Faith Leadership in Australian Catholic Schools - Example

Running Head: Faith leadership in Australian catholic schools Faith leadership in Australian catholic schools [Writer’s Name] [Institution’s Name] Faith leadership in Australian catholic schools As the historical developments and the socio cultural context in the catholic schools was running side by side in the Catholic schools, it was far more challenging for the faith leadership to ensure the implementation of the catholic principles in the catholic schools. Belmonte, A., Cranston, N. & Limmerick, B (2006) state that since the entire structure was taking a new shape, the Principal ship was a big and a major problem experienced at that time. Not only could the faith leadership establish their system of education; in fact several other options started emerging at that time. The implementation of the faith leadership was much harder at that time due to the appearance of structural changes in the contemporary catholic society i.e. the Lay teachers actually started to replace the religious teachers that were previously meant to be the sisters, priests etc of the time. “The Catholic Bishops of Australia laid down the basis of the Catholic education in the 1880’s exactly according to the model set up by the Cardinal Cullen in Ireland. This system could survive for about 80 years that was intended to develop a primary socializing influence to make the children into Catholics This all was established by the religious sisters, brothers who were quite poorly educated, belonged to the working class and were only trained according to what the bishops might direct them with respect to a particular situation” (6 June 2007 article in CathNews newspaper by Dr Graham English). The Government has always been funding for the Catholic system of education (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1989) and that is how the Catholic schools have been spreading all over the years in Australia. The funding actually enabled the catholic schools to survive and hence flourish the catholic education in an influential manner in the society. Grace and O’Keefe (2007, p.812) state that the Australian government grants the 53% of the annual income as well as various capital grants for building new catholic schools in the state. Although the main area of the capital sources mainly included loans but however they were repaid by the church resources and the parents afterwards. Although all the factors i.e. the Government as well as the followers of the catholic approach was in complete favor of the catholic schools. And the attendance observed in the catholic schools was at a high rate at the initial level. But after a research (Dixon, 2003), enabled the fact to reveal the attendance ratio of the church attendees in Australia in the form of figures. The survey conducted in 2001 was compared to the figures obtained from the survey conducted in 1996 and that showed that the ratio of the church attendance was decreasing gradually. Another feature about the existence of the Generation X appeared and the fact about this generation was that this is the Generation that is quite disconnected with any kind of affiliation to the church. There were several factors that became responsible for the spread of catholic schools in Australia. Initially the influential scope of the catholic preachers made the people to become mentally impressed and hence they started following the catholic ways of life. The remarkable Government funding to the catholic schools and the low school fees for the parents was an extra benefit that made the people inclined towards the catholic schools. However the standards of education had to suffer at that time because the lay teachers were supposed to take the positions of the religious sisters and brothers etc. When the sudden change was observed by the people, there was a sense of decrement in the attention and harmony of people towards the Church ideology as it was seen before. Some surveys were conducted and it was found out that a new generation called as Generation X emerged out and spread quite speedily all over the Australia. The Generation X was quite away from the church affiliated issues. As this Generation had a different point of view about the Catholic education from the ones passed earlier, and were a majority; they were the reason of the short attendance thus observed at the churches and catholic schools. Rymarz (2004) points the Generation X to be the “Lost Generation”. A very extensive survey was conducted in order to reveal the actual fact that was responsible for the decline in the church attendees .And the result obtained in the Research Project on Catholics who have stopped attending Mass Final Report (2007) revealed that there were five major reasons that were actually responsible for the disinclination of the people towards the church. The reasons observed so far were: i) the mass atmosphere appeared to be quite boring to the people, ii) the parents were non-catholic and did not allow people to attend the church iii) the sex issues thus raised in the church were against the view thus possessed by the people iv) the busy schedule did not allow people to attend church regularly v) lack of motivation for the attendees. With the growing context of the Western cultural society, the people seemed to be less involved in the Cultural and religious activities. As Thornhill (1999) was the one who actually located this issue of disengagement of the people in to the religion and culture. Further McEvoy (2002) supported his argument about the contamination of the Western Culture as well the catholic religion by referring to the term “fractured world”. He also agrees to the point of view of St Augustine and Karl Rahner that the beginning of faith is the direct contact with God rather than the imposition of the learning doctrine. The Australian community in the secular age had to strive for the survival of their religion and culture. As Taylor (2007) explains, the problematic situation of the secular age that the conveying of the religion to the next generation particularly to the young ones was a big issue of continuous stress. In short, the catholic community had to face lots of ups and downs in the complete establishment of the catholic community in Australia. Although every preacher of a certain religion has to undergo certain sort of tests and justifications but due to the emergence of scientific approach in the people and sense of rationalism, the strength of people seemed to experience a decline in attending the church and following the catholic principles of life. McEvoy (2002) recommended a humble “dialogue” with contemporary cultural expressions of spirituality so that the catholic system of education might be implemented and hence readily adopted by the people of Australia. References Australian Bureau of Statistics. (1989). Year book, Australia, Issue 72. Aust. Bureau of Statistics. Belmonte, A., Cranston, N. C., & Limmerick, I. B. (2006). Voices of Catholic School Lay Principals: Promoting a Catholic Character and Culture in Schools in an Era of Change. Adelaide, SA: AARE Inc. Dixon, R. (2003). Mass attendance trends among Australian Catholics. South Pacific Journal of Mission Studies. 28, 3-8. Dixon, R. et al. (2007), ‘Research Project on Catholics Who Have Stopped Attending Mass: Final Report February 2007’. Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Fitzroy. Grace, R. G., & O’Keefe, J. (2007). International Handbook of Catholic Education: Challenges for School Systems in the 21st Century. Springer. McEvoy, J. (2002). Faithful witness in a fractured world. Australasian Catholic Record. 79(40): 397-410. Rymarz, R. (2004). Lost generation: the cultures of Generation X Catholics. Australasian Catholic Record. 81(2): 144-153. Taylor, C. (2007). A Secular Age. Cambridge, U.S.A.: Harvard University Press. Read More