Speaker 0 00:00:00 I would say that when I speak of classical education, that this needs to be the end goal of human life. The truth of things. Yeah. What would be the alternative if we're not pursuing truth? What are we pursuing lies that we're simply talking about? What is real?
Speaker 2 00:00:24 Welcome to the Catholic Theology Show. I'm your host, Dr. Michael dk, and the show is presented by Ave Maria University. Today I'm delighted to have Father Robert Cerico as our guest. Father Cerico is the president emeritus and co-founder of the Acton Institute. He's a former pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he is the founder of the newly established St. John Henry Newman Institute for Classical Education. And Reverend Liturgy, welcome to the show, father. Good
Speaker 0 00:00:56 To be with you. Thanks for having me. Well,
Speaker 2 00:00:58 Glad to have you here. Uh, it's wonderful to see your kind of newfound, uh, commitment to leadership and development in classical Catholic education. And maybe for, you know, listeners who have heard about classical education or are interested in Catholic classical education, uh, maybe you could begin by just saying, really, what is classical education?
Speaker 0 00:01:23 Well, as someone once said, it's just education. Really. Wow. I mean, the, the human person looks at the world and survives by looking at the world, by seeing what threats exist, what opportunities exist, how to sustain life, how to be productive, how to maintain relationships. All of these things are process of knowing that's what human beings do. We're ho homo sapiens. Yes, we know. Yes. We're beings that know. And, uh, what classical education is, is that distilled process that comes down from Aristotle in the classical world. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that's filtered through, and, and I think distilled in many ways through, uh, the Catholic refinement, uh, that built the, um, Western civilization. I, I think, if I was gonna say one thing, cuz much can be said and has been said yes about ca uh, classical education, is that it seeks not to put facts into the heads of people mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but to teach people how to know how to learn. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's not teaching you what to think, but how to think. And when you accomplish that in the heart and the mind and the soul of, of a person, that person can thrive, can flourish.
Speaker 2 00:02:45 Wow. That's, uh, so well put. And, you know, and, and maybe if we're describing what is properly education now by the adjective classical education, uh, that kind of suggests Right. That education has somehow been perhaps hijacked or at least confused that we have a another version of education that is kind of prevalent Yes. Uh, in our, in our modern Western society. Uh, what would you describe that kind of counterfeit model of education? Well,
Speaker 0 00:03:23 Let me say, first of all, I am not a professional educator. I was not trained mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the whole, and maybe that's a good thing, you know, maybe that's why I can see this thing in a way. But, um, at least in the United States and, and I think in other countries, and it really, it's derived from, from other currents, uh, internationally mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, in the United States, the Dewey system, this whole utilitarian approach to education. Yeah. Uh, the idea that we have to take these children from their parents and, uh, instill in them a certain set of ideas that will make them useful, uh, tools in the, uh, society Yes. Under the guidance of the state. I, I think that's generally, that generally describes what public education, again, now I'm speaking in the United States context has become, uh, and you have the interests of unions, and many people have seen and remarked on how, uh, the policies of the educational establishment are really geared toward the satisfaction of the demands of teachers and the unions that represent them.
Speaker 0 00:04:31 This is not, of course, all teachers, but the, the whole system that exists and, uh, the resistance, the, um, suspicion of families, parents that want to come in and guide, uh, a child's education. Um, I would say that when I speak of classical education, it is the antithesis of all of that. Hmm. Uh, it is not utilitarian in that the, the purpose, the end goal of the educational process, the educational formation is not that a, a person is useful, but that a person flourishes in, in all of his or her dimensions. Uh, and that the family is an essential part of that formation process, because who knows the child best, the family. Do families make mistakes? Of course they do. Yeah. Certainly educators make mistakes mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but when you have a, a classical understanding of what makes for, um, a life worthy of the human person, then I think you can have this relationship with the family becomes part of the whole process. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, of the education of the child.
Speaker 2 00:05:43 I think that's really a helpful way of putting it, because by showing in a way that, uh, right. John Dewey, uh, and in the US and even before that, John Locke, right. Uh, in, in England, uh, we're they were focusing on a good mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, social utility. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, having, you know, people that can be trained for work, for societal functions is a good thing. It's just not the whole good. Right. It's not the highest good. And when we make it the highest good, yes. Uh, we end up leaving something out. And, you know, you, uh, your new institute's, uh, named after John Henry Newman, who's now a saint in the Catholic church, and in his idea the university Exactly. As I'm sure you know, famously, he, he distinguished his approach from locks of education. Education is not merely about utility, but it's about something greater. And I, and I think one of the things we can forget when we talk about this idea of like trying to train people for professions or train people for jobs, is that greater than usefulness is truth.
Speaker 0 00:06:48 Right.
