One of my favourite speakers has the great line, “You don’t need a great idea. You just need a good idea that you are prepared to use.” Over the years I have learned that most of the time all it takes to change a paradigm or an important area of our lives is simply a good idea that we are prepared to use. And that is what I want to give you this week – a simple idea that could make a big difference.

A few weeks back I was preparing for two days of seminars I was going to be delivering to a large group of teachers at a diocesan Catholic Education Office. Amidst all the busyness of my life I decided that I should re-read the 245 pages of the Catholic Church’s main documents related to education from 1965 – 2002 before I turned up. To be honest, it was big job and it involved a rather significant amount of caffeine at various times but I got there.

There’s a lot written by the Church on education. When you are starting out it’s easy to confuse your Gravissimum Educationis with your Catechesi Tradendae. As John Powell once said, “I used you know a little Latin…but she moved out of my neighbourhood!” Anyway…my point is that the Church has had a great focus on education and more so over the last 100 or so years due to enormous social and economic change. I remember delivering a parent seminar in Sydney and I was sharing that it was only the increased wealth of the USA in the early twentieth century that saw the emergence of secondary schooling as a mainstream cultural phenomena. Before that time the vast majority of young people received minimal education, as they would spend their lives supporting family businesses and farming. As such, the Church has seen the need to provide coherent and consistent communication about what a Catholic school exists for; its goals and purpose.

The task of this post is not to explore the Church’s understanding of a school’s purpose but rather to share a powerful revelation I had while doing the advance reading. So there I was, deep in the foothills of Catechesi Tradendae, John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation that translates as Catechesis in Our Time. What struck me was for how long I had been missing the woods for the trees. What Catechesi Tradendae revealed was firstly how central teaching (catechesis) as a vocation, task is to the whole history of the Church and also how teaching was so central to the ministry of Christ.

Amongst all the things Our Lord did while on earth teaching was one of the most constant, powerful and life-changing things He did. After the Ascension, the apostles and particularly St. Paul, undertook a ministry of teaching. The fathers of the early church also saw their core role as one of teaching. The role of any Bishop as chief shepherd of a diocese in the 21st century is also powerfully one of teaching. I had never really reflected on how central the task of teaching was to Christian history.

What follows in Catechesis Tradendae is that the modern teacher continues that same role in a Catholic school. That great tradition of teaching is one you have inherited from the first teacher, Christ himself. In as much as you participate in the mission of the Church, in as much as you seek to teach the truth of the human person and their eternal destiny you participate at some level in the salvific mission of Christ and His Church and that is pretty cool. The Church believes that when a student encounters the truth being taught in a Catholic school by a passionate and committed Catholic teacher then they are encountering Christ:

…it is Christ alone who teaches – anyone else teaches to the extent that he is Christ’s spokesperson,
enabling Christ to teach with their lips.”
Catechesi Tradendae (para 6)

My strong sense is that this task of sharing in the teaching mission of Christ is not purely limited to the teaching of religious education but radiates to all subjects, pastoral care, coaching, even to the cleaners. If a person in any role of authority in the lives of young people within a Catholic school seeks to grow more deeply in relationship with Christ then their words, their teaching, their example will progressively allow Christ to teach, to speak, to give example within that school. When enough staff do that, the school becomes a tiny, radiating community of the Kingdom of God. I have seen those schools and I have witnessed those teachers. We just need more at this moment in history.

A final point is that the teacher must actively seek to grow closer to Christ to ensure their teaching is not muted or undermined by other currents:

“Above all, they will not try to inculcate their personal opinions and options as if they expressed Christ teaching and the lessons of his life. Every (teacher) should be able to apply to themselves the mysterious words of Jesus: “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.”

It is a weighty task if we were left to ourselves but we have the sacraments, prayer, study and the support of other committed Catholic educators. You are not alone.

In closing what I think this insight does is lend a powerful dignity and value to your vocation. You are walking in the footsteps of Christ himself every time you enter the front doors your school.

I’d love to get your thoughts on this article. Make sure you post your comments in the forum below.

