Barat Academy's Theology - Good for Students?

Recent articles have been written about the newest Catholic High School in St. Charles County. Barat Academy is located in Dardenne Prairie, Mo. and started operation this year. While the school is a co-educational campus, it offers its college preparatory curriculum in a gender segregated class environment.

Barat Academy states that it is committed to the traditions and values of Sacred Heart education. Its core vision is "To create a learning community of citizens who are transformed in Christ and who will change the world." The goals of a Sacred Heart education, as explained on the Network of Sacred Hearts Schools' website (http://www.sofie.org/about-us.html) are:

1. a personal and active faith in God,
2. a deep respect for intellectual values,
3. a social awareness which impels to action,
4. the building of community as a Christian value, and
5. personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom.

In early March of 2007, an anonymous donor made a one-time contribution that provided all students in Barat Academy's first freshman class with a year of free tuition. The size of the founding class was anticipated to be about 150 students. The yearly tuition at Barat Academy is $11,000.00.

Students and parents received outlines for the classes which are to be taken for the upcoming year. The freshman class Theology outline provides an interesting perspective in how the new students are to be educated.

The outline lists five Essential Questions for the Course:

1. Am I developing a strong prayer life and a deep, personal relationship with God?
2. What does it mean to be a Christian?
3. How will I live out the goals of a Sacred Heart education?
4. Who am I today and who do I want to be?
5. Am I a responsible steward of the environment God has provided?

In order to assist the students in finding the answers to these "essential questions," they are provided with "central resources."

In addition to The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth and the New Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition bible (a translation which the Vatican has deemed unworthy for liturgical use, in part due to its extensive use of inclusive language), several other books are included in the "central resources" category. They are:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens (Sean Covey)
• The Four Agreements (Don Miguel Ruiz)
• The Illustrated World's Religions: A Guide to Our Wisdom Traditions (Huston Smith)
• Living Buddha/ Living Christ (Thich Nhat Hanh)
• On Prayer: A Letter to My Godchild (Phyllis Zagano)

It should be noted that Don Miguel Ruiz

was born into a family of healers and raised in rural Mexico by a curandera (healer) mother and nagual (shaman) grandfather. The family anticipated don Miguel would embrace their centuries old legacy of healing and teaching and as a nagual, carry forward the esoteric Toltec knowledge...

The Toltec came together as masters (Naguals) and students at Teotihuacan, the ancient city of pyramids outside Mexico City known as the place where "Man becomes God". Teotihuacan remained the Toltec center of spiritual knowledge and transformation for many thousands of years and still endures as a living repository of silent knowledge.

...the esoteric Toltec knowledge was embodied and passed on through generations by different lineages of Naguals. Though it remained veiled in secrecy for hundreds of years, ancient prophecies foretold the coming of an age when it would be necessary to return the wisdom to the people. Now, don Miguel has been guided to share with us the powerful teachings of the Toltec.

...don Miguel reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. When we are ready to change these agreements, there are four deceptively simple, yet powerful agreements that we can adopt as guiding principles.

More on this is available at the miguelruiz.com website here.

Questions may arise as to the purpose of teaching freshmen about these heretofore "hidden" teachings of 'enlightenment'. It's unclear from the outline whether this is a class on world religions or an indoctrination of syncretism or pluralism. One may wonder if a new form gnosticism is now part of Catholic theology.

What is a parent to deduce from seeing that Living Buddha/ Living Christ is classified as a "theological" resource for beginning freshmen? Faithful Catholics would do well to read the article, "Are Jesus and Buddha Brothers?", by Carl E. Olson. It is available at Catholic Culture here.

"When you are a truly happy Christian, you are also a Buddhist. And vice versa." So concludes best-selling author and Buddhist monk Thich Hhat Hanh near the end of his popular book Living Buddha, Living Christ.