Speaker 2 00:06:50 So, how would you say, in a way, kind of classical education is connected to truth
Speaker 0 00:06:56 <laugh>, it's all about, is all oriented to the truth mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and, and how odd it is that that very notion that that accepted notion Yes. Of what was accepted mm-hmm. <affirmative> should be under such sustained attack. And we see it repeatedly, I mean, who, it's, it's, I don't wanna say classically formulated means it isn't classically formulated, it was typically formulated in the modern discussion, and we've all heard it. Well, that's your truth. That's not my truth. Mm-hmm. What does that mean? I mean, if you really look at this rejection of the capacity of the human mind to apprehend truth. Mm-hmm. Which isn't to say that the human mind has a capacity to be, uh, of omniscient, but that can, uh, apprehend certain truths that that's how we survive uniquely mm-hmm. <affirmative> in this world, uh, that this needs to be the end goal of human life, the truth of things. Yeah. What would be the alternative? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, I, if, if, if we're not pursuing truth, what are we pursuing lies, you know, the, the opposite of the truth. I mean, it's reality. Yeah. We're simply talking about what is real. And if you wanna say, well, there are different meanings and there are different, um, uh, opinions about what constitutes a good life. Okay. And on what basis are we gonna adjudicate those claims? Yeah. Reason truth.
Speaker 2 00:08:20 Yes. How would you respond to people who are concerned that a classical education in their children's school would, uh, be impractical or leave them unprepared?
Speaker 0 00:08:32 Well, certainly just from the point of view of business leaders, uh, what we've seen now, and it's reported and all the major business magazines, Forbes, mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and, uh, and the rest that, uh, managers, uh, and, uh, CEOs prefer to have people who have a full comprehension of the thing. Because if they just have a, a very narrow, uh, view of their task, they become brittle mm-hmm. <affirmative> and can't relate to the information they have to have command over Yes. And how it relates to the overall functioning of the business. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and that's precisely what classical education prepares a person's due, how to think about a problem. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, it's also more, more satisfying. It makes for, uh, better human beings, uh, in that sense. So, uh, the classical approach doesn't disregard utility, it just sees utility as integrated into the whole of what things are.
Speaker 2 00:09:32 Wow. That's, that's so well put. So ultimately, in a way to really maybe determine what is really useful for human beings, it's also helpful to know the truth about human beings. Exactly. Uh, and because we are not merely kind of habit, we're not merely beings that do things by rote or by instinct. Right. Since we have the capacity for reasoning, also having an education that helps us to practice our reasoning skills in a, like ever increasing, of course, very slow adjustment to reality. Right. Turns out, then we become possibly in the long term, more practically Yes. Efficacious Yes. Because we have a better understanding of reality. Yes. But also a better understanding of our own mode of how we have to work Yes. To come to understand the world and one another
Speaker 0 00:10:29 Precisely. I mean, the, the thing that makes human beings distinct from animals is that animals are bound to the material world by their instincts.
Speaker 2 00:10:40 Yes.
Speaker 0 00:10:41 Human beings, while we have instincts, are more normatively bound to the material world by our reason, by our minds, by how we see things. And the, the phrase that we've all heard a renaissance man mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what does that mean? It means a person who is well-rounded, uh, a person who can take into consideration various, uh, dimensions. If you, if you want to talk about, um, pluralism and diversity, I mean, the, the, the true, uh, renaissance man is the person who takes into account all the diversity of the factors that go in to make up reality. And, and at, for that very reason, can be, um, have the capacity to more profoundly critique himself. Yeah. Uh, and to check his own premises. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:11:30 <affirmative>, that's really, uh, just wonderfully, uh, put, uh, father, would you tell us a little bit about, you know, how did you, you didn't plan to get into classical, not at all, Catholic education. Tell us a little bit about your own story and, uh, how this came about.
Speaker 0 00:11:45 Well, uh, you know, from when I was first ordained a priest, of course, I involved in pastoral ministry, but, uh, very early in my priesthood, I began the Acton Institute, uh, which is an attempt to, um, understand the economic dimensions of human life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the moral claims that has on the human heart, the, the, the vocation of business that people have. It's mm-hmm. <affirmative> underappreciated, the need for a limited state and all of this. Yes. But it wasn't formed as an organization that merely taught those principles, but really educated educators. It, it helped to form leadership so that those principles could be carried into the various spheres. A lot of people miss this when they think of the Acton Institute. They think it's, we're certainly not a policy institute. We're certainly not, we're not even a Catholic Institute. We're acumenical, uh, we're not a political organization.
