Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas on What it Means to be a Crusader Today

They will have been formed as counter-cultural agents, so that no ISIS recruiter could ever point to them as examples of western secularization and perversion.

When Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in 1095, he envisioned it as a defensive action, designed to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims and to protect the lives of Christians living there and of pilgrims going there.  It is interesting that what we call "crusades" were never called that by the participants; that term doesn't appear until the seventeenth century!  Those answering the call of the Pope saw themselves as the fideles Sancti Petri (the faithful of Saint Peter) or the milites Christi (the soldiers or knights of Christ).  - Truth be told, the biggest Catholic contribution to contemporary life will be offering the only viable alternative to generations of ignorance, crassness and immorality served up by godless and ineffectual educational institutions.- Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas

 
SAN ANTONIO, TX (Catholic Online) - (Editors Note: Fr Peter Stravinskas is a regular contributor to Catholic Online and many other sources. His insightful commentaries, teachings and inspirational reflections are enjoyed by many of our readers.

This past weekend Father was honored for his defense of the vital role of Catholic education in a culture which is imploding from the loss of a moral compass. Clearly, the rebuilding of the moral foundations of the West will take considerable prayer, time, and effort. The necessity of truly educated Christians, willing to pray and work toward that noble goal, becomes increasingly obvious. That is why the new and renewed schools and academies of this age are so vital.

Atonement Academy is the Parish School of Our Lady of the Atonement Parish Church in San Antonio, Texas. The parish was established by a Decree of Erection, signed by Archbishop Patrick F. Flores, to take effect on 15 August 1983.  It was placed under the title of Our Lady of the Atonement, a title which originated in the Episcopal Church in the 19th century, and which was brought into the Catholic Church by the Graymoor Friars and Sisters of the Atonement in 1909.

The parish was erected as a Personal Parish, under the terms of the Pastoral Provision promulgated by Pope Saint John Paul II.  The parish was established specifically for the "Anglican Common Identity usage," and is the first parish ever to be established for this purpose.

In 1993, just after the tenth anniversary of the canonical erection of the parish, permission was sought to establish a parish school.  The parishioners recognized the importance of Catholic education, and it was an undisputed understanding that the school would reflect the particular spirituality and Catholic practice of the parish.  When permission was granted by the archbishop, the members of the parish were able to accumulate sufficient funds in just six weeks which would allow the building project to proceed.

Father Christopher G. Phillips is the pastor of this parish and school. His blog AtonementOnline  can be found here I am happy to present Fr Peter's entire address below - Deacon Keith Fournier)

*************

Remarks of the Reverend Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., upon receiving the Crusader Award from the Atonement Academy of San Antonio, Texas, 2 May 2015.

Dearest friends, I am humbled and honored to receive the Crusader Award from Atonement Academy. I have done many things in my priestly life and ministry but helping to open three schools and to re-open two other schools have been among my greatest joys; if I finally get into Heaven, I trust it will be for this.  I should also note that this is the first time in my life I have ever received a reward, and so I am doubly grateful. 

Permit me to use these few minutes to reflect on what I think being a "crusader" means in the context of today's Church and world and, at the same time, to dispel some nasty myths and misinformation that have been associated with the word for all too long, most recently repeated by Barack Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast.
   
I should state at the outset that I believe "crusader" is a most apt mascot for a Catholic school.  Why so?  When I was in the third grade, we began to read a book a week, after which we had to write a two-page report and to make a one-minute oral presentation to the class, summarizing the work. 

The first book I read was on the North American martyrs.  When I concluded my report, Sister Vera asked: "Did you learn anything from the book, Peter?"  "I learned what I want to be when I grow up."  "And what is that?" asked Sister.  "I want to be a martyr!"  "Well, maybe just a confessor," finessed Sister Vera. 
   
When Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in 1095, you see, he envisioned it as a defensive action, designed to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims and to protect the lives of Christians living there and of pilgrims going there.  It is interesting that what we call "crusades" were never called that by the participants; that term doesn't appear until the seventeenth century!  Those answering the call of the Pope saw themselves as the fideles Sancti Petri (the faithful of Saint Peter) or the milites Christi (the soldiers or knights of Christ). 

