"Critical Race Theory and Catholic Education" Aug 6, 2021

Racism is evil. The Church’s teaching is clear: “The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design.” (CCC #1935)

Throughout the centuries, Christians have always been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights. We are quite proud of this as Catholics. But we have always known that how we fight against racism and injustice matters. Choosing to espouse deeply problematic philosophical theories to address social problems, even with the best of intentions, will always make things worse. This is what I believe is happening with the development of Critical Race Theory.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the controversial theory gaining traction in our country which is already being taught in many public schools. Essentially, Critical Race Theory is an historical revisionist and deconstructionist social theory that attempts to address the problem of racism by understanding it in Marxist categories of class conflict and power dynamics. This approach departs significantly from the classical Christian approach to civil rights championed by those who ended slavery and by Martin Luther King, Jr. who appealed to the equal dignity of the human race by our common origin in God. Precisely because it is not rooted in a sound anthropology, critics argue that CRT invariably creates more problems than it solves. We should not be surprised at the immense backlash against the teaching of CRT in schools. Already nine states have outlawed teaching it in their public schools. In my opinion, CRT is so problematic that I believe, taken as a whole, it is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity for a multitude of reasons. I will not get into all of those reasons now for the sake of brevity; however, I want to offer two points around how we are approaching this in our parish school under the patronage of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

First, we will not be teaching Critical Race Theory at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School. We cannot subject our students to an unproven and divisive social theory that engages in historical revisionism and counterproductive activism around race. At SEAS, we will continue to teach history and morality from a traditional Judeo-Christian framework so that students can learn to think critically about moral truth. We will continue to emphasize the development of personal moral character so that our students can confidently become who God has created them to be. In this way, they will be prepared to bring the love of God into the many challenges of the world which they will inherit.

Second, bad ideas do not come out of a void; they flow from other bad ideas. Knowing the intellectual pedigree of a bad idea can help us not only avoid falling into its error, but it can also help us to work to defeat them with better ideas. The fact is that good people with good intentions can easily fall into error regarding important topics such as gender, sexuality, and racism. One reason why this happens is that sometimes people just don’t know what they don’t know. Serious and careful critical thinking helps us to discover the truth and sift out what is false, thereby ensuring that damaging theories do not cause others to suffer.

At SEAS School we are dedicated to sharpening the minds of our students to distinguish between good from evil so that they can best love God and their neighbor and be a good servant in the world. We do this at SEAS because we know that without truth, there is no freedom. Without freedom, there is no love. Therefore, in addition to ensuring our school is kept free from destructive ideologies, I would like to challenge all parishioners and school parents alike to read up on these topics, especially those who find my decision not to embrace any component of CRT in our school classrooms or parish catechetical programs difficult to accept. 

Rather than suggest dozens of articles and books to read, I am just going to suggest one author: Noelle Mering. If you want to learn more about why this and other theories are problematic, you can read a superb article she wrote on this topic here and/or you can check out the book she just published here, which in my mind is excellent.

Fr. Robert T. Cooper, Pastor
Divine Mercy Parish and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School