Speaker 0 00:12:42 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we're a, uh, process of learning and of enabling others to learn and build leadership. People miss that about what Acton is. So I've had a lot of experience over 30 something years of, uh, helping, uh, people become better leaders. Um, as I say, all during that time that I was the, uh, president and co-founder of the Acting Institute, I was a priest. I was a functioning priest in various pastoral capacities, parishes, and, and the like, chaplaincies and things like that. Um, until about 10 years ago, we, I went to a parish, and the idea there was that I was gonna be, um, senior priest in residence, and there was a younger priest who was going to be, um, the pastor who was his first pastorate. And then I would be there guiding him. The parish had a school, I had never had a parish mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 0 00:13:39 That had a school before, um, been in and out of all kinds of schools, but had never had the responsibility for school. As it turned out, it didn't work out for this young priest. He went, he went elsewhere. And I wasn't supposed to be the, because I had all these other responsibilities, I was just gonna be there helping. I wasn't supposed to be the pastor. But, uh, to make a very long story short, uh, I saw that this place, everybody was looking at as a failure, it was, uh, a parish that was in, uh, financial difficulty and aging process, a dying school, a decaying building, uh, uh, ill coordinated staff. Wow. But there was something in it mm-hmm. <affirmative> that I saw had, um, potential. And I said to the bishop, I, I want you to make me pastor. And he thought I was crazy. He said, you have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 0 00:14:34 Why don't you just, you know, just, well, you can help out on the weekends in a parish. I said, no, let me have this. And so I suppose he held his breath and said, okay. And he didn't, it wasn't like he had a lot of people standing in line to take this parish <laugh>. Yeah. So he did. And, um, as I came, and as I went into that position, he said, there's this school here. He said, but, uh, it's gonna have to close all the schools in this area of Grand Rapids had closed in this, uh, west side of Grand Rapids. Um, and I said, well, let me, let me take a look at it and see what's there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I saw that there were not so much though in the school. There were some people who were very good, uh, in the parish. There were other people who were on the periphery of the parish who weren't leaders in the parish mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 0 00:15:23 But I thought had real capacity to become leaders in the parish. And so, um, I said, okay, we're gonna transform the school. I said, either we're gonna transform or we're gonna close it. And I held a meeting with the whole parish. Now, this particular parish had the blessing, the hidden blessing, which was viewed, uh, by the previous, and, and, and most priests were viewed mm-hmm. <affirmative>, a lot of homeschoolers as a, a drag, because there's this assumption, if I'm the pastor of Parish that has a school and I have a bunch of homeschooling, uh, families, they should be in my school. And so you're taking away from my school. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That, that's the mentality going in. I didn't see it that way. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because I presume that the parents are acting for the best formative process for their children. So I asked the question from a different point of view, what are we not doing that, you know, which isn't to say that people don't want to have their kids in their home.
Speaker 0 00:16:23 Yeah. But especially as they, they get older, it becomes more difficult. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I asked the, um, parents what they needed. I listened to that and decided that we were going to refound the school. It had been started in 1902, uh, in this largely ethnic area of just off from the inner city. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, Polish working class neighborhood. And, uh, we refounded it, and the, the first decision I made was the simplest, and that was that the kids would go to mass every day. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Wow. Isn't that something? Well, why is that a burden? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> to think that kids would go to mass. Well, we have mass every day in the parish, while we, we had to adjust the, the time by 15 minutes mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but they began going to mass every day. And by that, I, uh, didn't, don't mean that it was going to be a children's mass. It was the parish mass. And any good preacher looks at the congregation and preaches to that congregation. And so there are things that are applicable to kids, but the things that are applicable to kids are applicable to adults as well, if you Yes. Translated it properly. Anyway, to make a long story short, we did that. We introduced uniforms for the entire school, including the teachers, which, uh, immediately eliminated the, uh, uniform debate, which I goes on in schools. Yeah. And then
Speaker 2 00:17:50 I heard also that you did a, um, you did a special thing where you got all the, the first uniforms donated,
Speaker 0 00:17:56 Donated by somebody here in, uh, a Maria.
Speaker 2 00:17:58 Yes. Right. So to take out the, kind of the financial burden
Speaker 0 00:18:02 For the first time. Yes. Yeah. The first hit mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So
Speaker 2 00:18:05 They, yeah. People used to seeing, uh, the benefit.
Speaker 0 00:18:07 Right. And then they became distinct, you know, in Grand Rapids, when they'd go to the grocery store. Oh, what's that? What school do you go to? You look like you're an English school child. You know, the Hogwarts, you know, <laugh>. It, it is just a black blazer and great Yes. Trousers, you know, they kind of thing like that. So, uh, I also moved out the public school teachers that were allowed to teach in our school in Michigan, because I had no control over who they were. Okay. Um, and also what, particularly Eric, me, was the contract to have these public school teachers required that the classroom be denuded of any religious symbols. And I said, that's just not gonna happen. This statue of our lady was in the closet, in the, in the classroom. It was, I said, that's not gonna happen. And that, of course, had financial consequences because we had to replace those teachers.
Speaker 0 00:18:56 I also let go of the, um, the, uh, hot lunch program, the federal hot Lunch program, uh, because I was concerned that the entanglement with the federal government would mean that we would be under certain mandates, particularly at that time, the debate was over the use of bathrooms. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and I said, that just not gonna happen. And if we don't have any attachment to state money, then, then we're not gonna have any require, or that's gonna be a whole other level. When, when I eliminated the, uh, hot lunch program, somebody asked me, who's gonna feed the kids? And I paused, and I said, how about their parents? You know, which refocuses it on the parents mm-hmm. <affirmative> now, of course. So you, I said, look, I always have peanut butter and tomato soup in the rectory, which was my favorite meal. <laugh> peanut butter and jelly and tomato soup was my favorite, uh, lunch meal.
Speaker 0 00:19:51 It all went smoothly. By the way, we saved money on the Federal Lunch Program. Uh, and the elimination of those teachers, and then a number of other teachers, when they saw the direction we were going, they said, we're gonna take our retirement now. Enabled us to choose teachers and begin. And this is the key. This is the key. It's not the curriculum. The curriculum's important, but the key is the culture of the school, the prayer, the invitation of parents to kind of come by. And then all of these homeschooling parents watching this happen, began coming. And we created a program for them to come just two or three days a week so that they could acclimate to the school. And if they wanted to send the kid full-time, we would do that. And that's what has happened. We still have a large number of homeschooling parents, but it's not this division. They come to sporting events, they come to entertainment events that we have. Uh, uh, so it's, it's this kind of unified thing. And the other thing I told the parish is, we can't view the school as its own entity, as its own world. It is the largest apostolate of the parish. Wow. This is our means for evangelizing all of these families. And that's what it's become. And it's just been so integrated and holistic, which is, uh, key element of what classical education is. Integration.