The well-known author and psychologist Martin Seligman is the father of the popular new movement that has had some strong impact in Australian schools, Positive Psychology. A former head of the American Psychological Association, arguably the world’s peak psychological body, Seligman among other interests has been a master of the scientific exploration of human happiness. Why do some people see a glass half full and others only dregs?

Like any area of human behaviour there is always a complex interplay of biology, environment and spirituality that determines how each of us walks upon the lofty peaks and through the intermittent valleys of life. However, one of the things that stayed with me upon reading one of Seligman’s recent books was the powerful role of language in shaping our experience of life. I want to suggest in this short article that both what we say as parents and the language structures we permit in our homes can and do have a powerful long-term impact on our kids. In short, your words, and theirs shape your respective worlds.

By language I am not talking so much about getting our kids to stop using certain expressions that might make the odd sailor blush. I once knew a U.S. Marine Captain who called it ‘potty mouth.” But if I was honest, when I hit myself with a hammer by accident I don’t tend to say, “Thank you dear Lord for the gift of physical pain.” I also play a lot of golf, which I discovered recently was only called golf because all the other four-letter words were taken!

The truth is our language gives shape to our experience. We begin to believe what we repeatedly say. It is the tool we use to interpret the things that happen to us. But, and it’s a big but, we actually have enormous control over how we express what happens to us. In essence, my question for you is, what is the tone of your home? Is it a positive place to be? How do key people in your family speak about adversity or success? According to Seligman, the language that you hear each day inside the four walls of your suburban castle is going to be a powerful indicator of the long-term outcomes across a range of indicators for each person.

When I talk about the role of language during live seminars a significant proportion of the room will always see it as some kind of ‘feel good’ trick that has no impact. Wrong. Rapid growth in insights from neuroscience and psychopharmacology continue to prove the impact of language on brain chemistry and the central nervous system. We eventually feel what we say and say what we feel. There is a powerful reinforcing loop taking place every day of our lives.

It is not just in spoken language but also in the internal dialogue we refer to broadly as cognitive behaviour. For example, if you fail a job interview you brain will say something between the two extremes of, “This always happens to me. I’m terrible at interviews” and “I’m lucky to have missed out. There must be a better job around the next corner!” In essence, for a lot of what happens to us there is no absolute right or wrong interpretation, but there will always be some kind of interpretation. The good news is that we actually get to choose which one. We really do have that power.

So from a parenting perspective, we have a huge role in not just the language we use in speaking to our kids but the language we help them to use about themselves. When they miss out on being selected for a key team we can coach them into selecting and deploying language that gives the most useful interpretation of what happened. The interpretation might include the need to work harder in the future but as long as it is drawing a beneficial interpretation then that has to be better than allowing language like, “I’ll never be any good at this.”

I think, as parents we are truly called to a leadership role in creating powerful cultures in our homes that bring about the chance that each of our kids will gravitate toward their God given potential. Language use will be a big part of that. What words need to be rule out in your house? I’ll give you an example. In our house we never use the word problem. A long time ago I decided that I was never going to have another problem in my life. From that moment on I decided I was going to have challenges. It drove my wife, Karen, crazy. Something big would happen and I would say, ‘Wow, we have a big challenge here!” If you’re still a sceptic then you need to take it up with Dr. Seligman, who would tell you that my choice of language was positioning me to be in a more resourceful state where different areas of my pre-frontal cortex would be operating and my central nervous system would be operating with lower levels of cortisol, adrenaline and epinephrine.

A final thought is to think of how Jesus talked about the fact that, “…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” In short, what your vocal chords shape has deeper roots. There simply is such a strong relationship between what we think and what we say but that relationship works both ways. What you say can change what you feel and what you think. Our kids need to learn this very early in life and you and I have the incredibly privilege of helping them to learn that powerful life changing truth.