The Pope asked them to make a vow and, as a sign of that vow, to sew onto their garments a cloth cross, which became known as "the taking of the cross" for their iter or peregrinatio (journey or pilgrimage).  And so, the cross became the overriding symbol for the entire endeavor, with Deus vult (God wills it) as the battle cry.  Pope Urban launched the First Crusade on the feast of the Assumption in 1096 - by a happy coincidence, the very feast on which this parish was established in 1983!
   
The crusades were more successful at some times than at others.  Unfortunately, some of the participants engaged in acts not called for by the Holy See but actually roundly condemned by the Popes; those abuses have been used to give a black eye to the whole project.

 It is likewise important to note that the vast majority of the crusaders were good, holy, altruistic men and women, who endured great hardships, including the dangers of a long and perilous journey, potentially dying in battle, and not a few upon return, discovering their wives had been taken by another man.  Let's not also forget that there was an 80% casualty rate among the crusaders. 

Simply put, this was no "Club Med" vacation.  The overwhelming positive nature of the crusades has caused an historian like Karen Armstrong - no apologist for traditional Catholic causes - to declare:

"With the Crusades, the West found its soul. It began cultivating its own literary, artistic and spiritual traditions. This was the age of St. Francis of Assisi, Giotto, Dante and the troubadours. Until the Crusades, Europe had been a primitive backwater, isolated from other civilizations and lost in a dark age. . . .  By the end of the crusading venture, Europe had not only recovered but also was on a course to overtake its rivals and achieve world hegemony. This recovery was a triumph unparalleled in history, but it was also a triumph that involved great strain and whose unfortunate consequences reverberate even today.1"

As someone whose life has been touched by the Church's schools from the age of four until the present, let me suggest some lessons we can draw from the crusades in this particular historical moment when "Islamicization" once more looms large.
   
The first point to consider is how ISIS and their ilk can recruit so effectively. The answer is simple: They have been able to paint the West and the United States, in particular, as "The Great Satan."  In what does that portrait consist?  That formerly Christian nations - and I stress, "formerly" -  have succumbed to and export pornography, abortion, birth control, sexual immorality, family breakdown and secularism. 

To be sure, that is an inaccurate and unfair generalization, but it is true enough in the main that it can be used to portray the West - the "Christian" West - as evil, an evil to be fought and conquered.  What is the antidote?  Producing saints, which is the unique goal of Catholic education.  We are also in the business of producing scholars - and knowledge is power.
   
A Catholic school must present the apostolic faith in all its fullness.  Those of us old enough to remember the Baltimore Catechism will recall that one of the first questions asked was: "Why did God make me?"  In typically laconic style, it gave the reply: "God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, so as to be happy with Him forever in Heaven."  Notice the sequence: Knowing comes first.  Hence, a full-throated proclamation of Catholic truth geared to forming future apologists and confessors of the faith, "once delivered to the saints," as the Epistle of Jude (1:3) puts it. 

If crusader students truly know Him, they will love the Lord Jesus with a deep love, leading them to serve Him with every fabric of their being.  And, in turn, those convinced believers will be convincing in their sharing of the truth of Christ, being "prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in [them]," as the First Epistle of St. Peter puts it (3:15).  Indeed, they will be genuine soldiers of Christ, filled with ardor and zeal. 

Being zealous, however, is not zealotry as they will have learned in the school of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, namely, that we Catholics do not impose; we propose.  Interestingly, those two Popes were merely echoing St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the preacher of the First Crusade!  Of course, this is exactly how St. Peter completes the admonition I just cited: ". . . yet do it with gentleness and reverence."
   
Crusader students will have been given challenges since we believe they can be more than they are: Challenges to be faithful to Sunday Mass and daily prayer; faithful to the Sacrament of Penance and penitential observances; faithful to Christian charity.  They will have been formed as counter-cultural agents, so that no ISIS recruiter could ever point to them as examples of western secularization and perversion.
   
Because Catholicism esteems the life of the mind, crusader students will have been introduced to the world of culture and science, becoming scholars.  Into the abyss of what Mark Bauerlein has called "the dumbest generation,"2 our students "will shine forth and will run like sparks through the stubble" (Wis 3:7). 

Truth be told, the biggest Catholic contribution to contemporary life will be offering the only viable alternative to generations of ignorance, crassness and immorality served up by godless and ineffectual educational institutions.  Isn't that what Cardinal Newman meant when he expressed this hope for those imbued with both faith and reason:
 
"I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism. . . .3"

Crusader children will also learn about the sacredness of human life and the importance of being open to life.  Some years ago, I got into a conversation with a security guard in a museum in Rome.  She began to bewail what she called "the Muslim take-over" of Italy.  Noticing a wedding ring on her, I asked how many children she had.  Very coyly, she responded, "We have a poodle!"  "Ah, there it is," said I: "Muslims have children while Italians have poodles." 