Speaker 2 00:21:13 Wow. So this interest in education then came about really from the, your lived experience and practical necessity of
Speaker 0 00:21:20 Absolutely. I have not had a seminar and how to do this. Yes. When I hired the headmaster, he's a retired federal, uh, prosecutor. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the superintendent of the school said to me, the whole school system, and the diocese said, um, but he doesn't have an education background. He doesn't have an education degree. I said, that's right. I said, I didn't want somebody Yeah. With an education degree mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I wanted somebody who knew how to do things Yeah. Who could just really get it done. And he's, he's done that, he's grown the school, we started as 68 students. And today, as I talked to, we have 400 students in the school. Wow. 10 years. 10 years.
Speaker 2 00:21:56 68
Speaker 0 00:21:57 To over 400 and what it has done to the parish Wow. That this, and not all the people are involved in the school mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but there's is this whole vibrant culture in the neighborhood that it's, it's really quite incredible. This whole area of Grand Rapids is new and revived.
Speaker 2 00:22:12 Wow. That's amazing. What have you done to, uh, specifically integrate parents into Right. The educational process that you carry out in this kind of new culture and new curriculum?
Speaker 0 00:22:25 Well, I mean, I, I suppose we do what most schools do. You know, you have, uh, parent teacher things. Yes. The board. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we have them on the board, but it's also attitudinal. Interesting. The, the teachers welcome the input of the parents. Okay. We've had very little disturbance from parents, uh, you know, the, the stereotypical cranky parent who wants to run the whole school mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we just haven't experienced that much. And mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and the culture there doesn't permit for that, because it's not like the pastor or the teacher has to take that in hand. The other parents will take that in hand mm-hmm. <affirmative> and say, no, we, we don't agree with that. Or something. Yeah. Along those lines, we try to accommodate, uh, to the extent possible, uh, work with the parents, because, I mean, it's a serious belief that the parents are the first educators of the kids. They, they're the ones that are gonna have to stand before God, first and foremost.
Speaker 2 00:23:21 Yes.
Speaker 0 00:23:22 For how their kids have been formed.
Speaker 2 00:23:24 Wow. That's a, that's really amazing. It's a wonderful story. That's really a sign of hope, uh, for the renewal of Catholic education
Speaker 0 00:23:31 And United States. I just fell into it, honest to goodness. I just fell into it.
Speaker 2 00:23:35 Yeah. What a blessing. Um, we're gonna take a short break and, um, afterwards I'd love to, for you to tell us a little bit more about maybe how parents, adults, uh, people who maybe didn't get the benefit of a Catholic education, of a genuinely classical education. Right. Might be begin to do so as adults. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, but we'll take a break now. Okay.
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Speaker 2 00:24:31 So, father Sarco, uh, I had mentioned that I've run into lots of parents, uh, who kind of discover the richness of classical Catholic education, uh, sometimes even grandparents or, you know, single people who didn't get to experience it either in, you know, uh, grade school or in college. Uh, what would you suggest to them? How can they, uh, tap into the kind of roots of this classical Catholic education?
Speaker 0 00:24:59 Well, I think, um, there's certainly a, a whole number of books, uh, that they could read if they're inclined to do that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there are also, uh, websites. We've just launched a website now. It's just beginning. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, our whole effort, the St. John Henry Newman Institute, uh, is just, um, beginning and we have, uh, links on there to, to text that could help people. You know, I, I would urge people not to overthink it, not to think mm-hmm. That this is gonna be so highly sophisticated mm-hmm. And incomprehensible. It's just common sense. It's just mm-hmm. <affirmative> what human beings do. And then we just build on what we do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, we, we come to understand things in relationship to other things that we learn. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, uh, the one fear I have is that, you know, classical education, you talk about the Great books, people say, well, I was bored of reading Shakespeare.
Speaker 0 00:25:57 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, well, maybe you weren't taught how to read it properly. Yeah. Maybe it wasn't shown to you in, in its holistic form properly, or, yeah. Uh, how to, to write a sentence. Uh, you know, uh, I'm, I'm gonna go to these, uh, uh, literary references more easily because my undergraduate degree was in English. Oh, yes. And speech communications. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but those kinds of things as well as science and how we can break things down. It's just a natural part of who we are. So I think that's one of the ways to do it. The other way to do it is to find a, a school that's doing this mm-hmm. <affirmative> and sit in on a class and just listen to the discussions and how the discussions you're gonna find an, an overlap to, um, education today. I mean, and we're reading books and discussing them, but you'll find a different orientation, a kind of a different, um, end goal that we're moving toward rather than just the practical level.