So here are some ideas to take this further. Have a listen to my podcast called Your words shape your world at http://www.choicez.com.au/category/podcast/ Also these books are a great place to start:

1. A better way to think – H. Norman Wright

2. Simplicity Parenting – Kim John Payne

3. The Optimistic Child – Dr. Martin Seligman

So far I have delivered live seminars to close to a quarter of a million people. That’s not a bad number. However, I have come to realise that no matter how many people you speak to one day you realise that only a percentage of what you say will stay with your audience long term. Years ago I remember reading about some research from the field of organisational psychology that suggested an audience only remembers about eight percent of what you say when they are tested two weeks later, and that is only for good communicators. The number is lower for most of what we sit through in a lifetime. It raises an obvious question, “Why don’t we just talk for eight percent of the time we had planned and then everyone can go home early?”

So what I am increasingly aware of is that you need to leave people with simple but powerful concepts, usually driven by great stories, strong visuals or powerful metaphors. If you do this then you have a good chance of ensuring a greater degree of ‘stickiness’ for your message.

I had all this in mind in recent weeks when I gave several days of seminars for senior staff at various Catholic Education Offices around the country. I wanted to leave them with a simple but strong metaphor for what happens when Catholic schools lack a critical mass of staff that are deeply committed to their own faith and to the mission of Catholic Education itself.

What I settled on was a series of visuals centred on the Boeing factory near Seattle in Washington State. Make sure you watch the short video of what I was getting at here.

My basic message was simply that everyone at the Boeing factory from the CEO to the janitor or all aware, to greater or lesser degrees as to why the come to work and what they aim to achieve. The end result of anyone working at Boeing is to create the best possible environment for turning out planes. That’s it. It’s that simple! They may all do different things but the end result is not in dispute. It has wings and flies. If people’s work is not in some way contributing to that outcome then we have various levels of inefficiency and the annual report will show it.

There are many reasons why Boeing is successful but ultimately the congruence between each role and that roles contribution to the outcomes is central. You can imagine what would happen if enough people at Boeing simply did not understand what they were doing there nor gave a damn about planes.

The next step was simply to look at Catholic schools and ask how many people on staff all agree about the reason they are there and the final outcome or goal of Catholic education itself. Some would have a deep understanding of their vocation and mission and many would not. Then you can add a generation of new teachers with little formation and less than seven percent of teachers with any formal theological qualifications and you might start to see how we end up with what military strategists call, “mission drift’ – a sense of ever expanding tasks and allocations of resources with the ultimate end of the mission disappearing into the distance.

I want to clarify a point here and state that I am not saying that young staff, or staff without theological qualifications are uncaring and disinterested in their students or the goals of Catholic education. That is not the case. Rather it is a complex sociological, demographic and evangelistic conundrum.

Have a look at the video and then have your say in the forum below. What do you think happens when schools lose their understanding of their Catholic identity? What suggestions do you have for change?

1. Fr. Joel, what is the essence of the work you have translated? What is its core message?

The work is a concise and rigorous account of the historically significant contributions of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI to a renewed Christian theology of love. The nucleus of the work is great YES to the gloriously challenging task of learning to love. In a contemporary culture where humanity is too often measured in terms of technical progress, development of the self-mastery required for true human loving is too often overlooked or too easily dismissed as the most fundamental aspect of human formation and education. Indeed, for many, the idea that the task of love is something that can be the aim of education is too often obscured by an emphasis on the prevailing romantic interpretation of the experience of love. According to this interpretation, love is reduced to a merely emotive experience in such a way that the destiny of love comes to depend on the fleeting, fragile nature of human passions. The limitation of the romantic interpretation of love is precisely time itself. Time becomes the enemy of love because feelings of love change over time. Learning to Love at the School of John Paul II and Benedict XVI restores the role of the human will and, therefore, education of the will, to a central place so that, in very general terms, the action to love can be said to consist principally in this, namely: “that the lover wants the good for the beloved”. By seeking the true good of others or of the beloved, we learn to nurture the relationship to which the experience of love invites so that it may be fruitful.

