Discipline, Devotion, and Dissent: Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic Schooling in Canada

8. Teaching Subject Matter That Is Controversial among Catholics: Implications for Intellectual Growth in the Church

189 CHAPTER EIGHT TEACHING SUBJECT MATTER THAT IS CONTROVERSIAL AMONG CATHOLICS: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTELLECTUAL GROWTH IN THE CHURCH Graham P. McDonough Introduction Catholic school curriculum content and experiences are aimed toward ends that extend well beyond simply the transmission of knowledge for its own sake. Similarly, the socialization of students in a Catholic school is also intended to be accomplished for something beyond simply effecting an efficiently operating institution. In the Catholic school these “aims” or “ends” coordinate the two distinct domains of encouraging a student’s spiritual life in relationship with the divine,1 and developing a more uplifting picture of life on Earth according to Catholic ideals of the common good. While Catholic schools have faced many external accusations that they cause social divisiveness, fail to promote student autonomy, unjustly draw on public funds, and indoctrinate students,2 recent scholarship suggests many things to the contrary. Mark Halstead provides a persuasive defence against the first three criticisms,3 and the Catholic Church’s own “Declaration on religious liberty” (Dignitatis humanae, henceforth DH) from the Second Vatican Council presents the institution’s most authoritative statement opposing indoctrination and other coercive means of religious education on the grounds that inauthentic faith results.4 Bryk, Lee, and Holland ’s extensive study found that Catholic schools are in fact quite effective in promoting and contributing to the common good of secular society,5 and Walter Feinberg makes a compelling case that Catholic schools (and DISSENT AND CRITICAL THINKING 190 faith schools in general) contribute well to pluralism in a democratic society .6 Catholic school advocates can therefore find ample support for claims that Catholic schools aim toward and perform a good service to contemporary society. There is much more to their mission and actions than simply “handing over” knowledge or providing experiences that are relevant only in an insular context. An interesting problem arises, however, when one asks what conception of the common good is present among Catholic school supporters and in the schools themselves. The temptation might be present here to conclude that the common good is understood uniformly within each school and across all schools. The literature on Catholic education, after all, tends to speak of the common markers of Catholic school identity,7 and most importantly the school’s theological foundations rest upon and reflect the Magisterium’s singular authority to determine Catholic orthodoxy on spiritual , social, and moral matters. It might therefore be reasonable to postulate that those persons who constitute the school—including students, parents , staff, and community interests, along with the clergy and Magisterial Church—share the same vision of the common good in the Church and society. This vision would therefore permeate the whole school, and so the curricular content and experiences would be aimed at reinforcing a gradual increase in the complexity of student thought and action in this respect. However, if Catholicism’s vision of the common good is tied in part to some of its socio-moral teachings that are controversial among Catholic persons, then the question arises as to what function these issues have as curriculum in the school, and what the school’s and teachers’ corresponding roles are in teaching them. What is the substance of these intra-ecclesial controversies? For the purposes of this chapter I have chosen to focus on a specific controversial topic, out of many possible, to illustrate a larger issue in pedagogical philosophy. The disagreement and debate surrounding the reception of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae (henceforth HV)—which proscribes “artificial ” contraception and promotes “natural” methods instead—represents a classic controversial issue within post-conciliar (Second Vatican Council, 1962–1965) Catholicism and Catholic schooling.8 This issue is well known as one of the major departures that Catholic orthodoxy makes from the norms of secular liberal society, but in spite of its status as official, normative teaching, however, a significant number of Canadian Catholics disagree with it. 9 In addition to this sociological description of those it serves, the Catholic school also encounters the facts of a documentary record in SUBJECT MATTER CONTROVERSIAL AMONG CATHOLICS | MCDONOUGH 191 recent history that Canadian bishops have permitted Catholics to depart from HV should they find good reasons in conscience to do so,10 and a theological argument that would permit a Catholic person to dissent from its teaching.11 Recalling that the school is composed of multiple players, and that each player has...