Speaker 2 00:27:01 Yeah. I think it's, uh, in, in, in part, it's a willingness on the part of the person just to recognize that I wanna learn more. Right. And that I can learn more The idea that we, there is a truth, and other human beings have seen parts of it. Right. And the more willing I am to learn from them, instead of looking at Shakespeare, so to speak, it's like the text itself as what I'm looking at and studying as if it's putting it under microscope. You see, well, Shakespeare is understanding, is trying to articulate understandings about the human person. Yes. And what is it about the stories that grab us. And so we start seeing it as a, um, like a story we're entering into. Exactly. Like, what do you do, uh, with injustice? How do you bear trials? How do you, uh, find joy,
Speaker 0 00:27:58 Betrayal, and
Speaker 2 00:27:59 Humor Yeah. And these sorts of different things. And then write the classics. I go back to, I remember reading, uh, Homer's Odyssey in ID when I was nine in ninth grade, and, uh, which covers in some ways is funny. This is in public school, and this wasn't that
Speaker 0 00:28:14 Long ago. No, no. Right, right.
Speaker 2 00:28:15 35 years ago, I'm reading those in public schools, which is, right now you'd only be reading them in a classical school. So this is just kind of partly, um, just kind of part of the oddity,
Speaker 0 00:28:24 You, you say to these kids who's Homer, who's Leonardo, who's, you know, and they think these are, are, um, I've forgotten the name of the, the characters. Oh,
Speaker 2 00:28:34 The Teenage Mutant
Speaker 0 00:28:35 Ninja. The Mutant Mutant Ninja Turtles. These, these, that's who Michelangelo is. You know, them Homer Simpson. You know, that's, that's what they think. And my goodness, what a loss. Yeah. Even, even the pun on those names is lost to the kids. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, because of course we know these are puns. Yes, yes. This is the thing I always appreciate about the Muppets, is they, the old Muppets, not the new Muppets, the old Muppets had these reference points that adults could appreciate mm-hmm. <affirmative> that the kids were being drawn into. Yeah. And that's why adults and children could watch the Muppets, the old Muppets together mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Uh, and we, we are losing that completely. Losing that. Yeah. Even cursive, even these, I, I never thought of it, but I, I heard a report recently, I'm sorry, on public radio mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but it was, it was very interesting. It's like another language. People can't read, young people mm-hmm. Can't, some young people can't read cursive. It's like, you know, if we put Chinese in front of, oh, you or me, we, we wouldn't know what it was saying. So
Speaker 2 00:29:38 There're letters from grandparents or something, they can't read them.
Speaker 0 00:29:40 That's it. And documents. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> historic documents. They can't read the Gettysburg address, you know, as a document or the constitution. I mean, this is, think of the, the ramifications of this.
Speaker 2 00:29:54 Wow. Uh, that's really, it. It, it is an interesting sense of, one of the things that education does is pass on a culture. Exactly. And by us having common reference points, uh, within our cultural vocabulary, uh, that, that allows us to have kind of a shared, shared communion. Right. A commune, a community requires kind of a common communication.
Speaker 0 00:30:21 It's a common grammar. Yeah. So that we understand the grammar may, may speak in different dialects of that grammar mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, but, and, and just to go a little deeper in this, this is what makes communication possible, even even disagreement possible. You know, today people don't generally disagree. They just yell at one another. They, they denounce one another, they cancel one another, they cut off communication. Why? Because they don't know. They don't have a grammar. They don't have a, a means by which they can disagree. You look at some of the old debate shows, I'm thinking of firing line with Bill Buckley. Okay. Uh, he had, on that program, any number of people who, who disagreed with him on things, they'd go for a solid hour mm-hmm. <affirmative> of sometimes vibrant disagreement. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but never canceling, never stopping the conversation. They just probed it more deeply. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we don't have that capacity today. People speak in, in, in sound bites rather than reason, their way through something.
Speaker 2 00:31:25 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you could, could you say more about that? I think that maybe sometimes people think that, you know, classical education is, uh, monolithic as though
Speaker 0 00:31:35 Ideological
Speaker 2 00:31:36 One voice as though it shuts down Right. Disagreement and conversation. So could you expand more?
Speaker 0 00:31:43 Yeah. No, again, it is not what you're thinking. It's the way you process information and knowledge and apprehend, uh, the truth of things. So that, uh, for instance, my area is economics. Yes. I have certain views about the economy and the importance of having a free economy and a minimal state. There will be other people who think classically about these things that say no. Uh, the free economy you're describing is deleterious because it promotes, um, materialism mm-hmm. <affirmative> or consumerism and all of this. Now, if they're classically oriented, and I'm classically oriented, we can have that conversation, well, what do you mean by this? But don't we have to limit the say, yes, we have to limit the state, but not in certain areas, and what is the common good? And then we define those things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then you have a real debate going on mm-hmm. <affirmative> rather than you are just a, a blood sucking capitalist. No, you are just a blood sucking socialist. And then the, the conversation ends with Yeah. Caricatures and, and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, stereotypes.
Speaker 2 00:32:43 Yeah. I'm reminded of, uh, I think it was the great Catholic moral philosopher, Allister McIntyre, uh, who said that. Right. A tradition is kind of the living argument about the good of the traditions. Exactly. And so, because the goods within the tradition are complex multifarious, you have Right. The goods of the family, the goods of the person, the goods of the society, the goods of the school, the goods of the, uh, defense. Right, right. The goods of the roads <laugh> the goods of the trees. Yeah. I mean, all sorts of different goods. Uh, and then you adjudicate them by discussing and arguing about their relative importance.