4. What are two practical things teachers could do to put some of the ideas into practice?

Learning to love at the School of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, following proper inservicing, will give to educators the resources to:

1. Assist students to reflect intellingently on their experiences, particularly those which involved encounters where the experience of enrichment in the presence of another has been noted.

2. Gain the confidence and know-how to apply the Words and Actions of Christ to these experiences.

Effectively, the synthesis between the experience of love felt as attraction in the presence of another and the divine Revelation in Christ whose words are demanding: “Love one another as I have loved you!”, is one which will empower our youth with an enduring power to make their lives fruitful, walking the Way of Love into the future.

This Way of Love is also central to the task of the New Evangelization – living the Good New of salvation in Christ afresh – because Christ himself, who is “the love of God made visible”, is also for us “the Way, the Truth and the Life”.

5. Why is the experience of love so important, so fundamental to each and every human person?

Nothing is as important to know and to encounter as love is. In his first encyclical as Pope, John Paul II expressed the same thought:

Man cannot live without love. He remains for himself an incomprehensible being, his life remains without meaning if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it, if he does not make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it (Redemptor hominis, 10).

With this thought, the Late Holy Father expresses that firstly, love must be revealed, for only then can it truly be known. When it is revealed, it illumines life’s meaning. Note the passive voice of the verb “revealed”. Love is not firstly something that a person can unveil for himself or herself. In its initial moment, it must be received as from another. Recognizing the primacy of the divine initiative, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the words of the First Letter of St John in Deus caritas est: “Since God has first loved us (1 John 4:10), love is no longer a mere “command”; it is a response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us” (Deus caritas est 1). At the origin of Christian action, therefore, is a certain awakening to the reality that we are already the receivers of a love which preceded us.

Therefore, following the words of the Evangelist, he says, “God is Love […] So we know and believe the love God has for us” (1 Jn 4:16). Indeed, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”. First, then, love must be encountered. It must be experienced. By faith, we surrender precisely to that experience, in the Person of Christ, in whom the Love of God is made visible to us. For Christ, “in the revelation of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and makes known to him his most high calling”. (Gaudium et spes 22).

Only when love is encountered and experienced can one “make it his own”. Only then can one “participate intimately in it”. This happens when, in freedom, a person learns to love by constructing his or her own actions in which the initial experience of love can be brought to fulfilment.

An act of love is manifested in beauty and in truth. Indeed, interest in human love implies a concern that it be “beautiful”. Therefore, it involves a patient search for what is “true” and for what is “good”. This truth is inscribed into the very heart of the person as an intimate call to the gift of self. For it is only in giving of himself that a person is able to fully find himself (Gaudium et spes 24).

I was early…at least I thought I was. When I pulled up at the Archbishop’s house things were already in full swing. It was a private lunch for about 15 people with visiting international speaker and ‘new media’ evangelist Fr. Robert Barron. As the driving force behind the impressive new multi-DVD set Catholicism he is at the leading edge among those who have finally decided that the public square is not supposed to be a Catholic free zone.

Whether via Obama’s aggressive anti-Catholic health agenda in the U.S., Europe’s morbid fascination with soft-totalitarianism masquerading as political correctness or the cosy relationship between mainstream media and any ‘new atheist’ with a book to sell, Catholicism is increasingly positioned in public discourse as some quaint personal fascination of the not-too-bright at best or, at worst, a malignant growth in culture to be excised at the first chance.

Having lunch with Fr. Barron is like a scene from one of those end-of-the-world disaster movies where after a long time wandering alone through the rubble the protagonist suddenly finds they’re not alone.

When you meet someone like Robert Barron you suddenly realise that your passion for the Church, for faith and for a new evangelisation leading to a culture of life is not some private interest. You suddenly realise that millions share your vision and that the oppressive weight of so much cultural conditioning has been to drive you deeper into fear and silence. Never speak up, don’t upset anyone, and don’t rock the boat. Meeting Robert Barron you suddenly remember that it’s not ‘game over’, it’s ‘game on’. We have so much to offer the secular world. We have so much to say on the great issues of our day.

