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†JMJ†

Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” – John 14:5-6 

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.” – Saint John Paul II

“With gratitude to Pittsburgh Catholics Against Common Core www.pghagainstcommoncore.com for allowing us, Cleveland Catholics Against Common Core,  the courtesy of incorporating their excellent resources on Common Core on our website.      We are in solidarity with Pittsburgh Catholics to keep Christ and the teachings of his church on earth as the center of our Catholic schools and never compromising faith and reason.

On March 18, 2014, Bishop David Zubik released a statement that made it clear that the Diocese of Pittsburgh will NOT be adopting Common Core.  Please read his statement here and an article about it by the Cardinal Newman Society.

**Now that Bishop Zubik has issued his statement against Common Core, we recognize that there is much work to be done that extends beyond the Common Core state standards.  We will continue to advocate for true Catholic education all over the country and work with our fellow Catholics in preserving it. There are broad changes taking place in Catholic education, toward a modernist and technocratic system, with ever increasing State involvement. We hope to aid in stopping this transformation by educating others and taking action.**

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to educate citizens on Common Core and to stop the implementation of the Common Core Standards in the Diocese of Cleveland schools so that they may continue to achieve excellence through moral, traditional, and classical teachings, while offering families true choices in their children’s education.

Cleveland Catholics Against Common Core and Pittsburgh Catholics Against Common Core are unified in their mission statements

“Can Government Take Catholic Out of Catholic Schools?” by Louise McNulty – Catholic Universe Bulletin August 30, 2013 

When I tell people that I don’t think Catholic schools should accept government funds, they usually look at me as if I’m crazy.

Oh, there are exceptions— people who admire the College of St. Mary Magdelan, Hillsdale College and others that operate without governmental monies and yet thrive. But the majority of people I talk to, both laity and clergy, give me “that look.”

It’s not quite what I would get if I came from another planet and had three eyes, but they project pitying glances that imply that either I have never taken an economics course or that if I did I failed it miserably.

My opponents (good Catholics all, I should mention) are adamant, insisting that government funds are imperative. Catholic education would collapse without it, they say.

Yet I stick to my guns. Well, lest I offend someone, let’s rephrase that: I hold my position. I explain that accepting—and eventually depending upon—government funding gives the government power—a leverage it wouldn’t ordinarily have.

At this point I might ask if, “Reduce your state’s speed limits or your road improvement grants may be withdrawn!” has a familiar ring.

Because churches accept tax exemptions, they can eventually be pressured or “controlled” by secular government rules. We have already seen the threats to religious freedom through the new health care mandates.

As “hate speech” laws become more and more widespread (and there’s every reason to suppose they will), secular government will be empowered to classify Church doctrines as “prejudicial” or “hateful” at will. This could lead to fines and imprisonment of clergy who are simply expressing their religious beliefs. Those bent on destroying religious freedoms take the acceptance of government funds as tacit agreement to government rule. They misconstrue the concept of “separation of church and state,” ignoring—or ignorant of—the fact that the principle is intended to protect the churches from the state, not the state from the churches.

So how does this affect schools? Already, many standard textbooks are fictionalizing history.  Will Catholic schools be obliged to use and teach from them?

Why does it matter? Because for six hours a day and 9 months a year, our Catholic children may be taught “facts” that contradict their faith or impinge on their pride in their country. Catholic schools, dependent on government funding, will have to make hard decisions on what they are willing to teach.

There is a vast difference between Catholic schools of today and yesteryear. The student body and faculty are no longer made up only of Catholic children and Catholic teachers. Some teachers don’t even share the religious beliefs of their students’ families.

Still, my opponents say, we can’t risk the demise of Catholic education.

All I can say is, Why not?

Where is our faith? Where is our willingness to sacrifice and do things for ourselves? Where are retired teachers willing to volunteer or dedicated new ones willing to accept smaller salaries than their talents warrant?

Does anyone remember the cities in Mississippi that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina? Probably not, because almost all the media attention focused on New Orleans and their ranting against FEMA and the delay in government assistance. While they were shouting for government help many people in Mississippi quietly went about their business and rebuilt their towns and their lives by themselves. This was documented in one of the few media stories that appeared about them.

When Christ talked of giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, I’m sure He foresaw our present crisis in Catholic education. And we know He didn’t want us to give our children to Caesar. Even if our schools would close, we could, with God’s help, resurrect Catholic education—at home, in home schools, etc. Perhaps if there were enough committed Catholic parents with children in public schools they could start a groundswell that would change some public school policy. After all, it is the public who elects local school board members.

What we need is not Big Brother, but faith as big as a mustard seed and the willingness to work to make it germinate.

“In 1848, I realized that if I wanted to get anywhere in doing some good, I had to put politics aside.
From then on, I always shied away from politics and managed to do good without interference.
In addition, I found help where I least expected it.”    – St. John Bosco

“If you are what you should be, you will set the world ablaze”  – St. Catherine of Siena

“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”  – Saint Teresa of Avila

Matthew 18:6
“Whoever causes one of these little ones* who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have
a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

 

“Let’s remember; we were a CATHOLIC school long before we were a Blue Ribbon School.”

Pope Francis recent statement April 11, 2014:

Click here:   Pope Francis: Satan exists in the 21st century and how we …

 

”The temptation of the devil has three characteristics and we need to learn about them in order not to fall into the trap. What does Satan do to distance us from the path of Jesus? Firstly, his temptation begins gradually but grows and is always growing. Secondly, it grows and infects another person, it spreads to another and seeks to be part of the community. And in the end, in order to calm the soul, it justifies itself. It grows, it spreads and it justifies itself.”

  

“As an illustration, the Pope recalled how when Jesus preached in the synagogue, his enemies belittled him by saying “but isn’t this the son of Joseph, the carpenter, the son of Mary. He never studied so with what authority can he speak?”

Click here:   Pope Francis on the Devil, modern education “horrors …

Quote:  4-11-14

Pope Francis also spoke about the need to reaffirm the rights of parents [NOT the state!] to decide “the moral and religious education of their children” and reject all forms of “educational experimentation with children and young people”.

Quote: 4-11-14

“The Pope also called for an end to what he termed as “educational experiments” with children and young people, pushing a “dictatorship of one form of thinking” on them in the name of a pretended “modernity”.”

“The Pope noted that the “horrors of the manipulation of education that we experienced in the great genocidal dictatorships of the twentieth century have not disappeared;they have retained a current relevance under various guises and proposals” 

Click here:
130 Catholic Scholars Blast Common Core in Letter to U.S. Bishops (Washington Post, November 2, 2013)

 

St. Ignatius Bible RSV

Catechism of the
Catholic Church

Catechism of the
Catholic Church

New American Catholic Bible

Pope Paul VI
Wrote Papal Encyclical July 25, 1968
“Humanae Vitae”  –  (On Human Life)
Sanctity of Human Life from
Conception to Natural Death

†JMJ†