Speaker 0 00:33:24 And the argument itself is important. Yes. You know, the motive of argument. Yes. The, the fact that, um, people will say, I don't want to have an argument. Uh, and I, I found this more and more people don't want to have discussions where they have disagreements. Um, and, and that's not brand new. I mean, there was always don't discuss politics in religion. I mean, where would my life be if I wasn't discussing politics in religion? <laugh>, these are great ideas. They, everybody thinks that an argument, not everybody, but, but a lot of people think that an argument is a fight, and it doesn't need to be interesting antagonistic. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it, it can be in, um, vibrant and forceful without being, uh, irrational. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that is what is happening today, that, that is unnerving in what's called woke society. I mean, one of the characteristics of woke society is this process of canceling people, or dismissing people or shouting people down. You see this, uh, repeatedly in demonstrations where they want to shout people down rather than prove that they're wrong. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> here, here's why you're wrong. No, shut up. Yeah. No, I want to prove why I'm right or why I'm wrong, or why you are right or why you're wrong. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and I think that's a hallmark of the anti classical mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, approach.
Speaker 2 00:34:50 So the common culture in a way that the, the community that is helped, that is developed partly by a common classical education, uh, is actually Right. A living tradition Yes. Of a discussion. Because in a way, we will settle our disputes about goods one way or the other, because we have a limited amount of resources, and we're either going to settle those disputes by power. Right.
Speaker 2 00:35:18 Or by discussion, by reason. By reason. Yeah. It's really reason or power. And it is. So the classical education invites people to be able to discuss and to kind of consider standing alongside one another, even if they're in disagreement. Right. Considering a, a reality greater than themselves and how best. Right. And, you know, so we can still make judgments of truth, judgments about morality, uh, but we also recognize that as we're trying to apply those judgments in particular situations, that there might be a variety of solutions Yes. To complex questions, and partly classical education is helping people to discover
Speaker 0 00:36:00 That. And what you've just described, that whole atmosphere, that that mm-hmm. <affirmative> that, uh, engages differences and stuff, is the greatest of liberality liberalism in the true sense of the word that people have the freedom to understand. Um, the people are gonna disagree with me, and I am going to be, um, tolerant in, in the right understanding of what tolerance is. Tolerance has come to mean, uh, agreement with things, but that's not, obviously, you don't tolerate something you agree with, you agree with it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you tolerate something you don't agree with. And that's the point of contention in much of the modern culture now, is that I don't have the right to disagree with you. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I don't have the right to disapprove of you. People are so afraid of, be disapproved of. Uh, and I think the, the reason for that is that reason has gone out the window. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I mean, if, if a, you know, I've had people tell me, well, you know, you're, you're papers and Catholic, you're going to hell. Um, it doesn't crush me. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it doesn't destroy me. Uh, maybe it mildly offends me or mostly bemuse me. Um, but I don't seek to stop the person from saying that. I, I, I'd like to engage the question and, and turn their ideas to the right, but that can only occur if we're having a, a conversation about it.
Speaker 2 00:37:26 Yeah. So your new institute is about classical education and Reverend Liturgy. Yes. So what would you say, I mean, how do this conversation about classical education, which is larger than Catholic education Yes. Uh, how does that kind of interact with, like, how is it that classical education maybe is, does it, is it at home in Catholic education? What's, its, what's the relationship between, you know, our Catholic faith and passing on the Catholic faith in education and classical education?
Speaker 0 00:38:02 Well, it's most at home in, in the Catholic faith, I think because of the, the way in which St. Thomas Aquinas, uh, and even before Aquinas, um, uh, approached the classical world mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, it wasn't this notion of, um, we're going to eviscerate you the stereotype of the, the Orthodox Christians we're going to, uh, burn you down and mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, uh, what we did was adapt. We, we took over pagan cathedrals, or pagan mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, places of worship and Christianized them mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, this process. Uh, and likewise with the classical literature, uh, it, it did this. I mean, uh, Aquinas adopted and applied and we would say refined and purified Aristotle's ideas. And so I think what, what happens, uh, with regard to the Christian faith in the context of classical education, is that it exalts, it, it, uh, lifts higher the, the understanding of who the human person is as seen through the lens of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 0 00:39:12 And the Second Vatican counsel the phrase, um, uh, about anthropology and Christology being reciprocal, that we understand man to his fullest extent by understanding Christ mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think that becomes part of it. And then naturally worship the, the importance of liturgy. Um, just, just to take it out of this realm of more abstract theorizing, um, one of the great challenges to young people today is distraction owing largely to, uh, digital, you know, the, the phone, uh, and the iPad and all the rest of it. Uh, and kids are constantly, I mean, we, we are affected by it. Yeah. The advantage of, of older folks is that we had some habituation to a different way of sitting with a book and grappling with, uh, a long paragraph and, you know, with subordinate clauses Yeah. And all the rest of it, kids don't have to do that today.