Demographics won't be fooled.  In another twenty years, if western Europe continues on its current demographic path - a birth rate well below what is necessary for survival - the remaining Europeans will not have to worry about fighting another Battle of Lepanto or Vienna; they will simply wake up some morning living under Sharia. The United States, regrettably, is not far beyond Europe.  Crusader children, however, will have children, whom they will love and cherish.
   
Crusader schools will also teach their students beauty - the beauty fostered in Catholic culture from time immemorial: the beauty of our art, architecture, music, literature, and liturgy.  Philosophers tell us that the good, the true and the beautiful co-inhere, and that is true.  Human beings, however, often resist the good and the true but generally find the beautiful irresistible, which can then lead to the good and the true.  Isn't that what Dostoevsky had in mind when he asserted that "beauty will save the world"? 

Just a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister of the very secular France made an astonishing comment.  Manuel Valls said: "The faithful of the Catholic religion must be able to worship, go to Mass in perfect serenity.  Moreover, it is the most beautiful and strongest of the answers we need to terrorism."  The beauty of Catholic worship, he says, is the ultimate antidote to terrorism.  No Pope could have said it better.
   
You have been doing all this in the Atonement Academy these past twenty years.  Have you been 100% successful?  Of course not.  The crusades were not; nor was Our Lord Himself. I have always taken consolation, however, from the parable of the sower and the seed,4 wherein our Savior teaches us that a good harvest is a 25%-yield.  I trust Atonement has done better than 25%. 

But here's another consideration: There are at present approximately two million students in the Catholic schools of our nation.  If but a quarter of them were to become crusaders upon graduation, we would have a force of half a million committed believers.  With Pope Urban, we exclaim: Deus vult (God wills it)!
   
In 1879, Cardinal Newman and the Archbishop of Sydney (Australia) had an exchange of letters.  Archbishop Vaughan shared his pastoral concerns with Newman:

"We are now in the midst of a great educational fight. The Bishops have lately issued a joint Pastoral Letter condemning Public Schools, and urging Catholics to give their children a thorough Catholic education. We have found that these State Schools are hot-beds of indifferentism and infidelity: and unless a bold stand were made, the Church eventually would suffer terrible injury. I send Your Eminence three Pastoral Letters which I have written; and in the second you will see that I have taken some liberties (which I beg your pardon for) with Your Eminence's name. If in your reply to the Catholic laity you could say a word about their being thorough in their Catholicity, and becoming "Champions" against the great apostasy, it would be a great help to our cause. They want courage; and you, by your words, could give it them."   
   
Cardinal Newman, the great champion of Catholic education, replied thus:

"I feel it a great honor on the part of Your Grace, that you have made use, in the Pastorals, which you have had the goodness to send me, of what I had occasion to say at Rome last May on the subject of the special religious evil of the day. It pleased me to find that you could make it serviceable in the anxious conflict in which you are at this time engaged in defense of Christian education."

"It is indeed the gravest of questions whether our people are to commence life with or without adequate instruction in those all-important truths which ought to color all thought and to direct all action; - whether they are or are not to accept this visible world for their God and their all, its teaching as their only truth, and its prizes as their highest aims; - for, if they do not gain, when young, that sacred knowledge which comes to us from Revelation, when will they acquire it? We here are in the same or, rather, worse peril than you can be."
   
My sentiments exactly.  Thank you for honoring me, and thank you even more for giving us crusaders!  May your tribe increase.

-----
1 "The Crusades, Even Now," New York Times Magazine online.
2 The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (New York: Penguin, 2008).
3 Lecture 9, The Present Position of Catholics in England (1851).
4 See Matthew 13.
-------------------------------

------
Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D. is the Executive Director of the Catholic Education Foundation. The mission of  The Catholic Education Foundation is to serve as a forum through which teachers, administrators and all others interested in Catholic education can share ideas and practices, as well as to highlight successful programs and initiatives to bring about a recovery of Catholic education in our times.The Catholic Education Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)3 national non-profit organization formed to ensure a brighter future for Catholic education in the United States.

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'

Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online