Some would find it quite interesting and problematic that books such as this are viewed as "central resources" for the study of theology in a freshman class. Carl's article is quite good and needs to be read in its entirety, but a couple of excerpts seem appropriate:

Despite many external similarities, Buddhist meditation and contemplation is quite different from orthodox Christianity. Buddhist meditation strives to "wake" a person from his existential delusions. "Therefore, despite similar aspects, there is a fundamental difference" between Christian and Buddhist mysticism, writes Pope John Paul II. "Christian mysticism . . . is not born of a purely negative 'enlightenment.' It is not born of an awareness of the evil that exists in man's attachment to the world through the senses, the intellect, and the spirit. Instead, Christian mysticism is born of the revelation of the living God" (Crossing the Threshold of Hope).
. . .
Because it offers a spirituality that is ostensibly free of doctrine and authority, it will attract hungry souls looking for fulfillment and meaning. "For this reason," the Holy Father states, "it is not inappropriate to caution those Christians who enthusiastically welcome certain ideas originating in the religious traditions of the Far East." [my emphasis]

And, in order to dispel any uncertainties, Carl offers this anecdotal conversation:

Shortly before the Holy Father's visit to St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1979, the Dalai Lama was greeted there. A monsignor in the receiving line recalls his encounter with the Buddhist patriarch: The Dalai Lama approached him, gazed into his eyes, and queried, "Father, do you know the difference between you and me?"

"No, Your Holiness," replied the monsignor.

"You believe in a personal God," the Dalai Lama observed, "and I do not."

This, above all, marks the difference between Christians and Buddhists. Beyond the rhetoric of "peace," "compatibility," and "the way," there remains one profound difference between Buddha and Jesus: Jesus is God; Buddha is not.

In looking at the last book by Phyllis Zagano, it should be noted that the author has previously called for the ordination of women to the diaconate as in this article, "Women Deacons - the fears of Rome" and this book, "Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Catholic Church."

And if all of this is not enough to cause parents to worry about their children's spiritual welfare or suffer anxiety attacks, there is yet still more. First year high school students are treated, not to a refresher of fundamentals and the teachings of the Faith in a systematic way, but to a study of the alleged "wisdom" of the Enneagram. From the student handout we read:

Quarter 1
1. The Wisdom of the Enneagram

a. What does my Enneagram type teach me about myself?

b. The student will be able to identify the patterns of behavior most commonly associated with his/her personality type.

c. The student will learn to think critically about the strengths and weaknesses of personality categorizations.

d.The student will incorporate the knowledge of self-realization in order to strengthen his/her relationship with God and with others.

e.The student will produce an essay assessing the value of the Enneagram.

Based upon what is really known about the enneagram from people such as Fr. Mitch Pacwa (critique here), one might wonder why such a topic is proposed as one of the first things being taught to first year students, who may not have been previously blessed with a sufficiently firm foundational religious education.

Fr. Pacwa wrote, in 1999:

Today, there is not a single Jesuit in my province, or the next province over, teaching the Enneagram. There is not a single Jesuit left in the society teaching the Enneagram. Either they've stopped teaching the Enneagram, or they've left the Society. Not a single one is left.

Pat O'Leary drove our retreat centre in Cleveland into the red so far that it went bankrupt. He was giving 52 Enneagram seminars a year at this place — plus going out to other places to give Enneagram seminars, and he is still driving it into the ground. Same thing has happened at the retreat house in Western Massachusetts and another one on the coast run by the Dominicans — two Dominicans, a priest and a nun, on full time Enneagram work. It runs them out of business. It's something that people in your dioceses better pay attention to.
. . .
I have mentioned all this in terms of its roots, to de-mythologise the absolute nonsensical myth of it being a 2000-year-old Sufi system. That is untrue. It's less than 30 years old. I don't intend to say in any way that the Catholic teachers of the Enneagram are promoting pantheism; they don't know its pantheistic roots; they don't know about its occultic roots; they don't know that it came from spirit channelling; they don't know that it was originally a form of fortune-telling. They haven't got a clue of that. They all believe the old myth — or the not so old myth — the 30-year-old myth of it being an ancient system.

Is this a matter about which to be concerned? Many Catholics would emphatically say 'yes'.