Speaker 0 00:40:08 If they're left on their own. They're, they're just reading headlines and what they want to read. And when they're, um, bored, they go to something that's more amusing. Worship calls on us to be silent and to allow something to emerge from that silence. Mm-hmm. This contemplation, this, and in our school, uh, I saw the effects of that. Uh, and the teachers will confirm this, you know, they'll, they'll be at a, a liturgy the last 45 minutes, at least. And maybe on a feast day, if we're gonna do the traditional mass in Latin, uh, it'll go an hour and a half, two hours sometimes. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if it's a major feast, and these little kids are there absorbing it, now I know that for them, their minds are gonna drift because ours do too. Certainly. Right. Certainly. Uh, but they learn how to acclimate to that. Hmm. And the teachers will tell us, these kids can concentrate more in the classroom because their day begins not with all this distraction. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're calmer and can approach things in a armorer.
Speaker 2 00:41:22 We remember reading something by Simone ve, where she spoke about true education as kind of a preparation for the gospel, because it was a, it was a sitting still before an idea or a truth, which in some ways is the attitude of prayer. Yes. It's just exactly opening our reason, not only to what our reason can reason to, but to opening our reason to what God has disclosed to us.
Speaker 0 00:41:49 Well, the whole, but it's
Speaker 2 00:41:51 The model of that receptivity of reason Exactly. Reality. Now, of course, the new divine reality, the great gift. Right. But that's wonderful to hear.
Speaker 0 00:42:00 Now, the whole of classical education is this preparation of the contemplation of mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the philosophical reality that confronts humanity. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:42:10 It, it's also fascinating. I remember, uh, St. Basil, the Great in the fourth century, uh, has, uh, an, uh, an essay, well, not an essay, but you know, like a, um, something he, a letter he wrote probably on, uh, the education of young Christian men. And in partly you had these schools in Alexandria and other places where you were teaching pagan learning. And so the question is, now that we've become Christian, how do we educate young Christians? And one of the things he says there is, he says, act, we, we ought to go back and read, uh, the GRE Greco Roman, you know, heroes and stories, uh, especially there in the Greek context. And he even says, we should go back and read Homer. And he says, in Homer, we're often going to, he says, the virtues to which Paul St. Paul exhorts us are often illustrated in Homer.
Speaker 2 00:43:03 Yeah. So you can think about, uh, even we were talking a little bit earlier about the id, you begin with the id, and you think about Achi, the wrath, the anger of Achilles, the rage of Achilles, the destruction that happens to Achilles to the Greeks. Petros is his best friend's death, so many who die because Achilles can't let go of his resentment. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. And so you see kind of like, oh, what happens when virtue isn't present? And then you see the fidelity, the different things of like, um, you know, Odysseus' journey home, he could stay married to a goddess mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but instead he wishes to come home Right. To his aging wife mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, right. And has that journey home. Right. Again, it's not that we're gonna see all the virtues correctly displayed, but we're going to see some of the kind of courage that we're gonna need for how do we journey home. And I just think it's wonderful to see that that tradition that we're recovering today is partly what the Catholic world has always done. Yeah. In response to these, uh,
Speaker 0 00:44:11 Well, in the
Speaker 2 00:44:12 Wisdom of the ancients,
Speaker 0 00:44:13 Prologue of John's gospel at mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, it says that Christ is a light, that light if every man that cometh into the world. So there is the, the light was there in the pagan hearts. Uh, what what needed to have occur was this refinement of it. Or Pope Benedict in one of his encyclicals speaks of aeros mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And the Christianity does not reject aeros. Yeah. It, it lifts it higher. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it points it to a higher end than just the material. And I think this is, this is the classic mind at
Speaker 2 00:44:52 Work, and it's really, I love that. Cuz aeros there is, um, like the, is love, it's actually desire. Yes. It's trying to awaken. Education is pulling out of students Right. At Dari, love their desires, and when we can, um, you know, elicit those desires and kind of attract them mm-hmm. <affirmative> in a slow way, at least, if nothing else, through our own love mm-hmm. <affirmative> of, of, of something greater. Father, I wanted to ask you a few questions, uh, briefly as we, uh, finish, as we come close to finishing. Uh, so, uh, first just, uh, what's a book you're reading?
Speaker 0 00:45:30 Uh, just right now? Uh, you know, I usually have two or three books that I'm sure just I'm reading too. Well, the one, the one I'm reading now is George Weigel's book on the second Vatican Council. Hmm. Uh, which I, uh, really find helpful. I mean, unlike a lot of seminarians of my era, I have actually read the documents of the second V council <laugh>. Yes. Um, and what he does in this book is give the backdrop to the debates. And, um, of course, I was particularly interested in the whole, um, dignity Shani, the religious freedom, but also the, um, the, the document on Sacro Con Con Yeah. Uh, on, on the liturgy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, I don't know why his best part of that chapter, though, is a long footnote. It's probably the longest footnote in the book <laugh>. I think he was avoiding all the, uh, liturgy wars right now. But what he says about it and the background of it is very helpful. So I,
Speaker 2 00:46:28 What's the name of that book?
Speaker 0 00:46:29 Uh, oh gosh. No worries. This is kind of Vatican two, but
Speaker 2 00:46:34 George Weigel on Vatican two. That's, that's
Speaker 0 00:46:36 Terrific. Think about the, the hermeneutical key of the whole thing is what did Pope John intend mm-hmm. <affirmative> by the council. He starts there and he reads everything through that hermeneutic.
