he keeps in view the four principal divisions of catechesis and coordinates his own plan with them. ...

In other words, this means that it makes available to the catechist the indispensable basic divisions of catechesis and their particular contents, but it does not relieve him of the responsibility to seek the appropiate way of communicating them in a given situation. No doubt the Roman Catechism presupposed a second level of literature to help the catechist in this endeavor, without itself trying to program in advance very particular situation.

It think this is a beautiful, sensible and well-balanced approach to Catechesis which would certainly apply to education in general.

There's a bit more to it, of course and Ratzinger's portion is a quick and very worthwhile read. This has recently been published by Ignatius Press under the title Handing on the Faith in an Age of Disbelief.

Letter to Families from Pope John Paul II

(Written in 1994 for the Year of the Family)

Selections on the topic of education:

What is involved in raising children? In answering this question two fundamental truths should be kept in mind: first, that man is called to live in truth and love; and second, that everyone finds fulfillment through the sincere gift of self. This is true both for the educator and for the one being educated. Education is thus a unique process for which the mutual communion of persons has immense importance. The educator is a person who "begets" in a spiritual sense. From this point of view, raising children can be considered a genuine apostolate. (pg. 54)

Education then is before all else a reciprocal "offering" on the part of both parents: together they communicate their own mature humanity to the newborn child, who gives them in turn the newness and freshness of the humanity which it has brought into the world. (pg. 55)

Every individual born and raised in a family constitutes a potential treasure which must be responsibly accepted, so that it will not be diminished or lost, but will rather come to an ever more mature humanity. This too is a process of exchange in which the parents-educators are in turn to a certain degree educated themselves. While they are teachers in humanity for their own children, they learn humanity from them. (pg. 55)

Through Christ all education, within the family and outside of it, becomes part of God's own saving pedagogy, which is addressed to individuals and families and culminates in the paschal mystery of the Lord's death and resurrection. The "heart" of our redemption is the starting point of every process of Christian education, which is likewise always an education to a full humanity.

Parents are the first and most important educators of their own children, and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area: they are educators because they are parents. They share their educational mission with other individuals or institutions, such as the Church and the state. But the mission of education must always be carried out in accordance with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity. This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic and absolute limit in their prevailing right and their actual capabilities. The principle of subsidiarity is thus at the service of parental love, meeting the good of the family unit. For parents by themselves are not capable of satisfying every requirement of the whole process of raising children, especially in matters concerning their schooling and the entire gamut of socialization. Subsidiarity thus complements paternal and maternal love and confirms its fundamental nature, inasmuch as all other participants in the process of education are only able to carry out their responsibilities in the name of the parents, with their consent and, to a certain degree, with their authorization.

The process of education ultimately leads to the phrase of self-education, which occurs when the individual, after attaining an appropriate level of psycho-physical maturity, begins to "educate himself on his own." (pgs. 56-57)

The commandment of the Decalogue calls for a child to honor its father and mother. But, as we saw above, that same commandment enjoins upon parents a kind of corresponding or "symmetrical" duty. Parents are also called to "honor" their children whether they are young or old. This attitude is needed throughout the process of their education, including the time of their schooling. The "principle of giving honor," the recognition and respect due to man precisely because he is man, is the basic condition for every authentic education process.

In the sphere of education the Church has a specific role to play. In the light of tradition and the teaching of the Council, it can be said that it is not only a matter of entrusting the Church with the person's religious and moral education, but of promoting the entire process of the person's education "together with" the Church. The family is called to carry out its task of education in the Church, thus sharing in her life and mission. The Church wishes to carry out her educational mission above all through families who are made capable of undertaking this task by the sacrament of matrimony, through the "grace of state" which follows from it and the specific "charism" proper to the entire family community.(pg. 58)

There's more good stuff too, but I don't want to copy the whole thing here. This entire letter can be read online by clicking here.

John Paul II, We Love You!