The purpose of the lunch was to discuss the role of Catholic schools as centres for the New Evangelization. I think I was about the only person in the room not employed by the Church in some capacity. As such, I had nothing to lose by saying what I thought.

My first point:

Throw everything at teacher formation.

Less than 7% of Catholic teachers in the developed world have formal theological qualifications. That does not mean that they are not good people, it just means they are good people with no support, formation or knowledge and therefore struggle to think with the Church. How can they teach the Church’s position on anything if they first have not studied it, wrestled with it and been won by it. Jacob wrestled the angel all night and was never the same after that experience. I am convinced we need to wrestle with the teachings that challenge us in the same way. When I was doing my second Masters at the Pontifical Institute I can remember moments of extraordinary insight and the raw force of the transcendental of truth reoriented the path of my life. We have to find ways to give our staff similar experiences.

My second point:

The fish rots from the head down!

Doing a Masters in Leadership taught me that you can try just about everything in a school but if the senior leaders do not have a dynamic and demonstrated love for the Church and a genuine relationship with Christ including a personal life of prayer and sacrament then you’re wasting your time. As such, we need to mentor, develop and promote those within the system that demonstrate that rare mix of professional competence and personal conversion.

Fr. Robert concluded the meeting with some great sharing on the role of ‘new media’ in reaching those outside the Church. His whole paradigm is one of outward focussed missionary energy. He seems to be convinced at the core of who he is that to contain what he knows, what he has experienced is crazy. And that seems to be the thing about Good News…it’s very hard to contain. It’s time we left the alleyways and cellars and walked back into the public square!

Previously I wrote about some of the reasons why our students are disengaged during Mass, and suggested some solutions to this constant dilemma. Music, when used appropriately, is another way we can engage our students during Mass. However music can also be detrimental depending on the songs used. So often we are tempted to select songs that are catchy or familiar to students, as we think that these songs will appeal to their tastes and they may feel more engaged in the Mass. However, this may be causing more harm rather than good.

Playing the beautiful Andrea Bocelli song ‘The Prayer’ may sound endearing, but when played during Communion does it actually reflect what is taking place? It is for this reason the Church encourages sacred music to reflect what is occurring liturgically, rather than providing songs for entertainment.

As teachers we are in the position to select hymns for a school Mass, and it is important to use prudence in selecting hymns that actually reflect what is taking place in the liturgy. By prudence, I don’t suggest picking the loudest, exciting, rhyming, fun-loving popular songs. Although these songs get children singing and usually stay in our heads all day, we have to ask ourselves, ‘are these songs engaging?’ and most importantly, ‘are they leading our students to prayer?’

‘He who sings prays twice.’ This quote, attributed to Saint Augustine, is a reminder that when we sing during Holy Mass, our songs of praise are more than just recitations of songs. Now I will be the first to admit that I cannot sing, let alone sing prayerfully. I am what some people call tone-deaf but I have a real appreciation of good music, particularly if it helps me pray. Despite my singing deficiency, I find there is something mysterious about sacred music during Holy Mass; it actually hits a soft spot that makes me want to sing. However, I emphasise the notion of ‘sacred’ music not just any random, religious-sounding tune. When sacred songs are used during Mass they have the capacity to elevate our prayers, and engage us in the liturgy. When used appropriately, sacred music and singing can lead us to pray twice.

From the very beginning of the Mass, it is the music that sets the tone of prayer.

I have attended Mass with children when up-beat songs about celebrations are played. Naturally these songs create an environment where they feel it’s time to party. I question whether these up-beat, celebratory songs do anything to create a prayerful atmosphere. Admittedly, it’s not just the children. So often I find myself distracted from the get-go because the song had nothing at all to do with praising our Lord. Then comes the next challenge; trying to settle them down after such songs. As a trial, I once taught a class the hymn ‘Holy God we praise thy name.’ After explaining the lyrics, and allowing time for students to ask questions, they began to realise that Mass was a time to praise God. Incorporating this song at the beginning of Mass set an entirely different tone, and actually prepared the students for what they were entering into. I noticed that students were more prayerful, thus more engaged.