Speaker 2 00:46:46 Well, that's a great, and yeah, there's some great, uh, right. I think his opening speech to the council
Speaker 0 00:46:52 Is that's, yeah. Is is
Speaker 2 00:46:53 Is classic. You know, right there you can still look it up on Yeah. That's a great one. So secondly, uh, what's a practice, you know, that uh, you, you do every day to help you draw closer to God that you'd like to share with our listeners
Speaker 0 00:47:06 In addition to the mass and prayer
Speaker 2 00:47:08 <laugh>? Well, that's a, or talk about maybe, how do you approach the mass and prayer?
Speaker 0 00:47:12 Um, my general habit, depending on the day, because sometimes I'll have a mass outside of my home. Okay. But if, if I'm in my home, I have a chapel in my home. I'm retired now, so I'm living alone with two dogs. <laugh>, uh, Theophilus and Barnabas.
Speaker 2 00:47:27 Um, love
Speaker 0 00:47:27 It. I have to keep them out out of the chapel because they, well <laugh> keep them out of the chapel. But, um, I like to begin with, um, the divine office. Of course, every priest is obligated to the divine office in a way we're not obligated to the mass. Interestingly enough, a lot of people don't realize that priest isn't obligated to say, uh, the mass every day, but he is obligated to say his divine office. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I, I do, uh, one or two hours of the office there. By that I don't mean 60 minutes mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but there's the sections of the office. Yes. And what I try to do is slow it down so that, especially when I come to the end part where it's between the petitions that are provided in the bravery and the, our father that I, I have a, a period of bringing in, I, I, I use my imagination to bring in all of the people with whom I've had contact and, you know, a priest, I suppose any of us get requested to pray for people mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 0 00:48:29 Every day mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I try and almost literally gather them and in praying for the dead, uh, which we do at mass of course, but also in, in this, uh, in the divine office. Um, I go through all the people I've loved and lost mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I go through circumstances that I have no personal connection to, but where people are grieving and have lost loved ones. And I go back down through my ancestries cuz I've done some genealogy work. I've offered mass for each of my ancestors that I found, I thought if the Mormons can baptize the dead <laugh>, I can offer mass for my, you know, that's beautiful four or 500 years ago. Yeah. That kind of thing. And then of course, I, and this I urge on, on everyone is an examination of conscience every day, even if it's simple. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> just what have I done that I shouldn't have done? And what have I left undone that I ought to have done? And that makes for a more fruitful regular,
Speaker 2 00:49:23 Uh, that's great. Yeah. Confession, it leads right into the, um, the right at the beginning of math. Right. Which is the recognition of our fault. So, uh, final question. What's a, um, what's a falsehood that you believed about God, um, that harmed you? And what was the truth you discovered?
Speaker 0 00:49:42 That's a good question. I wish you had told me you were gonna ask it. I could have thought more profoundly, but, um, if, if I think about my maturation as a Christian mm-hmm. <affirmative> from when I was a child to the present moment mm-hmm. <affirmative> is that, um, how would I distill this? God isn't the greatest magician. He doesn't do things yes or no, right or wrong, left or right, or you're gonna be, this, this is your vocation. You know, right at the beginning, I think God, you know, uh, Hopkins says that, um, that the world is charged with the grander of God. It will shine forth like a break forth, like shining from shook foil. I I think God is so much more imminently present mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, in his creation, that that affects our vocation and what God wants for us. That it isn't this or that, but that there's this spectrum of things of what will perfect us. I, I guess my understanding of God and even eternal judgment is much more, much less simplistic. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, let me put it that way. And yet on and another way of thinking, it's utterly simple <laugh> because in the end it's the embrace mm-hmm. <affirmative>, my
Speaker 2 00:51:10 God mm-hmm. <affirmative> Yeah. Recognizing the, uh Right. That the creator is always already present in his creation. Exactly. Right. And it's only in a way our confusion or our rebellion Yeah. That creates kind of this wedge between our created
Speaker 0 00:51:29 That's Augustine, isn't that God? Yes. You know?
Speaker 2 00:51:32 Uh mm-hmm.
Speaker 0 00:51:33 <affirmative> long have, I loved the old beauty of ancient ever knew that I, I want that on my tombstone because that's my life. Yeah. I, I was very confused early on mm-hmm. <affirmative> about who God was and who I was Yeah. In relationship to God. And it, it took a while. Truth be told, it's probably still taking a while, but I don't see it now <laugh>. Wow. Uh, and the way you see it in
Speaker 2 00:51:54 Retrospect. That's really wonderful. So. Well, father Cerco, thank you so much for, uh, being on our show, uh, your new, uh, St. John Henry Newman Institute. Yes. Uh, for classical education and Reverend Liturgy, uh, for folks who are interested in learning more about that. Uh, your website, new website is, uh, J H N I, that's is John Henry Newman institute. J hni.org.
Speaker 0 00:52:19 Dot org. And, and it's, uh, keep coming back, Chris. We're, we're adding things to it as I speak.
Speaker 2 00:52:24 Great. Well, thank you very much. Thank you.
Speaker 3 00:52:27 Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. If you like this episode, please write and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our Annunciation Circle so we can continue to bring you more free content. We'll see you next time on the Catholic Theology Show.
