Letters

Catholic education (letter)

Daniel Bryce

Contents - Mar 2001 - Buy a copy now Editorial: ACU theology: prompt action needed - Peter Westmore New cardinals to continue John Paul II's agenda - AD2000 Report News: The Church Around the World Seminary numbers up in orthodox US dioceses - Michael S. Rose How Archbishop Pell will implement Statement on Women in the Church Elizabeth Anscombe, R.I.P. - Robert P. George ACU theology: how orthodox, how accountable? - Michael Gilchrist Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter ordinations How monastic life can reinvigorate the Church - Fr Peter Knowles OP Cardinal Ratzinger on 'Third Secret' of Fatima What we must teach our children: Archbishop Chaput - Archbishop Charles J. Chaput New Catholic radio program to start in WA The surprise Cardinal: Fr Avery Dulles SJ - Zenit News Service Letters: Euthanasia in S.A. (letter) - Errol P. Duke Letters: Science and Christianity (letter) - Scot Chaston Letters: Enneagram workshop (letter) - Br Con Moloney CFC Letters: Church doctrine? (letter) - Frank Mobbs Letters: Anti-Catholicism (letter) - Frank Bellet Letters: Old liturgical books (letter) - Frank Carleton Letters: Latin (letter) - Karmenu Attard Letters: Supernatural order (letter) - Fr G.H. Duggan SM Letters: Misguided compassion (letter) Letters: G.K. Chesterton (letter) - Nancy McKelson Letters: EWTN tapes (letter) - John Lovegrove Letters: Vocations and orthodoxy (letter) - John Schmid Letters: Third Rite in Toowoomba (letter) - Mark Power Letters: Poem to Our Lady - Marion Craig Letters: Appeal from India (letter) - Kevin L. Fernandes Letters: Catholic education (letter) - Daniel Bryce Letters: Boredom? (letter) - Josephine Landsberg Books: Come To The Father: An Invitation to Share the Catholic Faith, Aidan Nichols OP - Christopher Quinn (reviewer) Books: Streams of Living Water: Autobiography of a Charismatic Leader - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: Why the hopes of the Council Fathers of Vatican II are yet to be realised - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Why I Am A Priest: Thirty Success Stories, ed. Boadt, Hunt - Katie Lindorff (reviewer) Books: The Pange Lingua Hymnal, compiled by Paul Newton - Fr Gregory Pritchard PP (reviewer) Reflection: Liturgy in the true spirit of Vatican II - Ralph McInerny

What a contradiction! AD2000 (October 2000) reports that in Dominus Iesus "full revelation of divine truth" comes through Jesus Christ and his Church. Yet your correspondent Gregory Kingman describes something different in what has happened to him in Catholic education.

I worked for over 20 years in the system myself. I worked myself to a state of total exhaustion and lost my job. I was not able to obtain any type of work for ten years after that.

But I believe God did me a favour. I did all those religious things that make one a "Catholic." I left a job in industry and studied, at my own expense, for six-and-a-half years to become a teacher in the Catholic system. But where did all the effort get me? Absolutely nowhere! It was expensive, mentally, physically and emotionally draining and a burden on my family life.

After my exit from the system God, I believe, began showing me things about my efforts.

My whole life had been centred around the Church, theologies, doctrines and "Catholic" principles. The teaching degree, diploma, certificates, methods and ideologies in which I was so engrossed were only idols.

During the whole time of my sickness and the period following my departure from the Catholic system, not one Catholic came to visit me. But I was fortunate to have two God- centred Uniting Church women minister to me. They pointed out that God wants a personal relationship with Himself. I than prayed that Jesus would come into my heart and renounced all those idols in my life.

I am pleased to say that I have never felt better in my relationship with God. I still have problems, but I know God is there to support me.

Recently I was at a seminar dealing with deliverance and healing. When I explained that I had been unemployed for ten years, the leader of my group said that I had had a curse placed on my life. She prayed against that curse. Five days after that seminar, a principal from a Christian College asked me if I was looking for a teaching position and would I be interested in working there.

Gregory should be thankful that he is not working in the Catholic education system. Look to God for your solution Gregory and then you will be as blessed as I have been.

DANIEL BRYCE
Traralgon, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 14 No 2 (March 2001), p. 13