Then we come to the most distracting time for students during Mass, which happens to be the most important time; Holy Communion. Younger children use this as a time to make faces at their friends. Older students use this as a time for ‘catch-up,’ and unfortunately that ‘catch-up’ is not with Christ. If sacred music is to fulfil its role, whereby it connects us with liturgical action, then we need to think twice about the music we select.

I can recall a high school Mass where the beautiful song ‘The Prayer’ was performed by the school choir. While it was sung beautifully, it had absolutely no relevance to the liturgical action that was taking place. This was an important moment during Holy Mass, a time of Holy Communion with Christ, yet the students were more engrossed with the performance by their friends. You can’t blame them. They were distracted rather than encouraged to pray, and by the end of the song the students broke out into applause. With the focus on performance, there was a lack of focus on Christ. I advocate showcasing our students’ talents, but there is a time and a place for talent shows and Mass is not one of those times. Just because a song has the word ‘prayer’ it does not necessarily entail a prayerful song. If sacred music is to fulfil its role and ‘add delight to prayer’ then careful selection of the music we use during Mass is vital. Sacred music has the capacity to engage our students in the Mass if used appropriately.

It is amazing how song lyrics remain in a student’s mind. After all, we use songs to help memorise timetables, ABC’s and counting patterns. When songs are repeated often enough during Mass, they too influence our faith. I recall a time when I was discussing Eucharist with a class. One student discussed how she felt after ‘eating the bread,’ and then asked me when she’d be able to ‘taste the wine.’ Although she was right in identifying bread and wine I corrected her saying, ‘you mean the Body of Christ.’ Perhaps this sounds fastidious, but it is an example of how music influences thought. When hymns such as ‘share in the bread, share in the wine’ are repeated enough, our students can quite easily be misled into thinking that’s what they receive at Mass. It is absolutely essential for the music we use to reflect what is taking place. Just a simple switch to a hymn such as ‘Soul of my Saviour’ can work wonders. I have used this hymn with eight year old students, and although some of the words are unfamiliar it still relays the right message. With lyrics such as ‘Body of Christ be thou my saving guest’ students will begin to think more about the presence of Christ rather than bread.

Needless to say, when I actually played the music for this hymn, the children displayed a greater reverence. Perhaps it was the calm tune or even the sound of the organ, but the children responded in a more reverent manner. These hymns are great teaching resources too. Printing off lyrics and discussing them during class can be a simple teaching moment. The children don’t even need to sing. Listening to the music and the lyrics creates the atmosphere for prayer. If we become more conscious of the hymns we select, and what we are actually singing, then perhaps we will create a more prayerful and engaging environment.

Saint Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, encouraged the importance of ‘addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart…’ It is important that we impart this to our students and encourage them to make melody to the Lord. The Church also encourages the importance of sacred music, stating it ‘should be closely connected with liturgical action.’ If we focus on creating a prayerful atmosphere, and pay more attention to the lyrics of a hymn rather than how ‘catchy’ it sounds, our students will be more inclined to pray. Consequently the words heard in songs will connect with what is taking place in certain parts of the Mass.

Mass is the source and summit of our faith. It is a time where we offer our praise and thanksgiving to God and therefore it should be an expression of beauty. Sacred music has the capacity to elevate us in prayer and is an essential element in beautifying the Mass. With prudent selection of liturgically appropriate hymns, let’s bring the beauty back to Mass, and provide our students with an opportunity for prayer. Although we may not regard our singing voices as beautiful (which I openly admit), it is the relevance and prayerfulness of the lyrics that matters most.

As Saint Augustine said, ‘he who sings prays twice.’ Perhaps we need to make an effort to convey this message to our students… provided the hymns we use reflect prayer rather than popularity.

