The Supreme Court, Samuel Alito and "Public School Catholics."

In this Monday post, Susan at Musings of a Discerning Woman wondered what the prospect of a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court says about American Catholic assimilation in general and the role of parochial schools in particular. Over the past week or so, I've thought a lot about these issues in light of President Bush's nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to replace retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Reading newspaper profiles of the nominee, one fact inevitably caught my attention: a lifelong Catholic, Alito has never attended a Catholic school. Educated in public schools in New Jersey from kindergarten through the twelve grade, Alito went on to Princeton and Yale Law School. Among current Catholic justices, three - John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - were at least partly educated in Catholic institutions while one - Anthony Kennedy - mirrors Alito in having attended public elementary and secondary schools and two prestigious nonsectarian universities (Stanford and Harvard, to be precise). In terms of educational background, the only common bond shared by all the current Catholic justices and the man who may soon join them is that they all attended Ivy League law schools.

Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy are representatives of a group I like to call "Public School Catholics." As the moniker itself implies, Public School Catholics are lifelong Catholics who completed their primary and secondary education entirely in the public school system. I'm a member of this group myself, and as it happens so are a majority of American Catholics. Before I say more about this, some historical background may be in order.

The divide between Catholics who attended parochial schools and those who did not goes back many decades. Long a source of justifiable pride among American Catholics, this country's vast Catholic school system has played roles that are cultural and social as well as educational. For more than a century, attending a parochial school has been an important part of Catholic identity formation for many. The parochial school system was long seen by many as a critically important means of transmitting the Catholic faith and culture to the next generation, but throughout its history the system has served a minority of American Catholic schoolchildren. In other words, it has always been the case that a majority of American Catholics were educated in non-Catholic - and mainly public - schools. Unfortunately, Public School Catholics have taken more than a few knocks over the years - from bishops and pastors who viewed the public schools with suspicion and admonished the faithful to avoid them, and from contemporaries who had gone through the parochial schools and in some cases came away with a disdain for the "publics." As Catholics have moved more and more into the mainstream of American life and lost the sense of separation that in some sense contributed to a kind of parochial school elitism, much of the stigma that formerly attached to being a Public School Catholic has disappeared.

My own sense as a Public School Catholic is that the old parochial vs. public school divide still persists in some quarters of the American Catholic community, albeit in muted ways. Every now and then, I still run into Catholics who view their public school-educated coreligionists as somehow less than up to snuff. Then again, I've also run into graduates of secular private schools who regarded both parochial and public schools with equal disdain. In my own experience attending public schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade, I also encountered people who unfairly viewed Catholic parochial schools as backward and inferior institutions. It's important that I mention this to place my earlier comments in a broader context; I'm basically trying to say that no one is perfect.

Regardless of how I might feel about Alito's record as a judge or his potential impact on the Supreme Court, I enjoy seeing an accomplished Public School Catholic in the spotlight. After all, we don't often get our due. AMDG.