Mishel Stefanac

It may sound strange to attribute a deeper faith to the impact of a popular atheistic book, but it was out of the challenge laid down by the entry of the “new atheists” that I began to question and then more fully understand my Catholic faith. Atheists leaders such as Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and even the actor Stephen Fry represent a new and powerful group that seek to actively remove religion and God from our lives but also, importantly, from the public square of social and political discourse. They dismiss those with faith in sneering and churlish tones in what is on the one hand probably a genuine effort to understand the world, but on the other an effort to improve their own honour and esteem as brilliant, powerful and funny men.

Upon hearing their arguments I became challenged and defensive. I have always been Catholic and involved in the church and knew in my heart that it was the truth, but as I waded into a few debates over the web I found there were some holes in my arguments, plus the debates used big words like Ontology and Eschatology. My lack of preparation however wasn’t important because what it did for me was force me to consider, reflect and understand the things I had been saying that I believed.

I also became deeply interested and hungry to find out who was correct – the naysayers or the believers?

Peter Kreeft was one of the first people I discovered. He is part of a new cohort of defenders of the faith (apologists) who also include Robert Barron and Scott Hahn. But I also went further back discovering that these debates had really been going on in the modern era for over a hundred years. CS Lewis, GK Chesterton and JRR Tolkein all surprised me with their brilliance and wisdom, but also with their utter commitment and conviction in their faith and in particular, with the exception of Lewis, to the catholic faith.

I began to discover that this Church I thought I knew was something more. This was not just another religion that could help you get through a life that the philosopher Hume said was, nasty, brutish and short, but that she, The Church, is a glorious and magnificent instrument of the Lord that holds the keys to the fullness of this life and the next. Jesus Christ was not just another wise teacher or prophet but the actual Son of God who rose from the dead!

I began to see that Catholicism is like an ocean – children can play on its edges and adults can begin to explore the depths. I came to the amazing yet confronting realisation that this thing might just be true. It seems Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead, he really is the Son of God and that means everything and changes everything. As Chesterton said upon discovering the church, “…all the cogs and wheels began to be revealed and I could suddenly see how they all worked together.”

It’s my view that the new atheists have been given room to move by the Lord for the benefit of his Church and my Catholic resurgence is a product of that. I’ve noticed also on the web that my resurgence is not all that isolated and that I believe quietly yet powerfully through the grace of God that Catholicism is making a comeback – not that it ever really went anywhere.

This reflects the success the gay marriage lobby has had in selling its message of “marriage equality” among youth. It has very effective talking points: that marriage currently discriminates against gays, denying them their individual rights to express their love, and that two people of the same sex marrying each other doesn’t affect anyone else.

These are emotionally compelling for my generation because of its infatuation with equality. Broad notions of egalitarianism are drummed into school students: we learn extensively about civil rights movements and are told countless times to respect all fellow students. “Equality is good.” “Discrimination is bad.”

Proponents of gay marriage exploit this by framing the debate in terms of gay rights, causing youth to instinctively fall back on platitudes of parity and ignore all other issues in the debate.

In addition, the constant mantra that gay marriage is “inevitable” and that younger generations are all in favour of it, as perpetuated by the gay marriage lobby, much media and by peer pressures that influence many young people into supporting it. They succumb to the group think mentality. As a result, they miss the logical fallacies in the case for gay marriage.

Firstly, there is far more to marriage than love and expression of love. If love were the only criteria for a marriage, then we would allow almost every conceivable type of relationship to be recognised as a marriage.

Also, the idea that the legal definition of marriage, meaning the social significance a nation attaches to marriage, doesn’t affect society is an oxymoron. Marriage laws are fundamentally a question of what’s best for society rather than a question of individual rights.

Furthermore, marriage must discriminate to have meaning. Defining marriage itself is an act of discrimination because it is saying what marriage is and what it isn’t, by definition.

Once we get past these distractions, we can get to the core of the debate, which is simply this: should we have a special status for heterosexual relationships, as is the status quo? It isn’t “homophobic” to answer that heterosexual relationships make a unique contribution to society and marriage is a recognition of this.

Heterosexual relationships are unique in that they are orientated to procreation. They involve organic bodily union, through coitus, as part of the natural cycle of life and fundamental to the survival of humanity. The communal significance of this is acknowledged by society through marriage. Changing the legal definition of marriage to accommodate gay couples would mean the institution losing its significance.

Now, the standard rebuttal of this argument is that some marriages don’t produce children for various reasons, such as infertility, and therefore procreation is unrelated to marriage. This misses the point: heterosexual relationships as a whole, not any given one relationship, are an essential part of society by their very physical nature. Individual married heterosexual couples who don’t or can’t produce children at a given point in time doesn’t change the nature of the relationship – children not being produced is only incidental. With relationships between two people of the same sex, however, procreation isn’t just impossible incidentally, it’s impossible in principle – the very nature of the relationship means it isn’t possible. The current definition of marriage recognises that heterosexual relationships are naturally orientated to procreation, and most marriages fulfill this.

Given that marriage is naturally linked to children, it is unsurprising that the social science indicates that the optimal family structure for a child is to be raised by its married biological parents. The newly released study For Kids’ Sake, by Professor Patrick Parkinson AM from the University of Sydney, concluded that:

“…if there is one major demographic change in western societies that can be linked to a large range of adverse consequences for many children and young people, it is the growth in the numbers of children who experience life in a family other than living with their two biological parents, at some point before the age of 15.”

Additionally, a study by the American Witherspoon Institute Ten Principles on Marriage and the Public Good in 2008, which compiled the conclusions of dozens of the relevant sociological studies, found that children raised in intact homes by their wedded biological parents, taking into account other factors such as family income, fared best in terms of emotional health, educational achievement, and sexual development, to name just a few indicators.

Of course, some gay couples are better parents than some married heterosexual couples, but the principle remains that a child being raised by its biological parents is the ideal. It makes sense, therefore, for the government to recognise and encourage this, as it does currently by the institution of marriage.

The practical consequences of gay marriage for children and society would be long-term but still very concerning. It would change the institution of marriage from being centred around the production and well-being of children to being based on the self-fulfilment of adults. It would obscure the value of opposite-sex parenting as an ideal, taking away the special status marriage gives to the best arrangement for the upbringing of children. Society departing from the favourable norm in this way would adversely impact children, forcing the state to have a larger role in their welfare, such as in education and health.

The current definition of marriage acts as a bedrock of our society by recognising the intact, natural family as what we know to be the ideal.

I’m assuming that if you teach religion in a Catholic School you are a “Jesus Teacher” but are you using technology? Why not? Look at your students do you think they can be engaged by a lecture and a power point?  The fact is that they speak a different language than we do, their language is technology! They speak, communicate, create and think in this new language so if you want to teach them you need to learn their language.

Teachers in other subjects are realizing this and you can find great technologically integrated lesson plans on the web; but what about us?  We are falling behind yet what is more important than learning and knowing Christ? We need to be like the missionaries of old that upon arriving to a new territory would learn the language of the land and preach the good news. Sometimes they had to create an alphabet for them just so they could give them the Bible. We need to make our classrooms interactive, student-centered and preach Christ with Java and Flash and Blogs and Podcasts.

How do we do this? You don’t need a degree in technology to learn to use the web 2.0 tools that are available and create lessons that use it effectively. We must go beyond simple translation of an old lesson plan we must create assignments that would be impossible to do without the technology.

I admit it can be challenging at first but it is our calling to reach them where they are at. You can find more of my lessons on my blog:www.jesusteachertech.com . However it is only a start we need to work together and create a database of lessons that match every framework so that no matter the topic religion teachers can find help introducing technology in their classroom. I finish with a quote from Marc Presnky.

BIO

Carmen Ribera teaches Religion to at J. Serra Catholic High School in California and is a  specialist in  Theology of the Body, Sacraments and Morality.  She holds a B.A. from Thomas Aquinas College and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Educational Technology at Azusa Pacific University. She is passionate about the integration of technology in the classroom and teaching the Catholic Faith.

In the forum below share your ideas about how technology can be used to share the Gospel with your students. What are you doing that works?